You'll Get More Granola Clusters If You Skip This Step

Good granola is a great snack for those who are trying to stay healthy. It also makes a wonderful breakfast that can be paired with fruits, yogurt, or milk, but the Mayo Clinic warns against store-bought granola if healthy eating is your goal. Most homemade granola is more nutritious, higher in fiber, and often has fewer calories. If you haven't tried your hand at making homemade granola, what are you waiting for? It's not as hard as you may think and the ingredients are fairly simple to find.

Speaking of granola ingredients, one of the best parts of making homemade granola is that you can customize the ingredients to make the perfect batch. You can even find a tried-and-true granola recipe you like and tweak it to make it healthier or to suit your needs. One thing these recipes may not tell you, though, is how to get more crunchy clusters in your granola. So, just how do you ensure that your granola snack has all the clusters you could possibly want?

The answer to that may surprise you — it isn't something that you need to do, but rather something that you shouldn't do. To get plenty of those delicious clusters in your homemade granola, you should stop stirring the mixture about halfway through the baking process. This may seem counter-productive to creating the best granola, but according to Bon Appétit, you only need to allow the granola to bake some in order to set. In the beginning, stir the granola a few times so that it becomes evenly toasted, but about halfway through the baking time, simply leave it alone.

The reason for this is that, during baking, the sugars used in your mixture will caramelize and cause the ingredients to stick together. This forms clusters, and stirring the granola too much will break them, so it's best to just leave it alone. Of course, this isn't the only way to get those clusters you want.

Bob's Red Mill says that granola recipes with more sweeteners, like honey or syrup, stick together better than ones with more dry ingredients. If you press the mixture into your baking sheet before placing it into the oven, it will help it stick together for more clusters as it bakes. But what about burning the granola? That is a risk if you don't set it up properly and take care to bake it correctly. You have to take your time with granola and cook it at a low temperature, no more than 350 degrees. Be sure to keep an eye on it and stir it often in the first half of the baking process so that it toasts evenly.

Another way to ensure that your mixture doesn't burn is to add ingredients the right way. For example, granola, nuts, and seeds can be mixed together from the on-set, but dried fruits or chocolate should be added after the mixture has come out of the oven so that they don't lead to burned granola.