One cereal I really miss is granola, and when Quinola offered to send me some of their various quinoa products, I was inspired to come up with this tasty breakfast creation. Often granola is made with oats, but as a coeliac I find I don’t get on that well even with gluten free oats, so was keen to give this a go.

Quinoa is actually a seed, not a grain, and it contains all nine essential amino acids, making it a great source of vegetarian protein. Quinola was launched in January this year and the new products I was sent are 100% organic, gluten free and natural.  I used the quinoa flakes for this recipe.

I was originally going to use chopped dates but I came across some dried apricots in Sainsbury’s and thought their vibrant colour would be a great alternative – plus they had half the sugar content of dates and I wanted to keep this recipe as low sugar as possible. Apricots are a great source of fibre – important for a healthy gut – and a good source of vitamins A & C as well as iron.

This recipe is super simple to make, and just as quick to eat! Once you’ve made your granola you can just store it in an air tight container and it would probably last a good few weeks. It is filled with good fats (from the nuts and seeds) and fibre and the sugars from the honey and apricots will give you a nice pick-me-up.

This recipe is gluten free, wheat free and dairy free, and if you can’t have dairy you could try serving it with almond, coconut or hazelnut milk.

Quinoa, pecan and apricot granola

100g Quinola organic quinoa flakes

50g sunflower seeds

50g flaked almonds

50g pecans

110g dried apricots

1 tablespoon virgin coconut oil

2 tablespoons of honey

1. Preheat the oven to 150’C and line two baking trays with greaseproof paper.
2. Roughly chop the apricots into pieces around of around 1cm.
3. Add the pecans to a pestle and mortan and crush them – I kept mine fairly chunky so there was still a good crunch to the granola.
4. Add the pecans, apricots, quinoa flakes, sunflower seeds and flaked almonds to a large mixing bowl.
5. Melt the coconut oil gently in a pan (you don’t want it hot, just liquid). Add this and the honey to the dry mix and stir well. You may need to get in there with your hands and ‘crumble’ the mix together.
6. Pour the mix evenly over the two baking trays – you don’t want this to be too thick.
7. Bake for 10 minutes, remove from the oven and  turn the mixture and return for a further five minutes.
8. Remove from the oven, cool and then keep in an airtight container.

If you would like to find out more about Quinola’s gluten free quinoa products, click here to view their website, which includes a list of stockists.

A huge thank you to my lovely friend Lauren Welland (@LaurenWelland on Twitter!) for her styling and photography – go check out her Twitter for more of her amazing work.