Many, many years ago, I discovered a fun trick for making healthy oat waffles. It involves blending the oats with liquid ingredients to make a quick batter. This recipe for dairy-free baked oats uses that same fast and easy technique to make a wholesome muffin-life breakfast.
Dairy-Free Baked Oats to Blend Up for Breakfast
The original recipe for these blended baked oats was shared with us by Dole Food Company, as a sample from The Dole Ultimate Banana Cookbook. It’s a complimentary ebook that was just released today, and includes 35 of the company’s most requested recipes. It isn’t completely dairy-free, but we found the recipes very easy to adapt. In fact, we’ve included additional options and variations in the FAQs and dairy-free baked oats recipe below.
How are Baked Oats Different from Baked Oatmeal
I’m not sure there is an official definition, but these baked oats are blended to create a thick batter, and bake up with more of a bread-like texture. Our dairy-free baked oatmeal recipes leave the oats intact, so it is more like a bowl of oatmeal that’s been baked.
What can I Substitute for the Egg?
We haven’t tested this recipe for dairy-free baked oats without egg, but it should work fine with a range of egg replacers. See our Egg Substitute Guide for options. Keep in mind, the resultant vegan version might be a little more crumbly.
Can I use Regular Coconut Milk or Almond Milk?
This is an oil-free recipe, so the lite canned coconut milk helps to add richness and texture to these blended baked oats. With too little fat, baked goods can taste a bit gummy once cooled. You can definitely use full-fat canned coconut milk, but the batter might be a little thicker. You can substitute a dairy-free milk alternative, like almond milk, soymilk, or oat milk, but this could affect the texture a touch.
Which Dairy-Free Yogurt do you Recommend?
I like to use coconut yogurt for baking, like So Delicious. But most brands should work just fine.
What can I Substitute for the Dairy-Free Yogurt?
You could use applesauce in place of the dairy-free yogurt. One more large banana might also work as a great substitute for the yogurt alternative and would give these oats a banana forward flavor. If going banana heavy, I might add some cinnamon and allspice for a banana bread vibe.
Can I Substitute a Liquid Sweetener?
We haven’t tested it, but I think using maple syrup or honey in place of the brown sugar should work just fine in this recipe. These blended baked oats have just a small amount of added sugar, since the fruit provides natural sweetness, so the type of sweetener doesn’t matter too much. However, I’m not certain how a sugar-free sweetener would perform.
Special Diet Notes: Blended Baked Oats
By ingredients, this recipe is dairy-free / non-dairy, gluten-free, nut-free, peanut-free, soy-free, and vegetarian. Just be sure to choose the yogurt alternative that suits your dietary needs.
- 2 cups rolled oats (certified gluten-free, if needed)
- 2 ripe bananas
- 1 large egg
- ¾ cup canned lite coconut milk
- ½ cup dairy-free vanilla yogurt
- 3 tablespoons light brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt (see Salt Note below)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Preheat your oven to 350°F and grease an 8-inch square baking dish.
- Pulse the oats in your blender or food processor until they are powdered, like a very slightly coarse flour.
- Add the bananas, coconut milk, yogurt, egg, baking powder, salt, and vanilla extract to the oat flour. Blend until smooth.
- Scrape the oat mixture into your prepared baking dish and even it out.
- Bake the oats for 30 minutes or until the top is lightly browned.
- Let cool at least a bit before slicing and serving.
- You can store these blended baked oats covered or in an airtight container in the refrigerator for a few days, or freeze the slices to enjoy later.
Cinnamon Variation: Add 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon to the blender with the other ingredients.
Garnish Options: You can top the baked oats with additional banana slices, blueberries, chopped pecans, chopped walnuts, ground flaxseed, and / or toasted coconut. A drizzle of honey, maple syrup, natural peanut butter, cashew butter, or seed butter is also nice.
Single Serve Option: Divide the batter between 4 to 6 greased ramekins. Bake them for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the tops are lightly browned.
Salt Note: The original recipe calls for 1 teaspoon salt, which was a bit too much for us. So we reduced the amount to ½ teaspoon. Feel free to use the original quantity, if preferred.