By Paleo Life Coach Editorial Team · Last updated October 14, 2026 · Nutrition from USDA FoodData Central
Granola is the breakfast people miss once oats are off the table. The fix is a granola made from nuts, seeds and coconut, held together with a little syrup and egg white, and baked low until it clusters. This paleo granola recipe gives you a base batch, three variations for different needs (less sugar, no added sugar, nut-free), nutrition worked out from USDA data, and a label check of 11 store-bought grain-free granolas so you know which ones are worth buying when you don’t have time to bake.
The quick version: Paleo granola swaps oats for nuts, seeds and unsweetened coconut, lightly sweetened with maple syrup or honey and baked at 300°F for about 30 minutes. A 30 g serving of our base recipe has about 182 calories and 2.7 g added sugar; most store grain-free brands have 2-6 g.
What makes granola paleo?
Regular granola is built on rolled oats, which are a grain, so it isn’t paleo. Our is oatmeal paleo guide covers why. A paleo version keeps the idea (toasted, crunchy clusters) and swaps the base:
- Base: almonds, pecans, walnuts, cashews or macadamias, plus pumpkin and sunflower seeds and unsweetened coconut.
- Binder: egg white, a little syrup, or mashed banana. Many recipes skip a binder, but then you get toasted nuts rather than clusters.
- Sweetener: maple syrup, honey or coconut sugar in small amounts, or none. These are allowed on the paleo diet but still count as added sugar; our paleo sweeteners guide compares them.
- Fat: coconut oil or another paleo-friendly fat.
- What to leave out: oats, rice crisps, peanuts, cane sugar, rice syrup and sweetened dried fruit coated in seed oil.
Recipe: maple-pecan paleo granola (base batch)
Makes about 550 g, or 18 servings of 30 g. 30 g is the serving size most granola labels use, which makes comparisons easier.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup whole almonds (143 g), roughly chopped
- 1 cup pecan halves (99 g), roughly chopped
- 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds (64 g)
- 1/2 cup sunflower seeds (70 g)
- 60 g unsweetened coconut flakes
- 2 tbsp ground flaxseed (14 g)
- 1/4 cup maple syrup (83 g)
- 3 tbsp coconut oil (41 g), melted
- 1 large egg white (33 g)
- 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1/2 tsp salt
Method:
- Heat the oven to 300°F and line a large sheet pan with parchment.
- Mix the nuts, seeds, coconut, flax, cinnamon and salt in a large bowl.
- Whisk the maple syrup, coconut oil and vanilla, pour over the dry mix and stir until everything is coated.
- Whisk the egg white until frothy and stir it through. This is what makes clusters.
- Spread the mixture in an even layer and press it down with a spatula.
- Bake 25-30 minutes, rotating the pan halfway, until golden. Nuts and coconut burn fast at the end, so check from 20 minutes.
- Let it cool completely on the pan without stirring, then break into clusters.
Per 30 g serving: about 182 calories, 4.6 g protein, 16.1 g fat, 7.6 g carbs, 2.8 g fiber, 3.7 g total sugar (2.7 g added, from the maple syrup).
Three variations for different goals
The base batch already has less sugar than most store brands. These versions push it further, or remove the nuts.
Low-sugar version. Cut the maple syrup to 2 tablespoons (40 g). The clusters are a little smaller, but the egg white still holds them together.
No-added-sugar version. Replace the maple syrup with 1 medium ripe banana (118 g), mashed until smooth. Bake at 300°F for 35-40 minutes, since the banana adds moisture. It browns faster, so watch the edges.
Nut-free version. Replace the almonds and pecans with an extra 1/2 cup each of pumpkin and sunflower seeds (so 1 cup of each) and add 1 oz (28 g) of chia seeds. Keep the coconut, flax, syrup, oil and egg white. Check that your school or workplace treats coconut as acceptable if you’re making it for a nut-free setting.
