Muesli substitute

Best substitute

Homemade Muesli from Rolled Oats, Dried Fruit and Nuts

4 parts rolled oats to 1 part chopped dried fruit to 1 part chopped nuts or seeds, by volume

Best for breakfast bowls

Close match

The real thing, assembled at home in about two minutes with no cooking.

Other muesli substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Granola
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by volume, and consider using a little less
Baked oat cereal, the closest thing on a supermarket shelf.
What changes
Best for
breakfast with milk, yogurt topping, smoothie bowls, quick swap
The important honest difference is sugar and fat. Granola is baked with oil and honey, maple syrup or sugar, so it comes out crunchy, clustered and sweet, where muesli is loose, chewy and unsweetened. A bowl of granola with milk tastes like a dessert next to the same bowl of muesli, and it typically carries several times the added sugar. It also will not soften properly for overnight bircher muesli, staying weirdly hard in the middle. Use a little less than the muesli quantity and skip any honey the recipe adds.
3Plain Rolled Oats or Oatmeal
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by volume
The single ingredient that makes up most of any muesli.
What changes
Best for
overnight oats, bircher-style soaked breakfast, baking, budget option
Rolled oats do the structural half of muesli's job perfectly and soak overnight exactly as bircher muesli is meant to. What is missing is everything else: no bursts of sweet fruit, no crunch, no variety of texture, so the bowl is noticeably plainer and you will want to add fresh grated apple, banana, honey or a handful of nuts. Use rolled or old-fashioned oats, not instant, which go to mush, and not steel-cut, which stay hard when soaked cold.
4Bircher-Style Oats with Grated Apple and Yogurt
Different texture
Use the same amount substituting for muesli, per the original Swiss method
The dish muesli was invented for, made without a packet mix.
What changes
Best for
overnight breakfast, bircher muesli, make-ahead breakfast
Soak rolled oats overnight in milk or apple juice with yogurt, then stir in a whole coarsely grated apple, a squeeze of lemon and a handful of chopped nuts in the morning. This is closer to what Bircher-Benner originally served than most commercial muesli is. It is wetter, creamier and fresher-tasting than dry muesli with milk poured over, and the apple supplies the sweetness the dried fruit would have.
5Mixed Grain Flakes with Dried Fruit
Close match
Use the same amount by volume
Barley, rye, spelt or wheat flakes mixed with fruit and nuts, for a fuller multigrain mix.
What changes
Best for
Swiss-style and German-style muesli, high-fibre breakfast, overnight soaking
Better than oats alone if you have them, because commercial muesli usually blends several flaked grains. Rye and barley flakes are chewier and more savoury than oats, spelt flakes are sweeter and softer. A mix of flakes soaks up more liquid than pure oats, so add an extra splash of milk and give it a few minutes longer than you expect.
6Quinoa Flakes or Buckwheat Flakes
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by volume
Gluten-free flaked pseudocereals for a muesli base without oats.
What changes
Best for
gluten-free breakfast, overnight bowls, coeliac-safe muesli
Both soften faster and more completely than oats, so an overnight bowl comes out creamier and less distinctly flaky, closer to porridge. Quinoa flakes taste faintly grassy and buckwheat is earthier and more assertive, both stronger flavours than mild oats, so lean on sweeter dried fruit such as dates or dried apricots to balance them.

What is Muesli?

Muesli is Muesli is an uncooked, unsweetened breakfast mixture of rolled oats and other grain flakes with dried fruit, nuts and seeds, eaten with milk or yogurt or soaked overnight in the Swiss bircher style.

Cooking tips

Muesli is a mixture, not a single manufactured ingredient, which is the key to substituting it. Its job in a bowl is threefold: rolled grains for chewy bulk that thickens as it absorbs milk, dried fruit for scattered pockets of sweetness and acidity, and nuts or seeds for crunch and fat. Once you know that, you can build it from anything covering those three roles rather than hunting for a specific product.
Buy or use rolled oats rather than instant or steel-cut. Instant oats are pre-cut and pre-steamed so they collapse into slurry, and steel-cut oats never soften in cold milk. Old-fashioned rolled oats and jumbo oats are what give muesli its distinct flaky chew.
Toast the nuts and seeds in a dry pan for a few minutes before mixing, then cool them completely. It costs five minutes and does more for a homemade mix than any other single step, because raw nuts in muesli taste chalky where toasted ones taste rich.
If you are substituting granola in a recipe that also calls for honey, maple syrup or sugar, cut that sweetener by at least half. Granola is already sweetened, and this is the most common way a granola-for-muesli swap goes wrong, ending up cloying.
For bircher muesli, use a roughly 1:1 ratio of muesli to liquid and leave it in the fridge for at least four hours or overnight. Grate the apple in at the end rather than the beginning, with a little lemon juice, so it stays fresh and pale instead of going brown and limp.
Chop the dried fruit small, about raisin size. Big pieces of dried apricot or date go strangely leathery in cold milk and sink to the bottom of the jar, so the last serving from a batch ends up nothing but fruit.

Frequently asked questions

Can I just use granola instead of muesli?

Yes, 1:1, and it will taste good, but be aware you are changing the dish. Granola is baked with oil and a sweetener so it is crunchy, clustered and much sweeter, often several times the added sugar of an unsweetened muesli. With milk it reads as a treat rather than a plain breakfast, and it does not soften properly if you were planning to soak it overnight. Use slightly less than the muesli amount and cut any extra sweetener in the recipe.

Can I just leave muesli out of a recipe?

If muesli is the breakfast itself, then no, since there is nothing left. If it is a component, for example sprinkled over yogurt or stirred into a muffin batter or a flapjack, then yes, you can leave it out or replace it with plain rolled oats plus a handful of nuts. Expect a softer, less interesting texture, because the crunch and the fruit bursts were the point.

What is the actual difference between muesli and granola?

Cooking and sugar. Muesli is raw: flaked grains, dried fruit, nuts and seeds simply mixed together, traditionally unsweetened and meant to be soaked or eaten with milk. Granola is the same sort of mixture coated in oil and syrup and baked until crisp and clumped. That makes granola sweeter, higher in calories and crunchier, and muesli chewier, plainer and more absorbent.

How do I make muesli without oats?

Use another flaked grain as the base. Barley, rye and spelt flakes all work and are chewier and more savoury than oats. For gluten-free muesli, use quinoa flakes, buckwheat flakes or rice flakes, keeping in mind they soften faster and give a creamier, more porridge-like bowl. In every case keep the same rough proportions, about four parts flakes to one part dried fruit and one part nuts or seeds.

Is muesli gluten-free?

Usually not. Oats are naturally gluten-free but are commonly contaminated in milling, and most commercial muesli also contains barley, rye or wheat flakes. For coeliac-safe muesli, use certified gluten-free oats or a base of quinoa, buckwheat or rice flakes, and check that the dried fruit and seeds are packed in a gluten-free facility.

Related substitutes

More grains & starches substitutes

Muesli substitute

Other muesli substitutes

2Granola

3Plain Rolled Oats or Oatmeal

4Bircher-Style Oats with Grated Apple and Yogurt

5Mixed Grain Flakes with Dried Fruit

6Quinoa Flakes or Buckwheat Flakes