Banana Bread Granola {Nut and Sugar Free!}

This Banana Bread Granola is the perfect thing to make when you need to use up over ripe bananas. It’s also nut and sugar free, but still delicious!

Hi guys, hope you all had a great weekend! Ours was busy, but I’m glad to be home this week with everything going on out there. It’s pretty mad right now.

Today, I have a super easy, but delicious recipe for Banana Bread Granola. All the flavours of banana bread, in a clusters of sweet, cinnamony, crunchy oats.

I adore homemade granola and this banana bread granola is no different. I love trying all sorts of flavours and experimenting with different ways to make it: sugar free, oil free etc. This particular granola is sugar, oil and nut free. Of course, a lot of people make their banana bread with pecans or walnuts, so I’ve put in the recipe to add these if you’d like, but I’m allergic, so stuck to just the banana!

I saw on TV the other day someone making a oat crumble using just bananas and no oil/butter. That got me thinking about this banana bread granola. I’ve wanted to make banana bread granola for ages, but I usually make my granolas with oil.

However, on the TV they used the bananas in lieu of butter/oil and it still turned out looking like perfect granola. So, I started experimenting and this was my final result!

I found that it does indeed turn out great using bananas instead of oil, it’s not any drier. It also clumps together like any good granola should do. It doesn’t go as golden as oats coated in oil, but that isn’t something that bothers me as long as it tastes good.

I’ve already made granola without sugar, I used applesauce and maple syrup instead in my Apple and Raisin Granola. This time, since I was using banana, I didn’t want to use applesauce, but I still used maple syrup to just boost the sweetness of this granola.

Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t super, sickly sweet or anything, but I just like the depth of flavour maple syrup gives and it does really work well with the bananas.

You only need 5 ingredients to make this granola (6 if you’re adding nuts) an it’s really easy to mix together. Just mash the bananas, add the maple syrup, vanilla extract and cinnamon, stir. Add the oats, stir, tip onto a tray and bake. It couldn’t be simpler, yet the result is crunchy, golden, sweet, banana filled granola which is perfect for breakfast or snacking.

I can’t help but just grab handfuls of this granola. It’s SO good! The flavours are perfectly balanced and work so well together. I also love that this granola isn’t full of unecessary ingredients. I hope you get to try it and love it as much as I did!

5 from 4 votes

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Banana Bread Granola {Nut and Sugar Free!}

This Banana Bread Granola is the perfect thing to make when you need to use up over ripe bananas. It's also nut and sugar free, but still delicious!

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 35 minutes

Servings 8

Author Annie N

Ingredients

• 2 large or 3 medium sized ripe bananas
• 1/4 cup (60ml) maple syrup
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 3 cups (240g) rolled oats, not quick cook.
• If you want to add nuts:
• 1/2 cup (65g) pecans/walnuts

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 160C/325F and line a baking tray with grease proof paper.

2. Break the bananas into a large bowl and mash with a fork until smooth. Add in the maple syrup, vanilla extract and ground cinnamon and stir until well combined.

3. Add in the oats and stir until all the oats are covered in the wet mixture and the mixture forms large lumps.

4. Tip the mixture onto your prepared tray and use a wooden spoon to break up any large lumps, you want some lumps around 1/2 – 1 inch across, then some smaller ones. As long as you don't have one giant lump, you're good!

5. Place in the oven for 35-45 minutes, until lightly golden and firm to the touch. Every 15 minutes, use a spatula/wooden spoon and gently turn the granola.

6. Leave the granola to cool completely on the baking tray, then store in an airtight container for a week. Serve with yoghurt, milk or fruit. Or just snack on it like I do!