Who needs those autumn-themed candles when you’ve got Apple Cinnamon Baked Oatmeal in the oven? NO ONE. This warm and cozy oatmeal casserole, of sorts, is the epitome of fall vibes. Not only will this baked oatmeal make your house smell amazing, but it’s an easy way to meal prep breakfast for the week ahead. It’s cozy, delicious, filling, and EASY. 🙌
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What is Baked Oatmeal?
If you’re new to baked oatmeal, it’s kind of like bread pudding, but made with oats instead of chunks of bread. It’s sweet, rich, hearty, and absolutely amazing. The texture is soft and moist, but not goopy like traditional oatmeal can be, and it gets just a little bit crispy around the edges of the baking dish. You can eat it hot out of the oven and the leftovers can be eaten cold or reheated in the microwave. I like to pour a little cold milk over top for a delicious hot-cold combo. Baked oatmeal can also be frozen in single-serving containers for quick reheatable weekday breakfasts!
Ingredients for Apple Cinnamon Baked Oatmeal
This apple cinnamon baked oatmeal combines our usual baked oatmeal base with apples that are coated in a little cinnamon and sugar, and then baked until they form an apple pie-like layer on the bottom of the oats. Here are the ingredients you’ll need to make this incredible apple cinnamon baked oatmeal:
- Fresh apples: Pick a sweet or semi-sweet variety of apple, like Fuji, Gala, or Honeycrisp. And, of course, take advantage of the fresh fall apples for the best price and flavor!
- Oats: Make sure to use old-fashioned rolled oats for this recipe, not quick oats or minute oats, to achieve the best texture. Quick oats are too thin and will create a mushier texture.
- Milk and eggs: Milk and eggs create a custard that keeps the baked oats soft, tender, and moist. I like to use whole milk, but you can substitute it with non-dairy milk if needed.
- Brown sugar and applesauce: Using both broth sugar and applesauce to sweeten the baked oatmeal creates an even bigger apple pie-like flavor without having to use too much added sugar.
- Spices: Cinnamon, cloves, and vanilla make these baked oats that classic fall aroma!
- Lemon juice: A little lemon juice brightens up the baked apples and really makes their flavor shine.
- Cornstarch and baking powder: These two ingredients are added for texture. The cornstarch helps thicken the apple juices as they bake, creating a pie-filling-like texture. The baking powder lightens the oat mixture just a touch so it’s not quite so heavy.
How to Serve Apple Cinnamon Baked Oatmeal
Baked oatmeal is pretty versatile. You can eat it either hot OR cold. I love it just out of the oven with a little cold milk poured over top, but it’s also great cold after it’s been refrigerated overnight. You can top it with some nuts or even some whipped cream for an even more dessert-like treat!
How to Store The Leftovers
After baking, divide the oatmeal into single-serving portions and refrigerate until completely cool. The baked oatmeal can be stored in the refrigerator for 4-5 days, or you can transfer it to the freezer for longer storage (about three months). Refrigerated or frozen baked oatmeal can be reheated quickly in the microwave.
Apple Cinnamon Baked Oatmeal
Servings 6 (about 1.3 cups each)Ingredients
Baked Apple Layer
- 4 medium apples (about 2 lbs. total) ($2.66)
- 1 Tbsp lemon juice ($0.06)
- 2 Tbsp brown sugar ($0.06)
- 1 Tbsp cornstarch ($0.03)
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon ($0.05)
- 1/8 tsp cloves ($0.02)
Baked Oatmeal Layer
- 1.5 cups unsweetened applesauce ($0.91)
- 1/4 cup brown sugar ($0.12)
- 2 large eggs ($0.18)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract ($0.59)
- 1 tsp salt ($0.05)
- 1 tsp baking powder ($0.06)
- 1 tsp cinnamon ($0.10)
- 1.5 cups milk* ($0.72)
- 2.5 cups old-fashioned rolled oats ($0.72)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Core and dice the apples.
- Place the diced apples in the bottom of a 9×9-inch (or 2 qt.) casserole dish. Add the lemon juice, brown sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, and cloves. Stir until the apples are coated in sugar and spices.
- Cover the dish with foil and bake for 15 minutes.
- While the apples are baking, prepare the baked oatmeal mixture. In a large bowl, whisk together the applesauce, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla, salt, baking powder, and cinnamon. Then add the milk and whisk to combine again.
- Finally, stir the dry oats into the applesauce mixture and stir until fully combined.
- After the apples come out of the oven, give them a good stir, then pour the oat mixture over top. Return the dish to the oven (uncovered) and bake for an additional 30 minutes.
- After baking for 30 more minutes the oats should be golden brown on top and you may see some of the apple cinnamon layer bubbling up around the edges. Let the oats cool for about five minutes before serving.
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Equipment
Notes
Nutrition
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How to Make Apple Cinnamon Baked Oatmeal – Step by Step Photos
Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Core and dice four medium apples (about ½ lb. each).
Place the apples in the bottom of a 9×9-inch or 2-quart casserole dish. Add 1 Tbsp lemon juice, 2 Tbsp brown sugar, 1 Tbsp cornstarch, ½ tsp cinnamon, and ⅛ tsp cloves. Stir until the apples are evenly coated in sugar and spices.
