I hadn’t realized how long it had been since I made granola or granolay bites until I started browsing the granola isle at the grocery store. Who needs all that sugar when you can make sugar free granola at home. With minimal ingredients even! This recipe has all of five! ingredients with homemade pumpkin seed “butter”. Enjoy this vegan, gluten-free, and sugar-free Mint Chocolate Pepita Butter Granola!

Granola is one of those things that is sinfully good, but can be totally bad for you if over eaten. It’s not so bad for you if you don’t add a ton of expensive calorie-laden options to it (i.e. peanut butter, chocolate chunks, dried fruit). This one does have homemade pumpkin seed, or pepita, butter – so there are calories – but since it’s homemade and I used sugar-free mint chocolate sweetener, it’s a sugar-free granola – so technically not too bad for you. And since I love snacking on granola bars, I made this granola into chunks. Which just means you flatten it out and make sure it all sticks together and bake for 20 minutes then take it out of the oven and break it up with a spoon into large chunks then bake another 10 minutes. Let cool and you have granola chunks!

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Start by processing your plain unsalted pumpkin seeds into a butter. I didn’t let mine go until smooth, I let it still have some texture to it. I started the processor and let it whirl until everything was broken up then added 3 tablespoons of water in intervals to get it into a butter. I dumped that into a small bowl and added the vanilla extract and mint chocolate sauce and mixed. Yum. In a larger bowl I dumped the oats and flax and mixed – if I had thought it out I would have dumped the minty butter into the large bowl and then dumped everything into just one bowl. Anyway – heat the minty mix for 30 seconds in the microwave then dump into the oats bowl and mix. Lay parchment paper on a small baking sheet then dump oat mixture onto sheet. Spread out and press down with the spoon. Bake at 300 degrees for 20 minutes then take out and break up with the spoon into large chunks. Bake 10 more minutes then take out and let cool. Enjoy!

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Mint Chocolate Pepita Butter Granola,

1 2/3 C Oats
1/3 C Bobs Red Mill Flax Meal
1 C SuperSeedz Raw Pepitas
2-3 Tbsp Water
1/3 C NuNaturals Mint Chocolate Sauce
2 Tsp Vanilla Extract

1. Set oven to 300 degrees and line a small baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Dump pumpkin seeds into a small food processor and process until a round ball forms. Add water in one tablespoon increments to help process butter. Dump into a small mixing bowl.
3. Pour in mint chocolate sauce and extract into bowl with butter and mix.
4. Dump oats and flax into a medium size mixing bowl and mix.
5. Heat mint mixture in microwave 30 seconds then stir and add to oats bowl.
6. Mix until completely combined.
7. Dump onto parch covered baking sheet and press down and spread over sheet with spoon.
8. Bake 20 minutes then break up with spoon.
9. Bake 10 more minutes then take out and let cool.
10. Enjoy!