Healthy Baked Apple Oatmeal
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This Healthy Baked Apple Oatmeal is perfect for breakfast! With oats, maple syrup, and diced apples this is a delicious baked oatmeal recipe.
Warm apples, hearty oatmeal, crunchy pecans.. what’s not to love about this easy baked oatmeal?
Gluten free, delicious, and simple to make – baked oatmeal is hands down one of our absolute favorite healthy breakfast recipes (which is why we have so many versions! Carrot Cake Baked Oatmeal, Chocolate Peanut Butter Baked Oatmeal, Blueberry Baked Oatmeal to name a few!)
Our favorite thing about baked oatmeal is that instead of having to stand by the stove and watch your breakfast, all the oatmeal ingredients get tossed together and baked in the oven for a simple meal!
This is a great recipe made with only 11 ingredients in under an hour and is easy to meal prep for the week and have for breakfast or snacks!
liz’s top tips for healthy baked oatmeal
- Meal prep friendly – Bake once, eat all week for breakfast. Rather than cleaning a sticky pan every morning, you’ll only have 2 dishes to wash! You can even enjoy it warm or cold!
- You can double the recipe and freeze these in individual portions for a quick reheated breakfast right out of your freezer!
Ingredients
Substitutions
Fresh Apples vs Canned Apples: Fresh apples work best in this recipe. We don’t recommend using canned apples. We love gala, fuji, or pink lady apples for this recipe.
Fruit substitutions: Baked oatmeal is pretty flexible and you can make a lot of substitutions to it. You can sub in any type of fruit or berry (bananas, pears, peaches) in this recipe for the apples. I’d check out this Chocolate Peanut Butter Baked Oatmeal or Healthy Blueberry Baked Oatmeal if you’re looking for something a little more decadent!
Maple Syrup: You can sub honey for maple syrup or agave. I have not tried this with stevia so I’m not sure how that would work. I tested this recipe with honey – both were delicious!
Vegan Baked Oatmeal: Sub egg for one flax egg, sub honey for maple syrup, make sure to use a dairy free chocolate chip
Gluten Free: make sure you’re using gluten free certified rolled oats.
Milk: You can use any type of milk in this recipe. Regular dairy/non dairy will work! Try our homemade Walnut Milk or Almond Milk.
Optional add ins: chopped nuts, chocolate, shredded coconut, or more fresh fruit would be delicious.
Steel Cut Oats: You can use steel cut oatmeal in this recipe. Use 1 cup of steel cut oats and 2 cups of liquid/milk. We have a Baked Steel Cut Oatmeal recipe that you can also follow!
Rolled Oats vs Quick Oats-Quick Cook Oats: I have not tried this with quick cook oats and wouldn’t recommend it. I don’t think that it will hold up/cook correctly with the smaller oats.
Baked Oatmeal Cups: I haven’t tried baking these in muffin cups but I think it would work! The only thing I would say is it will be harder to clean up and it might stick to a muffin tin. I would grease the muffin tins or use these silicone muffin liners. You can bake for a little less time.
Nuts: A 1/2 cup of chopped pecans or chopped walnuts would be a great addition to this recipe.
How to make Healthy Baked Oatmeal
- Mix all your ingredients together and pour into a greased 8×8 baking dish.
- Bake at 350° for 35-40 minutes until solidified. Cool, slice, add a drizzle of maple syrup and enjoy!
Pretty much any apple will work in this recipe. The best apples for baking are Pink Lady apples. They’re a little sweet and a little tart so I find them perfect in baking recipes!
Braeburn or Honeycrisp are also delicious and hold up well. Really – any apple will work in this recipe! We don’t recommend using Granny Smith or other tart apples in this recipe. If you’re looking to learn more about baking/apples check out this post goes in depth on the best apples for baking.
How to serve
This Healthy Baked Oatmeal is a complete meal in itself, but you can serve it with your favorite toppings. I like to serve it with greek yogurt. You can also add maple syrup if you’d like. It’s also delicious with Egg Muffins or Egg White Frittata.
