Granola Bites
These chewy-crunchy, salty-sweet breakfast balls are great for eating on the go because they don’t crumble and leave a mess. They take minutes to blend and a few more to roll, but if you make them a friends-and-family cooking project, the process can go even faster. Feel free to experiment here. You can swap out the almonds for cashews, the cherries for other dried fruits, and the sunflower seeds for shelled pumpkin seeds. Just keep the dates and make sure they're Medjool, which are softer and more thin-skinned than other varieties. The dates are the glue that hold the other ingredients together.
- Total:
- Serves: 2 persons
Ingredients
- 1 ½packed cup/205 grams pitted, stemmed Medjool dates
- 1cup/140 grams roasted, salted almonds
- ¼cup/60 milliliters maple syrup
- 1teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- ½teaspoon kosher salt
- ½cup/75 grams dried cherries
- ½cup/45 grams old-fashioned oats
- ½cup/70 grams raw shelled sunflower seeds
- ⅓cup/35 grams unsweetened finely shredded coconut
Instructions
Step 1
Line a work surface or baking sheet with parchment or wax paper.Step 2
Pulse dates, almonds, maple syrup, vanilla and salt in a food processor until the mixture forms big sticky clumps. You want chunks of nuts left. Pulse in cherries, oats and sunflower seeds, scraping the bowl occasionally, until the mixture forms a shaggy mass around the blade.Step 3
Put the coconut in a shallow dish. Use a 1-ounce (1 1/2-tablespoon) cookie scoop or a heaping tablespoon to scoop the mixture into about 24 mounds and place on the parchment paper. Roll the scoops into balls.Step 4
Roll each ball in the coconut to coat completely, then transfer to an airtight container. Sprinkle any leftover coconut over the balls. Refrigerate until ready to eat.