Muesli is flaked grain, fruit, and nuts, with something wet poured over it. Every muesli makes the same four choices, and what makes the styles different comes down to two of them: what’s done to the grain before it’s eaten, and how long it sits in the liquid. Raw flakes in milk are soft and a bit floury. Soaked overnight they’re creamy. Toasted dry first, they keep their bite and taste nutty.
The style I make is toasted dry, with no oil or sugar. That’s the line between muesli and granola. Granola is baked with oil and a sweetener until it clusters, and the North American kind leans heavily on both. Dry toasting gets you most of the flavour and all of the crunch, without either.
The soaked Swiss style, the kind served at breakfast on Holland America Line ships, is good, but it isn’t what I eat at home.
All methods →