Baked Oatmeal

I thought I had tasted “really good oats” until I tried an oatmeal bake.

Every Summer for the past few years, I have been working at a Summer camp. The days are long, but good. I pretty much crash every night when I get home. Living in the South, I know that if I don’t run before work, I can’t run at all (running in 95 degrees isn’t fun). Some might think I am crazy for running at 6:00am before I go off and work outside with children from 8:30am-4:30pm, but I love it.

I know I’ve said I am a creature of routine, but eating the same thing every morning resulted in me getting super tired of my daily oatmeal. Don’t get it twisted- my overnight oatmeal recipe is GOOD and I highly recommend it, but it was getting a little boring. I would come home from a run to the same peanut butter banana oatmeal, and I wanted to actually look forward to my breakfast. That being said, I do need to start my day with oats: carbohydrates help keep me going all day long. One day, I was going through old photos on my phone and came across a baked oatmeal from the previous Winter.

The first time I tried a piece, I was hooked. I then proceeded to make an oatmeal bake every 4 days after I would finish the previous one. It never got old. Then I started to experiment with different flavor combinations. Pretty soon, people all across Instagram started to create my recipe, my roommates, my family, etc. SO many people have made their own oatmeal bakes for a meal prepped breakfasts and tell me the exact same thing: so good! The best part is, you can make it on a Sunday and it’ll pretty much last you until Thursday. Breakfast for the week done? Sign me up.

Now that I have sold you on the oatmeal bake, I should tell you how to make it.

Ingredients:

  1. 2 cups of rolled oats
  2. 2 cups of vanilla almond milk
  3. Cinnamon (to taste)
  4. 1/3 cup of egg whites (can be left out)
  5. Fruit for topping (Berries, Bananas, Apples, Raisins) If you’re doing the pumpkin spice oatmeal bake you can do 1/3 cup of pumpkin inside the oatmeal bake, but that recipe will likely have its own recipe page eventually.

Directions:

  1. Pour the oats into an 8 x 6 pyrex baking dish.
  2. Place your fruit on top.
  3. In a separate bowl, whisk the milk, egg whites, and cinnamon together.
  4. Pour the combined wet ingredients over the oats and fruit. I bake the whole thing at 375F for 35 minutes in the pyrex baking dish.
  5. After it cools, I store the entire thing in the Pyrex in the fridge.
  6. When you’re ready to eat it, cut a piece (1/4 of the whole is one serving), microwave it for around 45-50 seconds. Then top with any toppings you want: yogurt, nut butter, more fruit, etc.
  7. I personally top mine with @foragerproject yogurt because it makes it taste like a dessert.
  8. Makes 4 servings, mine lasts only 4 days because I eat it every morning (would probably keep for like a week in the fridge) 😊