GETTING READY

1. Preheat oven to 375°F and generously spray the inside of a 10-1/2 by 7 inch baking dish with cooking spray and place on a baking sheet.

MAKING

2. Start by mixing together the dry ingredients — you could switch up the extras here. For example, we used walnuts and chocolate chips, but you could certainly use almonds or another nut (or none) and replace the chocolate with something else — dried cranberries would be lovely. We throw in a teaspoon of Chinese five spice, too — you can buy the blend at any grocery store, but if you don’t want to invest in another spice, go ahead and replace with ground cinnamon instead. One more thing, here — we actually only throw in half of the walnuts and chocolate during this step, because we chose to top the oatmeal before baking with the other half.

3. Now, add some sliced strawberries, again we only added half now and top the oatmeal before baking with the remaining half.

4. Grab another bowl and whisk together milk, one egg and vanilla extract.

5. Pour the oat mixture into the sprayed casserole. Arrange the remaining walnuts, chocolate and strawberries on top, then do the same with some sliced banana.

6. Next, pour the milk mixture all over the oats and shake or shimmy the baking dish so the wet ingredients make their way throughout the dry. You can see the shimmy action in the recipe video.

7. Place the baking dish onto a baking sheet (that is just in case anything bubbles over) and bake in a 375 degree F oven for 35-40 minutes until the wet ingredients have been absorbed, the oatmeal puffs up a bit and is golden brown on top.

8. If you feel like it, once the oatmeal has baked, sprinkle with a little bit more brown sugar on top and slide it under a hot broiler for 20-30 seconds to caramelize.

SERVING

9. Spoon into bowls and serve warm with an extra sprinkle of sugar or drizzle of maple syrup.

TIPS

A Make Ahead Meal and Freezer Friendly Oatmeal -

You can mix all of the oatmeal’s ingredients the night before cooking and then bake in the morning. If you do this, place bananas on the bottom of the dish and not on top of the oats since they may brown slightly over night.

You can also try freezing the oatmeal: After mixing everything together, tightly cover the oatmeal or pour into resealable plastic bags and freeze for up to one month. Then, when you want to bake the oatmeal, just remove from freezer, thaw and bake as directed. If you decide to do this, we suggest that you mix the fruit into the oatmeal instead of placing on top to prevent browning – especially the bananas.

Easy Recipe Substitutions -

This baked oatmeal recipe is easily adapted for dairy-free and egg-free diets. While we call for one egg in the recipe, we have had success removing the egg completely. Another easy substitution is replacing soy, almond or even coconut milk for the milk called for in the original recipe.

You can, of course, change the fruit and chocolate in the recipe, too. To reduce calories or level of sweetness, eliminate chocolate from the recipe all together. You could also substitute blueberries, blackberries or other fruit for the strawberries and banana.

Finally, if you wish to reduce the amount of sugar, readers have had success eliminating the sugar all together. You could do this or replace the sugar with honey or agave nectar.