homemade okara granola

One thing I forgot to mention from my homemade soymilk post is that after making all that soymilk, I was left with a big bowl of fresh okara (or soy pulp). Unfortunately, my mom never told me what to do with the leftover okara after telling me how to make soymilk. So, like what most people do these days, I turned on my computer and Googled it. I didn't even know what the grainy grits were called, so you can image what I started my search with. If I recall it was somewhere along the lines of "left overs from homemade soymilk". Fortunately, there are a ton of soymilk makers out there who had the same problem as me and have generously posted a lots of input and recipes for okara.

Since, this was my first time using okara, I wanted to make something simple and foolproof. After some investigation, I decided that granola would be best. So, I turned to my favorite cookbook at the moment, Baked: New Frontiers in Baking by Mark Lewis and Renato Poliafito. In it, I found an effortless, back-to-basics granola recipe. Oh my! You can smell how amazing the granola is going halfway into the baking time.

Notes: I added an extra 25 minutes to the original baking time since I doubled the recipe due to the okara. Also, I couldn't find hazelnuts at the grocery store, so I omitted that. It still turned out great!

homemade okara granola
adapted from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking

ingredients

• 2 cups rolled oats
• 3 cups fresh okara
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp salt
• 6 tblspn vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup raw honey
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup almonds
• 2/3 cup of golden raisins
• 2/3 cup dried cherries

directions

1. preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. in a large bowl, toss the oats, okara with the cinnamon and salt.
3. in a medium bowl, stir together the oil, honey, brown sugar, and vanilla, whisk until completely combined.
4. pour the honey mixture over the oats mixture and use your hands to combine them. gather up some of the mixture in each hand and make a fist repeat until all the oats and okara are coated with the honey mixture.
5. pour the mixture onto the prepared baking sheet. spread it out evenly, but leave a few clumps here and there for texture.
6. bake for 10 minutes, then remove from the oven and use a metal spatula to lift and flip the granola. sprinkle the almonds over the granola and return the baking sheet to the oven.
7. bake for 10 minutes, then remove from the oven and use a metal spatula to lift and flip the granola and return the baking sheet to the oven. i repeated this every 10 minutes for another 40 minutes, remove from oven. {since the original recipe does not have okara, i had to add some more baking time.}
8. let cool completely. sprinkle the raisins and cherries over the granola and use your hands to transfer it to an airtight container. the granola will keep for 1 week.