Baked Oatmeal for breakfast feels like dessert! If you like rice pudding or bread pudding, you’ll love this baked oatmeal. This breakfast is a bit on the sweet side. Soon, I’ll be posting the recipe for Steve’s outrageously good oatmeal. It’s not as sweet as baked oatmeal, but it’s topped with toasted coconut, pine nuts, chopped dates, and slivered almonds. Feel free to experiment with various fruits, both dried and fresh. Oats are gluten-free, but to make sure you’re getting gluten-free oats, check the box to make sure it’s not packaged in a facility that processes flour products as well.
Check our index of recipes for more great breakfasts.
use good quality oats
A lot of us grew up on oatmeal. In the 1960’s, “quick-cooking” oats were on the shelf at the grocery store. They cooked quickly because the oats were ground finer and just didn’t take that long to cook. Then came packets of instant oatmeal, which only need boiling water to have breakfast in about one minute. Good-quality whole rolled oats are the best, but they do take longer to cook. Taking the time to make great oatmeal from “old-fashioned” whole oats is worth the effort. Quaker Oats makes all three variations of oats, of course–whole rolled oats, quick-cooking, and instant oatmeal. We like Bob’s Red Mill for any high-quality or specialty grain products.
make baked oatmeal ahead of time
This is a great recipe to make ahead of time. Mix everything together, spoon into the prepared baking dish, cover with baking wrap, and refrigerate until ready to bake. Take it out of the refrigerator while you’re waiting for the oven to heat. if the oatmeal is still somewhat cold, you may need to bake it just a little longer.
use baked oatmeal as a real dessert
For an amazing dessert, simply make baked oatmeal, cut into squares and serve it warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream! Even better, top it with a scoop of cinnamon ice cream.