Can I Make this in advance?
Yes you can make baked oatmeal in advance! We would recommend baking, cooling and reheating this, rather than letting the oat mixture sit overnight.
This oatmeal bake also reheats really well so feel free to bake it and then just pop it in the microwave or oven when ready to eat.
If you’d like to prep the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients separately for the batter that would work fine, but don’t mix your batter and leave it in the refrigerator overnight as it might absorb all the liquid.
Storage options
Storing: Do not store this healthy baked oatmeal at room temp. It likely will get moldy or stale if you don’t refrigerate it. This baked oatmeal will last in the refrigerator for up to a week.
Freezing baked oatmeal: Bake, slice and freeze your oatmeal. You can wrap this in individual portions to make it easier, allow slices to freeze and then put them in a ziploc bag or airtight container so they don’t stick together. Baked oatmeal will last about 3 months in the freezer.
Oatmeal bake does need to be refrigerated. It will get moldy if left on the counter because of the moisture and because there are no preservatives in the oatmeal.
How to reheat
You can easily reheat apple baked oatmeal! This oatmeal is great when microwaved or warmed in a toaster oven.
Every microwave and toaster oven will be a little bit different but it should be warmed through in under 1 minute in the microwave
Other healthy oatmeal recipes:
If you love oatmeal check out these other Healthy Oatmeal Breakfast Recipes. Here are some of our favorite healthy recipes that use oatmeal.
Healthy Baked Apple Oatmeal
Ingredients
- 2 cups old fashioned rolled oats
- 1 ½ cups almond milk
- 1 cup diced apples
- ¼ cup chopped pecans
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 beaten egg
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and prepare a greased 8×8 oven safe baking dish.
- In a large mixing bowl, add all of. the ingredients. Stir until combined.
- Pour the batter into the prepared greased 8×8 pan – it will look like there is too much liquid, but it will absorb, don't worry!
- Bake the oatmeal uncovered for 35-40 minutes at 350 degrees F, until the top is golden brown and the milk is completely absorbed. Enjoy warm or cold!
- Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Do not store this healthy baked oatmeal at room temp. It likely will get moldy or stale if you don't refrigerate it. This baked oatmeal will last in the refrigerator for up to a week.
Great recipe! Easy instructions and able to swap out apples for other options and still delicious. I have made it with 1% milk as well and came out just as good.
I think this needs a tbsp of brown sugar. Mine came out very bland.
Hi! What kind of apples would you suggest for this recipe?
Hi! Check out the post – we covered this – Pretty much any apple will work in this recipe. The best apples for baking are Pink Lady apples. They’re a little sweet and a little tart so I find them perfect in baking recipes!
Braeburn or Honeycrisp are also delicious and hold up well. Really – any apple will work in this recipe!
We don’t recommend using Granny Smith or other tart apples in this recipe. If you’re looking to learn more about baking/apples check out this post goes in depth on the best apples for baking.
This is a delicious and simple-to-make breakfast or snack! We didn’t have apples on hand, so I subbed in a peach and some blueberries…the recipe is so versatile. My family loves it! What a terrific way to enjoy some morning oats! Thanks for creating and sharing!
I added 4 oz of unsweetened apple sauce to up the apple flavor. For that reason I reduced the milk a little and eliminated the olive oil. II baked it in lightly greasedramekins for portion control. Delicious! I have to eat oatmeal everyday for my cholesterol so I’ve been experimenting with baked oatmeal flavors. This one is a keeper!!!
Discovered that my cholesterol was slightly elevated so I needed to take a break from egg muffins! Of course I came here to find a replacement. Made this and I am in love! Substituted a flex egg for the egg, added raisins, and used rice milk. This is so light but quite filling! Perfect for those that meal prep for the wk! Thank you!
Would this recipe work using fresh rhubarb or cranberries ? I can’t eat apples
Both of those would be too tart. You can try or
So delicious and easy!
