I’ve tried making a Carrot Cake Baked Oatmeal a few times in the past, but I’ve never gotten it quite right until today. It has been a long time in the making, so I’m very excited to finally add the Carrot Cake Baked Oatmeal to my baked oatmeal collection. This version is packed with carrots and is only faintly sweet, with the occasional pop of sweetness from the raisins and cheesecake-inspired topping. So, when I say “Carrot Cake” Baked Oatmeal, please know that it’s a little figurative. This is breakfast that is reminiscent of carrot cake, not a dessert for breakfast. But if you do want a sweeter dessert-like oatmeal, you can simply increase the brown sugar to about 1/2 cup or more.
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What is Baked Oatmeal?
If you’ve never tried one of my baked oatmeal recipes, let me describe the texture for you. While the outer edges may get a little brown or crispy, the majority of the oatmeal is soft and moist, almost like a custard soaked oatmeal. Think bread pudding, but with thick oats instead of soft bread. And speaking of “thick oats” I do suggest using old-fashioned roll oats for this because they have such wonderful texture. People often ask if they can use instant oats, but this recipe is designed for old-fashioned rolled oats. Using instant oats will definitely change the texture and may throw off the moisture level since they absorb liquid differently than the thicker old-fashioned oats.
How to Serve Baked Oatmeal
Baked oatmeal is wonderfully versatile because it can be eaten hot out of the oven, chilled from the refrigerator, or reheated. I like to pour cold milk over top of the heated oatmeal for a nice temperature contrast. This is a great dish to prepare Sunday night so you can have a quick breakfast to reheat throughout the week. It will keep for about 4-5 days in the refrigerator, or can be frozen.
Want more Baked Oatmeal Recipes? Try Peanut Butter Brownie Baked Oatmeal, Sweet Potato Casserole Baked Oatmeal, Oatmeal Cookie Baked Oatmeal, or Blueberry Banana Baked Oatmeal.
Carrot Cake Baked Oatmeal
Servings 6Ingredients
- 1 lb. carrots ($0.89)
- 2 large eggs ($0.54)
- 1/3 cup brown sugar ($0.08)
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon ($0.05)
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg ($0.03)
- 1 tsp baking powder ($0.06)
- 1/2 tsp salt ($0.03)
- 2 cups milk ($0.75)
- 3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats ($0.51)
- 1/3 cup chopped walnuts* ($0.53)
- 1/3 cup raisins* ($0.57)
Cream Cheese Topping
- 4 oz. cream cheese, room temperature ($0.60)
- 1 large egg yolk ($0.27)
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract ($0.21)
- 1 tsp lemon juice ($0.02)
- 2 Tbsp sugar ($0.02)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Peel or scrub the carrots, then slice them into rounds. Boil or steam the carrots until they are extremely soft (I steamed for 15 minutes, but this will depend on the size of your carrots).
- Place the cooked carrots in a large bowl and mash with a potato masher. Add the eggs, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder, and salt. Whisk these ingredients together until well combined.
- Add the milk to the bowl and whisk until combined again. Finally, add the rolled oats, walnuts, and raisins and stir with a large spoon until combined. Pour the oat mixture into a 3 quart casserole dish coated with non-stick spray.
- In a separate small bowl, combine the cream cheese, egg yolk, vanilla, lemon juice, and sugar. Whisk or stir with a fork until smooth. If needed, microwave for 15 seconds to slightly warm the cream cheese mixture so it is slightly more fluid, then drizzle it over the oat mixture in the casserole dish.
- Bake the Carrot Cake Oatmeal for 45 minutes, or until the cream cheese mixture is slightly golden brown on top. Serve immediately, or divide into single portions, then refrigerate.
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Notes
Nutrition
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How to Make carrot Cake Baked Oatmeal – Step by Step Photos
Preheat your oven to 375ºF. Peel or scrub one pound of carrots, then slice them. Either boil or steam the carrots until they are VERY soft. I steamed my carrots in about 1-inch of water for about 15 minutes, but if your carrots are larger around, they may take longer to get to the point where they are soft enough to mash.
Place the cooked carrots in a large bowl and mash them with a potato masher.
Next, add 2 large eggs, 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg, 1 tsp baking powder, and 1/2 tsp salt. Whisk these ingredients together until smooth.
Whisk in 2 cups of milk until combined, then add 3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats, 1/3 cup chopped walnuts, and 1/3 cup raisins. The walnuts and raisins are optional. I actually forgot to add them this time because I was too busy following a Facebook discussion about bad drivers, so I ended up adding them to my bowl just before eating, which is another option.
Next, in a separate small bowl, combine 4 oz. room temperature cream cheese, 1 large egg yolk, 1/4 tsp vanilla extract, 1 tsp lemon juice, and 2 Tbsp sugar. Stir them together until smooth. This is basically a mini-batch of cheesecake, FYI. ;)
Spread the oat mixture into a 3 quart casserole dish that has been coated in non-stick spray. Press it down so that all the oats are as close to being in the liquid as possible. Warm the cream cheese topping, if needed, to make it pourable, then drizzle it over the oats (I microwaved it for 15 seconds. Just be careful not to COOK it in the microwave).
