Toast your own tasty AF muesli

While everyone is losing their noodle about smashed avocado, I’d like to volunteer a confession that I waste brunch money on something even sillier: toasted muesli. That is… until now, because I realised you literally just put it in the oven and it’s that simple. Toasting your own muesli also gives you the freedom to add more of the good stuff (i.e. coconut chips) and leave out the blah stuff (i.e. nobody actually likes sultanas), which, furthermore, allows you to make delicious breakfast depending on your income.

My toasted muesli has macadamias in it because I was feeling like a BALLER. Next week, when I don’t have much work, maybe I’ll just add a ton more sunflower seeds and pepitas because they’re about a millionth of the price. Who knows!? Not me!! Shredded coconut is your friend though, because it is both cheap and mega tasty.

The world of muesli awaits you, dear friends, follow me through the crunchy doors to affordable heaven.

You will need:

• An oven
• One or two shallow oven trays
• Baking paper
• Rolled oats (as cheap as they come – it don’t matter!)
• The tasty stuff, for example: nuts and seeds, coconut, dates or sultanas or dried apricot

Put your fan-forced oven to 180 degrees and put the baking paper on the trays. Now is a good time to make sure the racks in your over are evenly spaced too.

Put the oats in for 10 minutes while you get the rest of your goods ready. Nuts and seeds have oils in them and will CRISP AND BROWN right up way faster than the oats, that’s why we leave them till later. You’ll need a timer for this whole thing too. Every five-to-seven minutes stir things around, you want them nice and evenly brown. This sounds annoying but there are like, two more steps for the recipe, so just bear with me.

Chop up your nuts. Almonds are a good medium between KING and PAUPER, and you don’t need too many. Also don’t let the supermarket dupe you into buying slivered almonds – it’s way cheaper to buy them whole and just roughly chop them yourself. Sprinkle the nuts over the half-way-toasted oat trays. Sprinkle the coconut. Sprinkle the seeds. Secret hot tip: dates get crunchy and caramel-ey when they go in the oven and it’s goooooood. But they are sticky so you need to make sure you spread them out properly across the tray and that they don’t clump together or else you’ll break your retainer.

Put it all in the oven again. Stir it up each five minutes until you’re happy with the level of golden-brown. For mine it only took another 10 minutes in total. If you’re a real sweet tooth you can add sugar or honey, but leave it until the end so the sugars don’t burn. Personally I don’t think it needs it, especially if you’re adding dates anyways. Dates are your friend.

Best enjoyed with: If you’re in a RICH week: Mangoes (‘tis the season) and coconut yoghurt (‘tis the fad). Soy milk and fresh bananas if it’s slow week. Still delicious.