Cover the dish with foil and bake the apples for 15 minutes in the preheated 375ºF oven.
While the apples are baking, begin preparing the oat mixture. In a large bowl, whisk together 2 large eggs, 1.5 cups unsweetened applesauce, 1 tsp vanilla, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp cinnamon, and ¼ cup brown sugar.
Add 1.5 cups milk to the applesauce mixture, then whisk again to combine.
Add 2.5 cups rolled oats (not quick oats) and stir until everything is evenly combined.
After the baked apples come out of the oven, give them a stir, then pour the oat mixture over top of the apples. Place the dish back into the oven (uncovered) and bake for 30 minutes more.
After 30 minutes the oats should be golden brown around the edges and you might see some of the apple cinnamon layer bubbling up around the edges. Remove the baked oatmeal from the oven and let it cool for about 5 minutes before serving.
The bottom layer will be sweet and tender baked apples and the top layer will be a soft baked oatmeal. SO GOOD!
I like to eat my apple cinnamon baked oatmeal with a splash of cold milk on top!
I made this last night. I didn’t have applesauce, though. Instead, I omitted the spices and brown sugar and used my spiced apple butter instead. I got inspired and added a splash of maple flavoring. It turned out fantastic! I also made it with lactose free milk and had no issues. So now my hubby can enjoy it for breakfast with now worry!
I came to the comments section hoping to find a substitute for apple sauce. Thank you for sharing your ideas!
I used Granny Smith apples. The result was profoundly excellent. It made the kitchen smell like apple pie, and was so tasty that when I tried it there was no but-it’s-not-apple-pie let down at all. I especially like that it’s relatively low in sugar. I will be making it again soon–probably very soon, because I don’t see this batch lasting very long at all.
Beth, you mentioned you freeze single-serving portions. Have you ever tried baking this in muffin cups? If so, how’d you adjust the recipe?
I haven’t tried baking it in muffin cups, but I know other readers have and with success (I don’t know baking time, though). After baking it I usually divide it up into single serving portions (in those reusable Ziploc containers), freeze a few, and leave a few in the fridge for the week. They reheat really well in the microwave from both the refrigerator and freezer. :)
Beth, do you know if the readers who made them in muffin cups used paper liners? I am making this for a work breakfast tomorrow, and I would prefer to bake it as muffins to make it single servings. I know you haven’t personally done it as muffins, but do you think the consistency would hold up ok in a paper cupcake liner or is the apple layer too wet?
Thanks!!
WAIT! In case anyone else was wondering this same thing, I just had a brilliant solution idea to my own question. Foil cupcake liners!! That should take care of the sogginess factor!
I did not use cloves, vanilla extract, white sugar or apple sauce and it still turned out amazing. I used a bit of apple cider vinegar mixed with the oats and instead of white sugar I topped it with honey at the end. This is so good and it made the kitchen smell wonderful.
I forgot to mention that I used Golden Delicious apples.
Has anyone tried the oatmeal mix with honey instead of brown sugar? My girls love your baked oatmeal for dinner, but I don’t want to give them too much sugar before dinner (not that 1/4 cup is a lot, but still.) Also Beth, I can’t wait for your book to come out! I love your website and recipes so much!
Nice recipe! We made it last weekend to have breakfast for the whole week. We froze half of the batch to enjoy later. We added some fresh cranberries that we had on hand after making your cranberry apple baked oatmeal recipe.
This recipe was delicious! I made it with one braeburn and one honeycrisp because that’s what was in my fridge, and I diced the apples up pretty small. Served with frothed milk and a teeny tiny splash of brown sugar cinnamon syrup. Yum!
So after beginning this recipe I realized that I didn’t have any applesauce… Luckily I had a bottle of Redd’s Strawberry Apple Ale in the fridge. It also just so happened to be approx. 1.5 cups…Coincidence? I hope so! I’ll check back with the results.
I’m happy to announce that it turned out awesome! Very good and I’m glad I was able to make it work! Great recipe!
I would like to give it 5 stars but for some reason it won’t let me…
seriously delicious, thankyou!
Are you able to freeze this after you make it?
Yep, I freeze my baked oatmeal recipes all the time (in single serving sized portions). Then I just microwave it straight from the freezer and chow down!
Another gluten free winner! My boyfriend eats oatmeal almost every day but the normal microwave sticky goopy ick way, this is much better :)
This is awesome and I never change a recipe but today I did. Today I substituted 2 apples with 3 fresh peaches and instead of applesauce I used a bag of frozen peaches and blended them up for my peachsauce. That is all I changed and WOW……..
OF COURSE I find this recipe within 20 minutes of convincing myself that it’s okay to eat apple crumble for breakfast. Now I don’t have an excuse to have dessert for breakfast because i know your recipe will be delicious.
I used apple pie filling, mashed it up a bit, added some Splenda and it was super good!
I just made this–so good! I’m actually going to take it to a breakfast potluck in a few weeks. I replaced 1/2 cup of the oatmeal with ground flaxseed. Turned our perfectly! Thank you!!