It’s Saturday, there’s no snow in the 10 day forecast and the high is supposed to be over 50° today — woot woot! March 7th also happens to be National Cereal Day!
Isaac and I are both cereal lovers so celebrating this holiday is a must at Casa de EBF. Isaac will most likely be enjoying a big bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch (which also happens to be my childhood favorite), but I decided it would be fun to make a homemade cereal to celebrate.
This health boosting cereal blend includes a bunch of my favorite foods — oats, quinoa, buckwheat, sunflower seeds, coconut and Medjool dates.
With healthy fat from the coconut oil and natural sweetness from maple syrup and dates, this cereal is wholesome, filling and perfectly sweet. The quinoa, buckwheat and sunflower seeds give it quite the crunch. Who knew you can toast cooked quinoa and make it crunchy. Yes siree — works like a charm!
I love the cinnamon vanilla flavoring I used for this batch, but I think a chocolate version with a little cocoa powder and chocolate chips would be an indulgent (and insanely delicious) treat.
Serve it up with milk, just as you would regular cereal or pour milk over it and let it sit for a while — even overnight — like overnight oats.
It’s similar to granola nutritionally so it also works great as topping for yogurt or smoothies and I bet it would make a crunchy delicious topping for salads as well.
I couldn’t resist having a big bowl with banana slices and almond milk this morning — HAD to celebrate! 😉 Crunch crunch crunch.
Quinoa Buckwheat Date Cereal
Ingredients
- 1 cup gluten-free rolled oats
- 1/2 cup raw buckwheat groats
- 1 1/2 cup cooked quinoa
- 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
- 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
- 5 pitted Medjool dates, chopped into tiny bits (I used Natural Delights)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325°.
- In a large bowl combine oats, buckwheat, quinoa, sunflower seeds and coconut.
- In a small bowl combine maple syrup, coconut oil, vanilla, cinnamon and salt.
- Pour maple syrup/oil mixture over the grain mixture and stir well, making sure all pieces are covered. Spread cereal mixture onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or silpat.
- Bake for 40-45 minutes. Color should be golden brown.
- While cereal is baking, chop the dates.
- Remove from oven and stir in chopped dates.
- Let cereal cool before placing into a covered container for storage.
Recipe Notes
Are you a cereal lover? What’s you favorite cereal? What cereal did you love as a kid? I LOVED cereal growing up and had four favorites: Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cookie Crisp, Smacks and Cinnamon Life. Nowadays I don’t buy cereal all that often, but two of my favorites are Chex and Puffins.
This sounds awesome, Brittany! I pinned it for later 🙂
When i was younger all I ate for breakfast was cereal, and although I do venture further than a bowl of cereal, I do like the odd one, and this look fab. I love that you toasted cooked quinoa – I’m going to have to give that one a go. I think my favourite cereal when I was a kid was Weetabix.
This looks amazing and would make such a perfect homemade gift!
looks super delicious 🙂
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I pretty much only had cereal for breakfast growing up. My favorites were Lucky Charms or Fruity Pebbles. Those were both expensive treats we didn’t have very often. I really never eat cereal anymore. This sounds like a yummy healthy twist!
Brittany this looks awesome! I love cereal, especially the sugary kind…which I still buy but for snacking.
I rarely eat cereal now but I LOVE it! Some of my now favorites are cheerios (regular kind), Kashi go lean crunch (love to eat this dry), and any granola based cereals. My kid favorites were Kix and Lucky Charms. 😉
This looks so good!!!! 🙂
Looks amazing! can’t wait to try it :]
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For some reason I never thought to make my own cereal before.. this is such a delicious idea & a recipe I need to try!
Looks really good 🙂
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How long would this last for?
It should last a couple weeks in an air-tight container.
Thanks for this! It’s very similar to a regular granola recipe I used to make but I’ve never tried all these seeds before! I used pepitas instead of sunflower seeds and olive oil instead of coconut. It’s a very flexible recipe and very tasty.
This is such a fantastic granola! It’s similar to my regular granola recipe but with a variety of seeds.
You can swap in/out whatever you prefer. I used steel cut oats, added 1/4 cup flax seeds and used pepitas instead of sunflower seeds. I used the dates but also added 3 chopped dried apricots. So awesome to take a 1/2 cup of this with some yogurt to eat my breakfast at work. It is quite a few calories but it’s perfect because I was trying to shift more calories to breakfast/lunch. Cheers.
Sorry, I didn’t realise I’d already left a comment last week! You can delete one 🙂