Paleo Dark Chocolate Granola

I love granola. It’s crunchy and tastes delicious as cereal, on yogurt, or as a snack. When I buy it, I look for batches with low sugar and lots of nuts, since that combo makes me feel full for longer. I ran out of my favorite paleo, grain free granola, and since I’m avoiding trips to the grocery store (self-isolation, you know), I decided to make my own. This recipe for Paleo Dark Chocolate Granola is incredibly flexible, because you can use whatever you have in your pantry to make it. Use any type of nuts, seeds, or sweetener that you have on hand. The combo of nuts and seeds will impact the flavor, but that’s part of what makes homemade granola so versatile.

For this batch of Paleo Dark Chocolate Granola, I used a mix of nuts including almonds, pistachios, walnuts, pecans, and cashews. I also added flax, sesame, and pumpkin seeds. For my chocolate, I chopped a bar of 89% dark chocolate. The base granola isn’t very sweet, so you can use milk chocolate or semisweet chocolate to obtain a bit more sweetness in the batch. While the nuts, seeds, and honey get mixed and baked together, the chocolate is added last. If you want the nuts and seeds to be covered in chocolate, sprinkle the chopped chocolate on top of the mixture when it comes out of the oven; the heat will melt the chocolate. For chocolate chunks, wait until the granola cools to mix in the chocolate pieces. For non-chocolate granola, you can check out my recipe for Paleo Grain Free Nut and Date Granola.