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Created on August 21, 2026
Allergens: Cereals containing gluten, Tree nuts.From the ingredient list, against Annex II of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011. Always check the labels of the products you use.
Shop-bought granola has a fault you stop noticing: it is soft. Too much syrup, not enough heat, and the crunch lasts three days. This one still crunches after three weeks, and it crunches because of the tiger nut.
The principle is simple. Soaked and roughly cracked, tiger nut brings hard shards that do not soften, where oats alone collapse. Fonio plays an unexpected part — toasted dry, it forms tiny crisp beads that fill the gaps. Two textures, two lifespans, one granola.
Why these two together
Tiger nut is a dried tuber, not a nut. Its hardness, which makes horchata such laborious work, becomes an asset here: cracked into shards the size of a grain of rice, it goes through the bake without softening. It is the only ingredient in this granola whose texture is identical on day one and day twenty.
Fonio does the opposite. It is the smallest cultivated grain in West Africa, and thrown dry into a hot pan it pops and colours in under a minute. It is not cooked here, it is toasted — a different operation, and one that is finished before the granola ever goes near the oven.
Both come from the same region, the Sahel, and both are sold dried, which explains their remarkable keeping. Store them dry with the bag closed: two years for tiger nut, one for fonio.
A word on soaking the tiger nut. Unlike horchata, you are not soaking to extract but to be able to crack. Two hours is enough: long enough for the tuber to give under the blade, not so long that it turns spongy.
The ingredients
For about 600 g of granola, 12 portions of 50 g:
- 100 g organic tiger nuts
- 60 g organic fonio
- 250 g rolled oats
- 60 g organic cashew nuts, pieces for preference
- 90 g honey
- 50 g extra virgin olive oil
- 2 g ground cinnamon
- 2 g salt
The recipe, step by step
- Soak the tiger nuts for two hours in cold water. Drain, rinse, dry in a cloth.
- Crack them with a knife or three pulses of a food processor, into shards the size of a grain of rice. Do not reduce them to powder — the size is what makes the crunch.
- Toast the fonio dry. Hot pan, no fat, one minute, stirring without pause. It should turn blond and smell of hazelnut. Tip it out at once: ten seconds too long and it burns.
- Mix the dry ingredients. Oats, cracked tiger nut, toasted fonio, cashews, cinnamon, salt.
- Add the liquid. Honey and olive oil, mixed together first, then poured over. Stir at length, by hand: every flake must be coated.
- Spread and bake. On a lined tray, in an even layer, at 150 °C for 35 minutes. Stir every ten minutes, bringing the edges into the middle.
- Cool without touching it. Granola leaves the oven still soft: it hardens as it cools. One hour on the tray, then into a jar.
The little extra
150 °C, not 180. That is the only thing that really matters. In a hotter oven the honey caramelises before the moisture has gone, and you get a granola that is brown and soft — toasted outside, damp inside. Low heat and patience: the crunch comes from drying, not from colour.
If you want clusters rather than loose grains, press the granola down with a spatula for the last ten minutes and stop stirring.
What to swap
- The honey → maple or agave syrup, same weight. Caster sugar will not do: you need a liquid to coat.
- The olive oil → melted coconut oil, more neutral. Avoid butter, which goes rancid and shortens the keeping.
- The fonio → puffed quinoa, at a pinch. It is not the same thing: toasted fonio keeps a centre, puffed quinoa is hollow.
- The tiger nut → nothing replaces it here. It is the whole point of the recipe; without it you are making an ordinary granola.
Keeping and making ahead
At room temperature: 3 weeks in an airtight jar, away from light. That is a long time for a homemade granola, and the tiger nut is what to thank for it.
In the freezer: 3 months. Serve straight from frozen, no thawing needed.
What can be done ahead: soaked and cracked tiger nut keeps two days in the fridge, toasted fonio a week in a jar. You can spread the recipe over two evenings.
Equipment
A large baking tray — the largest you have, because a crowded granola steams instead of drying. Baking paper. And a heavy knife or a processor for the cracking, but nothing specialised.
Nutrition
Nutrition declaration
| Per 100 g | Per serving (47 g) | Total for 12 servings | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Energy | 480 kcal | 226 kcal | 2,710 kcal |
| Fat | 22 g | 10 g | 123 g |
| of which saturates | 3.9 g | 1.8 g | 22 g |
| Carbohydrate | 58 g | 28 g | 330 g |
| of which sugars * | 13 g | 6.3 g | 76 g |
| of which polyols * | 0.0 g | 0.0 g | 0.0 g |
| Fibre | 7.8 g | 3.7 g | 44 g |
| Protein | 8.1 g | 3.8 g | 46 g |
| Salt | 0.39 g | 0.18 g | 2.21 g |
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
If you change the number of servings above, only the last column moves — and that is right: doubling the recipe doubles the cake, not the slice. The first two columns describe the cake itself; they do not depend on how many people are eating.
Values calculated from the ingredients, for 12 servings, allowing for about 8 % evaporation during cooking. They are no substitute for a laboratory analysis and vary with the brands used.
* The reference data do not give every value for Souchet comestible (« noix tigrée »), tubercule, séché, Fonio, grains décortiqués (sans son), sec, cru, Noix de cajou, crue, Miel. Rows marked with an asterisk are therefore minimums: the true figure is equal to or higher than the one shown. A low value declared as such beats a false zero.
Composition sources: FAO/INFOODS, Afrique de l’Ouest (2019) (FAO, CC BY-NC-SA) et Ciqual 2025, ANSES (Licence Ouverte / Open Licence (Etalab)).
This composition qualifies as: High fibre.
Wordings authorised by Regulation (EU) No 432/2012; thresholds from Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006.
What these figures say. This is a granola, so a dense food: fifty grams is plenty for a bowl, with yoghurt or plant milk. The useful comparison is not with puffed breakfast cereals, far lighter by volume, but with a fruit-and-nut muesli — which it resembles, except that it carries less added sugar than most of what is on the shelf.
Frequently asked questions
My granola is not crunchy, why?
Three causes, in order of frequency: oven too hot, layer too thick, or granola jarred while still warm. The last is the most common — the remaining moisture settles back and softens everything overnight.
Can I skip soaking the tiger nut?
No. A dry tiger nut is too hard to crack cleanly: it shatters into powder and large lumps with nothing in between. Two hours is enough.
Should the fonio be cooked first?
No, definitely not. It is toasted dry, not cooked. Cooked fonio then baked would give sticky lumps.
Can I double the quantities?
Yes, but across two trays, not one loaded one. Granola dries by evaporation: crowded, the steam stays and it never crisps.
The products in this recipe
What to try next
- Homemade tiger nut horchata — and its pulp, which goes straight into this granola.
- Organic fonio: 5 recipes for 5 uses — the other way to use the same bag.
- Organic cashew nuts — the pieces are cheaper and work perfectly here.
