Gluten-free Homemade Muesli

As a typical American, I came to Switzerland eating cereal for breakfast. Kay, on the other hand, ate a very Swiss breakfast of freshly sliced bread slathered in butter and jam. For years it went on this way. He had his bread and I had my cereal.

One could argue about the healthiness of either breakfast, but eventually Kay switched over to the dark side so that he could be a little faster in the morning and sleep a little longer. Slicing bread and doing all that buttering and spreading takes a long time! But he didn’t switch to conventional brand cereal like me… no. He started buying ingredients to mix his own muesli so that it would be healthier and less sugary than whatever I was eating.

I called it “Pferd Futter” or “Horse food” because that’s what it looked like to me.

Anyway, I more or less stopped eating cereal in an effort to incorporate more fresh fruit in my diet and then with the celiac diagnosis and Kay’s absence, I didn’t even want to think about cereal and how depressing it is here. We don’t have Chex in Switzerland. You can buy gluten free cornflakes from Migros and Coop, and from Coop you can also buy chocolate crispy rice for kids. From non-specialty stores, that’s it!

L-R: Bio cornflakes: 2.20CHF for 300g ($2.45 for 10.5OZ) / Schär cornflakes: 2.90 for 250g ($3.23 for 8.8OZ) / Schär Flakes Milly Magic 123: 4.95CHF for 250g ($5.51 for 8.8OZ)

You can’t even buy most normal muesli ingredients in the store without them being laced with gluten. I can buy puffed amaranth from Migros, but all the soy flakes are coated with malt flavoring, making them a no-go.

So why don’t I just let Kay buy his normal muesli ingredients and let it go? Crumbs. CRUMBS. Or shall I say, dust. Every time Kay makes muesli in his tupperware and every time he gets some out in the morning, cereal dust flies into the air and all over the counters.

If that cereal dust happened to be wheat-y, barley, malt or otherwise gluten-y… it would be all over our counters. And because we are in a hurry in the morning, that gluten death trap would be there in the evening too. Cleaning up his muesli mess is not one of Kay’s strong suits, but if he did… I would have to worry about him contaminating the dish towel and then forgetting to change it out with a new dish towel. I know… anal. But with celiac, you have to be.

There’s always a question of how much gluten is bad for you, but in my own home, I would rather not doubt what I am eating. I don’t want to worry about wheat particles flying around while I bake, nor do I want to question what the dish towel was last used to clean. Nope. Gluten-free cereal for all is the way forward.

But since oats are a no-no the first year, I wanted to find a way to make oat-free granola to mix with those boring cornflakes. I’ve been lurking on Against All Grain and found this recipe for Spiced Pumpkin Granola, so I had to try it out!

First I soaked the nuts overnight which is supposed to break down the phytic barrier and give the granola a nicer crunch. Kay just thought I was crazy to be soaking them in water and then dehydrating them.

All chopped up and ready to be baked. We have a convection oven, so I used that instead of going out and buying a dehydrator, but after baking 3-4 hours at 75ºC/170ºF, the muesli still came out pretty moist.

I didn’t feel like baking it longer at this point, but I would definitely bake it longer next time. I feel like buying a plastic dehydrator from the store seems like a waste of money when we have an oven with airflow, but maybe I’m wrong.

I threw all the muesli in Kay’s new GF cereal container with GF cornflakes, buckwheat flakes from the health store, puffed amaranth balls, and millet flakes from the health food store. Then I poured it in a bowl to mix before putting it back in the container.

This muesli is delicious! It smelled heavenly and it had a lovely autumn flavor that had me wanting to start eating cereal again too!

See all that mess up there? Haha… homemade muesli is still quite messy, but I don’t have to worry about it being a gluten mess now! And by watering down the expensive health store gluten-free alternative flakes with homemade muesli and cornflakes, I can feel better about the cost of our gluten-free muesli.

Even if you aren’t gluten free, you should go try this muesli out! It is seriously delicious!

10 thoughts on “Gluten-free Homemade Muesli”

  1. This does look delicious! I have been craving cereal lately, probably since I haven’t had any in almost two years! I can’t have dairy, so I made the switch to soy milk, but that still caused me problems, so then I switched to almond milk. It was really good, but the flavor is too strong for most cereals, and since that was the only time I was using the almond milk, I didn’t feel the need to buy it anymore and cut cereal out of my diet. But, this is just amazing looking, and those smells would definitely appeal to me, too.

    I don’t know if this is available in Switzerland, but Amazon allows you to order food and have it delivered to your house – they do mostly pantry items, so cereal is one of them. You may want to look into that to see if Amazon will ship to you – that might give you some more easily available gluten-free foods.

    1. Oh I definitely looked into Amazon… but they don’t ship food outside the US it seems. It’s pretty hit or miss what will ship from Amazon here, but cereal is not on the list. I just came to terms that I need to eat what is available over here… kind of like you and the milk. I wonder if our milk would still give you issues. We have a few options for dairy milk with the lactose taken out, soy, almond, cashew… that’s too bad even the soy affects you. I really love drinking milk! 🙁 How do you supplement your calcium?

      1. So what are the rules on shipping food overseas to you not from a company – ie. family sends you a cereal care package? Do they allow for that, or would the shipping costs just be astronomical?

        1. Oh family is allowed to ship stuff, but even a small pack (not big enough for cereal) is around $50 to ship. She sent me some glasses and stuffed in a box of gluten free pasta, but it’s just not sustainable. Waaay too expensive!

      2. Also, I recently started taking a calcium supplement in vitamin form, but for a while I wasn’t doing anything – probably not smart, but I honestly didn’t think about it. It’s funny that soy milk bothers me, but soy beans/edamame doesn’t, so I have been getting some calcium from them every once in a while too.

        1. I have got some tablets with Calcium and Vitamin D that I am going to take for awhile now. I have been taking a multivitamin too, but was worried about calcium. If you don’t drink milk or eat dairy, it seems so hard to get in the diet! But it’s in things like spinach and stuff isn’t it?

    1. They also don’t deliver… neither does Amazon.de. I think it really is a food issue. But a box of corn chex is $7.70 from UK and $11.40 from Germany, so I just give up. 🙂

  2. Not sure how available the ingredients are, but thespunkycoconut.com is all gluten free recipes, most of them are pretty awesome. I’m not gluten free, but my hubby is, and since I only cook one meal, I have to be too.

    1. Cool! Pinned and added to my feedly reader. I’m always trying to source ingredients over here, but it’s always helpful to have good places to read recipes! 🙂

      Good on you for cooking GF for the hubs. I’m so happy Kay does that for me as well!

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