My only question is how many servings are in this?
4 servings! the servings are always listed in our recipes.
I see the serving size is one piece, but I never saw where it says the total number of servings? One piece out of how many total?
It’s in the recipe. Serves 4 people. Cut in 4 even slices 🙂
It looks and sounds delicious but I’m wondering about texture? Is if soft like soft oatmeal cookies or crunchy like the nature valley bars? I’m asking because I want to give it to my toddler but he doesn’t do very well with super hard crunchy foods. If it is crunchy would adding more milk or egg make it softer?
The texture is super soft! It’s a little firmer/thicker than regular cooked oatmeal. I think it would be totally fine!
I love this recipe! I make a batch for during the week and it’s a great weekend dish also!
This is my favorite breakfast yet! Thanks for such delicious recipes!! I tried this with pears instead of apples but decided I like apples in it much better
Pears sound delicious too! Thanks for trying!
Very yummy! Thanks for the recipe!
So happy you liked it, Ana!
Could I add protein powder to this recipe? Would I need to increase the almond milk? Looks delicious! Definitely want to try for meal prep!
I’m not sure because I haven’t tried it. Baking with protein powder is very finicky. Try at your own risk!
I loved this! I saw on instagram and made the next day. So quick and easy. I really like apples, so next time I make this I’m going to add a little more apple and a little less oats!
I’m so glad you liked it!!
So good! I double the recipe because my family eats it so quickly! I made it vegan by using flax meal substitute for my egg! So so good and so easy!
So happy you all enjoyed it!
When you doubled did you do two 8×8 or does it work in a 9×13?
use a 9×13. this wont cook correctly if you use an 8×8
Oh my gosh, this was so easy and it turned out perfectly! I had everything in the house except pecans so I subbed sliced almonds. I will definitely be adding this into my weekly rotation. Yum.
Glad you liked it, Jen! Try the next!
It was okay. Didn’t seem like enough liquid in it once baked. The top was hard and crunchy like uncooked oats. The flavor overall was good though.
Baked oatmeal is supposed to be crunchy on top. Sorry you didn’t like the texture but that is the intended texture!
The carbs and sugars are quite high for those whose diets call for less . Are any substitutes can be used to lessen the carbs and sugars for this recipe.
Oatmeal is by nature a high carb food. There’s really no way to make it lower carb. As for the sugar – the sugar naturally occurs in apples and in maple syrup. You could omit the maple syrup but it won’t taste as good. If you’re looking for a low carb meal, oatmeal isn’t the right choice
I swapped Monk Fruit/erythritol for the maple syrup. Helps a bit with the sugars. But for something lower carb I’d look for keto recipes that are made with almond and coconut flour.
So happy to have found this recipe! Our family loves it so much that I meal prep it for breakfasts weekly. I’ll even add some chia seeds and blueberries too! Once cooked, I love to throw some plain Greek yogurt on top. Absolutely delish!!
So glad you like it, Erica! Thank you!!
This recipe was such a delicious way to enjoy fall apples! I made this for some easy meal prep and it warmed up very well! I added some milk when warming to make sure it didn’t dry out and it turned out great!
Thank you so much!! So happy you liked it!
The perfect recipe for school mornings. This is a hit 100% of the time!
So glad you liked it!
I’m allergic to almond milk – since I’m not a vegan, can I use regular 2% cow’s milk or possibly coconut milk? Also, I’m thinking using shredded coconut as a sub for the pecans – would this be a good substitute?
Hi Lala – Please read the green substitutions section. It says: Milk: You can use any type of milk in this recipe. Regular dairy/non dairy will work! I haven’t tried shredded coconut in this recipe but shredded coconut is very different from the texture of chopped pecans, so I would either use 1/2 the amount or skip it all together.
My kids and I enjoyed this as a healthy breakfast this week. Thanks for the recipe!
So happy you all enjoyed it! Thanks, Casie!
Wonderful!! Thanks for the idea!