Berry baked oatmeal
To continue on my little breakfast theme, let’s move on to a breakfast food that is often overlooked: oatmeal. Oatmeal is a delightful nutritious (at least most of the time, depending on what you put in it) breakfast that’s especially good when it’s a bit cooler out. It’s a great comfort food for me, but I’m often annoyed at the extra time investment it takes to make in the morning (aka, 10 minutes instead of grabbing a piece of fruit which takes 30 seconds).
Enter your amazing breakfast solution: baked oatmeal. Baked oatmeal is great because you can portion it out individually for multiple breakfasts, or you can have people over for a weekend breakfast and serve it straight from the oven. You can add in whatever berries or other type of fruit you like and all you need is the time investment of it baking in the oven to have a treat that lasts for several days. I am a big fan and would definitely make this again. In addition to breakfasts I can also attest to the fact that this makes a great midnight snack after a night of drinking (and is healthier than pizza / other alternatives haha).
Berry baked oatmeal (adapted from Teach Eat Love)
Ingredients
2 eggs
1/4 c. unsweetened applesauce
1 c. milk (I used skim but you can use any type you like really)
2 tsp. vanilla
3 T. melted butter (or oil of your choice – I used some vegetable oil)
4 T sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
3 c. oatmeal
1 c. berries – obviously fresh is lovely but with how much they cost in Australia I just used frozen raspberries, and you don’t need to defrost them before putting them in
Preheat oven to 350 F / 180 C and lightly butter a circular pan or just spray it with some non-stick spray.
In a bowl, stir together the eggs, melted butter or oil, applesauce, milk, and sugar. Sprinkle the salt and baking powder over the mixture, and then add in all the oats. Stir thoroughly. Pour the mixture into the pan. Then gently stir the berries into the batter when it’s already in the pan. Frozen berries tend to bleed everywhere so be quite careful with them as you don’t want the oatmeal to become totally red or blue coloured. I actually just dropped mine on the top so they weren’t throughout the final product, but it was still delicious.
Bake for 60 to 70 minutes, or until golden brown. Check after 40 minutes or so because ovens can vary drastically and your pan size could be different. Make sure a knife inserted in the centre comes out clean.
You can obviously eat some when it’s hot, but when it’s cooled, slice it however you want and wrap it in individual portions. I wrapped some of mine in foil and froze it to have another week. When you want a slice, just reheat in the microwave, chop it up with a spoon a bit, and add milk if you like. Sorted for breakfast!
Mixing the wet ingredients together
Adding in all the oats
Sprinkling all the berries on top
Golden brown and done
Cut into slices
Ok, so maybe this is a bit dessert-y for breakfast, but when I thought about it, there is actually very little sugar so I’ve decided to put it in the “nice” category. This really was so good I could have just eaten it straight out of the pan. The raspberries were fairly tart and balanced out nicely with the sweetness of the applesauce, and I just love that it was oatmeal but looked like a slice of cake. Obviously, you don’t have to eat it like a cake – I think it’s actually best when put in a bowl and crumbled up a bit so it’s more like actual oatmeal, and then all the berries get mixed in (as you can see mine were only the top since I didn’t want to stir them up in the pan and make the entire thing red).
Perhaps the best part of this whole recipe though is that it freezes so well so you can have ready made breakfasts for several days. Oatmeal can be a bit time consuming to make on a rushed morning so being able to grab a slice of this and heat it up at work would be ideal. And it tastes just as good reheated once it’s been in the freezer as it does from the pan!
One year ago: Chickpea and leek soup with roasted zucchini
merrifood 