| Version (per 30 g) | Calories | Protein (g) | Fiber (g) | Total sugar (g) | Added sugar (g) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base (1/4 cup maple) | 182 | 4.6 | 2.8 | 3.7 | 2.7 |
| Low-sugar (2 tbsp maple) | 186 | 4.8 | 2.9 | 2.4 | 1.4 |
| No added sugar (banana) | 185 | 4.9 | 3.1 | 1.8 | 0 |
| Nut-free (seeds and chia) | 174 | 5.3 | 2.7 | 3.8 | 3.2 |
Calculated from USDA FoodData Central SR Legacy: almonds 170567, pecans 170182, pumpkin seeds 170556, sunflower seeds 170562, unsweetened dried coconut 170170, flaxseed 169414, chia 170554, maple syrup 169661, coconut oil 171412, egg white 172183, banana 173944. Ingredient weights from USDA household measures. Per-30 g figures divide totals by the baked weight, assuming the water in the syrup, egg white and banana bakes off; spices not counted.
Cutting the syrup in half saves about 1.3 g of added sugar per serving, and the calories barely move, because almost all of granola’s calories come from the nuts and seeds. That’s the main thing to understand about paleo granola: it’s a fat-rich food, so the portion matters more than the sweetener.
How do store-bought grain-free granolas compare?
We pulled the ingredient lists and Nutrition Facts that manufacturers submitted to USDA’s FoodData Central for 11 grain-free or paleo-branded granolas, plus one conventional oat granola for reference, and put them on the same 30 g basis.
| Granola | Sweeteners listed | Verdict | Calories (30 g) | Protein (g) | Total sugar (g) | Added sugar (g) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wildway Banana Nut Soft & Chewy | Dates, bananas (fruit) | Paleo | 140 | 3.0 | 8.0 | not listed |
| Paleonola Cinnamon Blueberry | Maple syrup | Paleo | 171 | 3.2 | 4.3 | 2.1 |
| Backroads Maple Pecan Organic Paleo | Maple syrup, figs | Paleo | 170 | 3.9 | 5.2 | not listed |
| Nature’s Path Vanilla Poppy Seed Grain Free | Coconut sugar, coconut syrup | Paleo | 180 | 6.0 | 4.0 | 4.0 |
| Purely Elizabeth Banana Nut Butter Grain-Free | Coconut sugar, banana | Paleo | 150 | 4.0 | 5.0 | 3.0 |
| Good & Gather Coconut Grain-Free | Coconut sugar, maple syrup | Paleo | 170 | 3.0 | 7.0 | 6.0 |
| Bakery on Main Chocolate Grain-Free | Coconut sugar, honey, maple syrup, tapioca syrup | Paleo, but four sweeteners | 160 | 4.0 | 6.0 | 5.0 |
| Larabar Grain Free Cinnamon Nut | Dried molasses, tapioca syrup, raisins | Gray area | 170 | 5.0 | 7.0 | not listed |
| Paleonola Original | Honey, sweetened dried cranberries | Gray area | 171 | 4.3 | 4.3 | not listed |
| Primal Island Blueberry Grain Free | Honey, dried blueberries | Gray area | 161 | 2.2 | 7.3 | not listed |
| Lunds & Byerlys Blueberry Grain-Free | Cane sugar, rice syrup, maple syrup | Not paleo | 160 | 4.0 | 5.0 | 3.0 |
| Quaker 100% Natural (oats, wheat, honey, raisins), reference | Honey, raisins (per product name) | Not paleo | 124 | 2.9 | 7.4 | not listed |
Source: USDA FoodData Central Branded Foods entries 2389665, 2577934, 1897091, 1133719, 1868213, 2606367, 2582968, 1856796, 2054072, 2028384 and 2542502 (label dates 2017-2023), scaled from each label’s serving size to 30 g; Quaker from SR Legacy 172975. “Not listed” means the label entry in USDA’s database had no added-sugar line. Gray area: Larabar uses dried molasses (a cane-sugar product); in the Paleonola Original and Primal Island granolas the dried fruit is processed with sunflower oil, and the Paleonola cranberries are sweetened. Recipes change, so check the package you buy.
What the label check shows:
- Only one of the 11 failed outright. Lunds & Byerlys’ grain-free granola lists cane sugar and rice syrup, and rice syrup comes from a grain. “Grain-free” on the front didn’t mean grain-free sweeteners.
- Sweetener stacking is common. Bakery on Main lists four different sweeteners. None is off-limits on paleo, but four of them in one product tells you sugar is a design choice, not an accent.
