Hello! I’d say happy Wednesday, but it’s…just Wednesday. The Wednesday after a holiday weekend in the middle of a pandemic. Happy is a stretch.
But you know what is happy—er, what is making me happy? This Easy Stovetop Peanut Butter Granola. It’s super crisp, crunchy and peanut buttery, and took fifteen whole minutes to make. That’s the magic of stovetop granola. When you skip the oven, it takes 1/3 of the time! Oh, and it only makes a quart. Add this to the list of small batch recipes we all need this year!
This isn’t my first go-round with peanut butter granola or stovetop granola. Nope! This is a combination of two of my favorite granolas for maximum efficiency. Maximum efficiency is important when we’re discussing how to get Easy Stovetop Peanut Butter Granola into our faces. We’re trying to do it efficiently. To that end, there are five steps in the stovetop granola-making process and they’re all super easy.
Combine the wet ingredients. Whisk your oil, brown sugar, maple syrup, natural peanut butter, vanilla, cinnamon and salt together in a measuring cup. This provides the majority of the flavor in your granola and help it get good and crispy.
Toast the dry ingredients. Combine your oats and chopped peanuts in a heavy pan over medium heat. Stir them around for about 10 minutes, until fragrant and a little darker in color. Don’t burn ‘em.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry. Pour your peanut butter/maple/brown sugar/oil mixture into the oats and peanuts.
Toast everything together. This is the part where you stir everything for another five minutes, until the sticky stuff is all absorbed and everything has darkened and smells very peanut buttery.
Cool. Scatter your granola on a rimmed baking sheet on a rack and let it come to room temperature. This is the part where your granola gets real good and crispy while you decide how you want to serve it. I highly recommend yogurt, raspberries and an artful drizzle of peanut butter.
You may notice that Easy Stovetop Peanut Butter Granola isn’t particularly cluster-prone. This doesn’t bother me in the slightest, but if you are a cluster person, you can reduce the oats and peanuts down to three cups total volume and keep everything else the same. Alternatively, swap the maple syrup for a thicker sweetener like honey or brown rice syrup, and maybe bump it up to 5-6 tablespoons. Either of those should work some clustering magic.
But, real talk? This salty-sweet stuff is already pretty magical. I mean, maybe this year has lowered my expectations, but peanut butter granola you can make in fifteen minutes? Magic.
Easy Stovetop Peanut Butter Granola
makes about a quart
1/4 cup olive oil (or coconut oil or canola oil)
1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup well-stirred natural peanut butter (creamy-style works too)
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon Kosher or sea salt
2 cups old-fashioned oats
1 1/2 cups honey-roasted or salted peanuts, roughly chopped
Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment. Set aside.
Combine oil, brown sugar, peanut butter, maple syrup, vanilla, cinnamon and salt in a liquid measuring cup. Whisk together with a fork. Set aside.
Heat a large, heavy-bottomed skillet over medium heat. Add oats and chopped peanuts. Cook, stirring constantly, until very fragrant and toasted (about 10 minutes). Do not burn.
Add liquid ingredients and stir to coat the oats and peanuts. Continue cooking, stirring constantly for 4-5 additional minutes, until sweeteners are incorporated and granola no longer looks wet.
Remove granola from heat. Transfer mixture to parchment-lined pan and allow to cool completely.
Store granola in an airtight container at room temperature for up to three weeks.
If you’ve been around here awhile, you know I’m a bit of a granola junkie. I eat the stuff almost everyday. I have five 
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I started making granola on the stovetop this past October and I totally love it. Not only does it take just a quarter of the usual cook time, but it makes a smaller batch! This means that I don’t have to worry about it turning stale in a few weeks or just growing tired of the flavor combination—it’s gone long before that happens.
Today’s granola recipe was made as most of mine are: as a way to use up odds and ends from my mix-in cabinets. There are oats of course, but the rest is just based on ratios.
For two cups of oats, I add in one cup of chopped nuts and seeds (pecans, pepitas and sunflower seeds, in this case). Those get toasted in a dry skillet until they are fragrant and the seeds are starting to pop.
Next come three tablespoons of oil (I used coconut) and six tablespoons of sweetener. I went for maple syrup and dark brown sugar for this batch, but if you don’t like the idea of straight-up sugar in your breakfast, you may sub coconut sugar or use all maple. Don’t forget to add some salt for balance.
Cook the granola a few minutes more before removing it from the heat and adding in some dried fruit. I went with dates—I impulse-bought a huge bag of them on a recent trip to Costco and now I’m throwing them in everything. If dried fruit isn’t for you, leave the granola as-is.
Spread the granola out on a parchment-lined baking sheet and let it cool. If you’re the type of person who adds chocolate chips to granola, this is the time.
Pile your finished granola into a jar. Who knew oats, nuts, and seeds could look so pretty?!
This Stovetop Granola doesn’t cluster much, but that can be remedied by using a thicker sweetener like honey or brown rice syrup. Real cluster enthusiasts might want to add an extra tablespoon or two, just in case.
e2 bakes brooklyn 