Having a delicious and easy homemade granola cups recipe is so helpful for those busy mornings when you need a breakfast on the go. These granola cups are baked up in a mini muffin tin and couldn't be any easier to make. It is loaded with flavor and makes a great base for adding yogurt or fresh berries.
About these mini granola cups
I like to make granola cups in muffin tins because it is so simple and delicious. The instructions for making granola cups are below and I will show you how to use a mini muffin tin to do this.
You can also make granola bars instead of granola cups by baking them in a pan and after cooling, cutting them into bars. I feel the mini granola cups make it easier to transport when I am in a rush or need to carry a quick snack.
Remember, this is a base granola recipe with just oats, coconut, sweeteners and nuts but dried fruits or chocolate can be added as well.
Ingredients you will need for these granola cups
- Quick cooking oats. Make sure to look for the label quick cooking because the granola really does come out better with this style of oat. If you only have old fashioned oats that will work too.
- Almonds.
- Unsweetened shredded coconut. Try to find unsweetened because regular sweetened coconut contains a lot of sugar and it will make the bars taste too sweet.
- Unsalted butter.
- Light brown sugar.
- Vanilla extract.
- Honey.
- Kosher salt.
- Add-ins of your choice (optional)
As much as I would love to make an all honey granola recipe, the mixture of light brown sugar with the honey makes this granola cup recipe amazing. Do try to use both of these sweeteners.
This granola cup recipe tries to stay on the healthy side by using unsweetened coconut, and some honey in place of sugar. If you follow these ratios in the recipe, you will find that a healthy granola bar (with a touch of indulgence from the brown sugar) can actually be quite tasty.
Topping ideas
You can add so many delicious toppings to these granola cups but here is a list of some of my favorites. Feel free to use any of these ideas or use your own favorite ingredients.
- Yogurt. A small dollop of yogurt is a great way to add more protein to these granola cups.
- Fresh berries.
- Dried cranberries. This is one of my absolute favorite additions to granola and I love the reduced sugar dried cranberries for this. There is less sugar in those and the tart cranberry notes are more pronounced.
- More nuts! I will often raid my refrigerator for random leftover nuts that need to be used up. Walnuts and pecans are some of my favorites after almonds.
- Chocolate. Now I am not a huge fan of chocolate but I do know that makes me weird and I also know people really love it. A combo of dark chocolate with a dried fruit would be amazing with this granola recipe. You can also just add chocolate on its own and I am told it's wonderful 🙂
- Any dried fruits. If you love dried apricots or dried peaches add those in. Maybe dried apples is your favorite. Just make sure you dice up your dried fruit so they are manageable bite sized pieces inside the granola.
More like this
If you love these granola cups, you may also like these easy breakfast recipes:
More easy base recipes that you may like:
Homemade Mini Granola Cups
Tried the Recipe? We Would Love To Hear From You In The Comments Below!
Ingredients
- 1 cup of quick cooking oats
- ½ cup of almonds
- 1 cup of unsweetened shredded coconut
- 1 ½ tablespoon of unsalted butter
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon of salt
- ⅛ cup of packed brown sugar
- ⅓ cup of honey
- ½ cup Dried fruit or chocolate (diced) optional
Instructions
- Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.
- Grease a mini muffin tin and set aside.
- On a large sheet pan add your coconut, oats and almonds and cook them (turning occasionally) for about 8-10 minutes until they are nice and toasted and starting to brown.
- Remove from oven and set aside.
- Lower your oven temperature to 300 degrees.
- In a medium pan over medium low heat add your honey, vanilla, brown sugar, salt and butter. Bring to a light simmer and mix well. As the mixture heats up all of the ingredients will begin to melt together and become one cohesive liquid. Once this happens, remove from the heat.
- In a large bowl add your oats mixture (add dried fruit or chocolate if you are using) and then add your sugar mixture to that and mix well.
- Now scoop out 1 tablespoon of your mixture into each of your mini muffin tin cups. Keep doing this until all of your mixture is used up.
- With the back of your spoon, press your mixture down into the muffin tin cups so that it is nicely packed in there and make sure to press it in and up the sides of the muffin tin so there is a little well for toppings later.
- Place in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes until the granola cups start to turn a golden brown color.
- Remove from the oven and let cool for 15 minutes.
- Now with a knife, pop them out of the muffin tin and let rest another 10 minutes.
- Enjoy as is or with your favorite toppings.
Nutrition
Nutrition Values are estimates only.
See full nutrition disclaimer here
Jen says
These were yummy. We used this recipe as a base recipe and added some dried fruit and nuts. It was really good.
Jill says
These look so good and we want to give them a try. However, we don't like coconut--any suggestions on a substitute? Or could we just omit the coconut? Thanks!
Melissa says
Hi Jill.
You can definitely leave out the coconut and try adding another item, maybe dried fruit or even wheat germ works well! I made this with what I had in the house but I have made these with dried cranberries and they were great 🙂 You can also just completely omit the coconut if you want just the oats and nuts in your cups. Just keep the proportions the same.