Vegan Baked Oatmeal Recipe (with Blueberries)

This vegan baked oatmeal recipe is made with simple plant-based ingredients and creates an irresistible breakfast or snack. Great for meal prepping quick, convenient breakfast food at the start of the week, these baked oats will give you energy and keep you full for hours.

This super flavorful and can be customized with any fresh or frozen berry you like best (but blueberries are an amazing place to start!) So, get out your oats, bananas, berries, and a few other ingredients, and let’s get baking!

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Is Baked Oatmeal Vegan? Can it be Gluten Free?

Two common ingredients used in non-vegan baked oatmeal recipes are dairy milk and eggs. Since these serve a purpose, they can’t simply be excluded from vegan recipes and therefore need to be replaced. Fortunately, it’s not difficult to make a vegan version of the recipe that doesn’t sacrifice taste or texture.

Dairy milk can be replaced easily by substituting with a plant-based milk like soy, oat or almond milk. For convenience I recommend using whatever plant-based milk you typically purchase, although an unsweetened, unflavored soy milk is my go-to. This helps keep your recipe from tasting overly sweet or introducing flavors other than those you intend to add-in.

Likewise, eggs are quickly swapped-out in this vegan recipe by using ground flaxseed. As with most vegan baking recipes, flaxseed absorbs moisture from wet ingredients and results in a thick consistency. By combining it with plant-based milk and banana, it’ll help the oats and other ingredients hold together!

Need to make this recipe gluten free? While oats don’t contain gluten, equipment used to process oats often process wheat too. If this is a concern for you, just make sure to purchase gluten free rolled oats. The other ingredients should be naturally gluten free as well!

Ingredients to Make Vegan Baked Oatmeal

To make a simple, plant-based baked oatmeal recipe, you won’t need too many ingredients. Aside from those that are most important for the volume and consistency you’ll want, many ingredients are just for flavor.

• Banana: To help the oatmeal hold together and taste great, you’ll start by mashing two small-to-medium-sized bananas. This will provide about ⅔ cup of mashed banana which, when cooked, will help bind other ingredients and provide a great texture.
• Plant-based milk: While you can use any plant-based milk you have on hand, I like to use an unsweetened, unflavored soy milk. This is neutral in taste and allows for other flavors to shine through. Milk will help hydrate the oats and provide a soft texture to your finished oatmeal.
• Natural peanut butter: Peanut butter adds protein and healthy fats. It offers a great flavor and using a natural peanut butter will maximize that delicious peanut butter taste!
• Vanilla extract: Vanilla extract provides a greater depth of flavor in your baked oatmeal, making this an irresistible breakfast.
• Rolled oats: The star of the recipe, rolled oats provide a lot of volume to the recipe and will help keep you full all morning. They offer great nutrition while also being a cheap, easy-to-find ingredient.
• Flaxseed: As mentioned earlier, you’ll add ground flaxseed to help bind everything together, effectively making a vegan baked oatmeal with no eggs. Ground flax seed is also packed with nutrition!
• Hemp seed: Hemp seeds provide even more vegan nutrition with minimal impact to taste. It’s a great ingredient to add to breakfast recipes.
• Cinnamon: With just 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, you’ll get a great boost of flavor in this meal.
• Baking powder: Even though this vegan baked oats recipe will still be dense, baking powder is essential to provide lift.
• Salt: Salt enhances flavor and balances out the sweeter ingredients perfectly. Check to see if your peanut butter is salted – if it is, skip out adding more but if not, a bit of salt goes a long way to make this an even more delicious oatmeal! Select iodized salt to boost your intake of iodine!
• Blueberry: 1 cup of blueberries (or another type of berry, if preferred) gives great variety to flavor, texture and color. While blueberries are great, try others too! Either fresh or frozen work, but frozen berries will likely dye the oatmeal, not that there’s anything wrong with extra color!

How to Make Vegan Baked Oats

Ready to start making your plant-based baked oatmeal breakfast?! It’s great to meal prep for the week ahead, and easy to put together. Watch the video below and/ or read the instructions to get a great result on your first try!

Step 1: Mash Bananas and Stir in Liquid Ingredients

Start by peeling and mashing two small-to-medium-sized bananas in a bowl. You’ll need about ⅔ cup of banana as a base for the baked oatmeal, and a couple bananas should be the perfect amount.

Once your bananas are fully mashed, pour in plant-based milk, add natural peanut butter and then vanilla extract.

Use a fork to combine thoroughly, ensuring an even consistency. It can take some work to mix the plant-based milk and peanut butter together without any large clumps of peanut butter.

Step 2: Add Rolled Oats and Dry Ingredients

When the liquid ingredients are well mixed, dump in your rolled oats, flaxseed, hemp seed, cinnamon, baking powder and salt. Begin to mix all these ingredients (without the berries for now) until it’s fully mixed.

This recipe creates a very thick mixture so keep stirring until it’s well combined.

Step 3: Stir in Blueberries (Fresh or Frozen)

Once your banana-oatmeal mixture is combined well, add fresh or frozen blueberries into the bowl. Give this a quick stir to ensure that the blueberries are consistent throughout the oatmeal mix.

You’ll add berries last after the main oatmeal mix is well stirred to ensure the berries aren’t crushed in the process.

Step 4: Add to Greased Dish and Bake

Grease a 9x9 or 8x10 glass baking dish, then add the uncooked oatmeal mixture. Using the back of a spoon, press the oatmeal down into your dish to create an even layer. It should be about 2 inches (5 centimetres) thick for easy cooking.

Place this dish into the middle rack of your preheated oven (at 375 °F). It should be cooked well after 35-40 minutes at which time you can remove and allow to cool.

Step 5: Serve and Enjoy

When ready to eat, cut the baked oatmeal into approximately 6 servings and top with additional flavors if you desire. I love to pour some maple syrup onto the top of my vegan oatmeal, or if I want even more peanut butter flavor then I drizzle on more of that!

It’s also delicious to top with extra fresh fruit or a peanut butter syrup (made by mixing powdered peanut butter with maple syrup instead of water).

Baked Vegan Oatmeal Variations

Two questions that I commonly receive for this recipe deal with substituting berries and peanut butter. As an extremely versatile recipe, both ingredients can be altered with little impact.

While you can certainly use any type of berry you prefer (I like blueberries the best), most people want to know if you can use frozen berries instead of fresh. I totally understand; it’s sometimes difficult to find good fresh berries, or they can be more expensive – especially during winter months.

It’s absolutely possible to use frozen berries, just know that it will lead to a more colorful baked oatmeal than if you use fresh. As the frozen berries melt and then cook, more liquid will release from them and leech into the oatmeal. With liquid comes color, so you may end up with a purple colored oatmeal if you do it this way!

Furthermore, if you have a nut allergy then try substituting peanut butter for sunflower seed butter! It will help enhance the flavor in a similar way while keeping it more allergy friendly. This could also be a good option if sending a serving with your child to school since nut-based products are often restricted.

Refrigerate and Freeze Vegan Baked Oats

This is a great recipe to make at the start of the week and have for breakfast and snacks over several days. If your baking dish has an airtight lid, place it on when cooled then place in the fridge for up to a week. Quick and easy vegan breakfast meal prep!

You might want to cook multiple batches of this recipe and freeze for more weeks of quick, convenient breakfasts. If this is the case, place airtight containers of the baked oatmeal in your freezer, then remove and allow to thaw in your fridge prior to eating. When you’re in a rush and don’t have time to thaw overnight in the fridge, you can also microwave servings of the recipe!

If you make this recipe, please rate and comment below to help others benefit from your experience!

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