- Fruit-sweetened isn’t the same as low-sugar. Wildway uses only dates and bananas, so it may show little or no added sugar, but at 8 g of total sugar per 30 g it was the highest in the group. The FDA counts sugars from syrups, honey and concentrated fruit juices as added sugars, but not the sugars naturally in whole fruit (FDA).
- Our homemade base batch has less added sugar (2.7 g) than all but one store brand that lists it, and the banana version has none.
How much paleo granola should you eat?
Less than you’d pour of oat granola. At about 180 calories per 30 g, nut-based granola is almost 50% more calorie-dense than the conventional oat granola in USDA data, which comes to about 124 calories for the same weight. Thirty grams is a small handful; a typical cereal-bowl pour is two or three times that.
Practical ways to keep it in proportion:
- Use it as a topping, not the bowl. A 30 g sprinkle over berries and coconut yogurt gives crunch without 500 calories.
- Weigh it the first few times. A kitchen scale shows you what 30 g looks like in your bowl.
- Count added sugar across the day. The FDA’s Daily Value for added sugars is 50 g on a 2,000-calorie diet (FDA). One serving of the base recipe uses about 5% of it; a heavy pour of a sweeter store brand could use 25% or more.
For other filling breakfasts ranked by protein, see our paleo breakfast ideas.
What do you eat paleo granola with?
Dairy milk and Greek yogurt aren’t strict paleo, so most people pair granola with a plant milk or coconut yogurt. Our paleo milk alternatives guide compares almond, coconut and cashew milk by what’s actually in the carton, and is Greek yogurt paleo covers the primal view if you eat some dairy.
Good combinations:
- Coconut yogurt, raspberries and 30 g of granola.
- Unsweetened almond milk poured over granola with sliced banana.
- A smoothie bowl topped with granola for crunch; see our paleo smoothie recipes.
- A handful on its own as a snack with a hard-boiled egg for protein.
Common paleo granola mistakes
- Baking too hot. Nuts and coconut scorch quickly; 300°F with a check at 20 minutes is safer than 350°F.
- Stirring while it cools. Leave it alone until cold if you want clusters.
- Skipping the binder. Without egg white or syrup you get loose toasted nuts.
- Adding dried fruit before baking. It hardens and can burn. Stir it in after the granola cools.
- Trusting “grain-free” alone. Check the sweeteners: cane sugar and rice syrup showed up on a grain-free label in our check.
Frequently asked questions about paleo granola
Is granola paleo?
Regular granola isn’t, because it’s made from oats, a grain, and often contains cane sugar, rice crisps or peanut butter. Grain-free granola made from nuts, seeds, coconut and a paleo sweetener such as maple syrup or honey is paleo. Check store labels: one grain-free brand in our check listed cane sugar and rice syrup.
How do you make paleo granola without sugar?
Leave out the syrup and bind the nuts and seeds with one mashed ripe banana and an egg white instead. Our banana version has 0 g of added sugar and about 1.8 g of total sugar per 30 g serving. Cinnamon and vanilla help it taste sweeter without adding sugar. Bake a little longer, about 35-40 minutes at 300°F.
What is the secret to making crunchy paleo granola?
A whisked egg white stirred through the mix, a low oven around 300°F, pressing the mixture flat on the pan, and letting it cool completely before you touch it. Moisture from banana or a lot of syrup makes it softer. Store it in an airtight jar once fully cool.
Is it cheaper to make your own paleo granola?
It depends on what you pay for nuts and seeds where you live, and we haven’t priced it here. The clearer advantage of homemade is control: you choose the sweetener and amount, avoid seed-oil-coated fruit, and can make a nut-free batch. Our base recipe has less added sugar than most store brands that list it.
How many calories are in paleo granola?
About 170-185 calories per 30 g for the recipes and most store brands in this guide, because nuts and seeds are high in fat. That’s more than the roughly 124 calories in 30 g of a conventional oat granola. Use it as a topping and weigh your portion if you’re watching calories.
Your next step: bake the base batch, then adjust
Make the base recipe once as written, weigh out a 30 g serving to see how much that is, and decide from there whether you want the low-sugar or banana version next time. If you’d rather buy than bake, use the label table above and pick one with a single sweetener. For more breakfast and snack ideas, browse the full paleo recipes collection.