Bake the oatmeal for 45 minutes, or until the outer edges are a little brown and the cream cheese topping is golden brown.
Serve the Carrot Cake Baked Oatmeal immediately, or divide into single portions and refrigerate until you’re ready to eat.
I like to pour a little cold milk over my hot Carrot Cake Baked Oatmeal to get a nice temperature contrast. You can eat this oatmeal cold or hot!
Disgusting. Didn’t have enough sugar.
I’ve made several baked oatmeal recipes in the past and each one turned into a sloppy, soupy mess by the end of baking time. This one is perfect!
I followed the recipe, using 1/2 cup brown sugar and baked in a 9×13 dish for 35 minutes. Thank you, it is delicious.
Yum! I love including more vegetables in my diet.
I like to buy frozen chopped carrots. That way there’s no washing, peeling, or chopping. I just dump the bag into a pot and start cooking. :)
Absolutely love this recipe. But was just wondering if anyone has tried it without cooking the carrots? I just feel like I’m boiling away all the good nutrition. Could you do it with raw grated carrots like a carrot cake is made?
Hi, Chantel! Since we haven’t tested this recipe without cooking the carrots, I can’t guarantee the results will be equally successful– but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try it out and let us know how it goes! ~Marion :)
Thanks for the reply Marion. I’ll do a small batch as a test run and report back :)
So I just made zucchini bread baked oatmeal using this recipe as a guideline. I had a 12 oz zucchini to use up, so I grated it and subbed that for the carrot. I used 1/2c walnuts, no raisins, and I upped the brown sugar to 1/2c because I was worried about the lack of sweetness from the carrot. I skipped the “frosting”.
It was barely sweet, and tasted like zucchini bread – it’s right on the line where I almost wanted more sugar, but didn’t add any. My husband commented on how pretty it looked with the green stripes, and said, “I can’t taste the zucchini”, so win!
This turned out great. I subbed Swerve brown sugar for the sugar, macadamia nut milk for the milk, pecans for the walnuts , So Delicious vegan cream cheese for the cream cheese, ginger for the cinnamon and lime juice for the lemon juice. I have a lot of food sensitivities. It was just like a slightly sweet carrot cake and very tasty, also stuck with me all morning. Excellent recipe.
This was my first encounter with baked oatmeal, and it did not disappoint. I am not a morning person, but halfway through the week am wholly appreciating the ease of microwaving this satisfying yet not overly sweet breakfast.
I love this recipe SO MUCH, and I have made it more times than I can count!
I’ve doubled the recipe easily. and baked in two pans.
I’ve substituted cooked, pureed butternut squash for the carrots and it came out delicious and with an awesome texture! I’m sure sweet potato or pumpkin would also be delicious substitutes if that’s what you have on hand.
One time I didn’t have a lemon, so I added a SMALL (emphasis on SMALL!) pinch of cream of tartar in the cream cheese for that little bit of acidity. It worked great! Lemon is preferable for that added brightness, but this worked when I had nothing else!
I always bake in a 13×9 glass pyrex, so I lower the cooking time to 30 minutes and it’s always perfectly done! This makes it easy for me to cut into 8 equal portions. I just pull out one and microwave it for a minute to warm it up!
I’ve frozen individual slices with the cream cheese topping on it for easy breakfasts when I’m busy. I pull it out the night before, and it thaws overnight beautifully!
Truly, this is my favorite recipe on this website!
Best for breakfast ,I’m sure both olds and kids would love this recipe Thanks for sharing!.
Has anyone tried freezing individual portions of this yet? I would love to have this for a fast grab and go breakfast.
Please let me know. Thank you kindly.
I have. It reheats well in my opinion.
this is really a healthy recipe that you have shared with us. i would love to add this recipe in my morning breakfast.
About how much mashed cooked carrots do you end up with? I’m thinking I want to do this with canned pumpkin as well but I have no idea how much to use!
Unfortunately it looks like I didn’t measure the volume, but I do have a Pumpkin Pie Baked Oatmeal recipe that uses one 15oz. can, and a Sweet Potato Casserole Baked Oatmeal that uses 2 cups mashed sweet potato, so either of those might be a good template for you to use. :)
Wonder if you think this would be any good without the cream cheese topping? I don’t like to eat dairy much and would replace the milk with almond milk. Thoughts on it without the yummy topping?
Yes, I think it will still be pretty good. :)
I’ve been obsessed with all the baked oatmeal recipes of yours that I’ve tried so far and am excited to try this one. I’m curious, do you have any idea on the nutritional facts or calorie count for these recipes by chance?
No, I’m sorry I do not have the nutritional information. You can read more about why I do not display nutrition info in my FAQs.
Oh my god, this is good. Just took it out of the oven, and I can’t stop sneaking bites while it cools. My 9-year-old also loves it, and is very excited for supper!
I did the 1/2 cup of brown sugar, and it’s just sweet enough. Thanks for the wonderful recipe!
I appreciate that you keep the sugar low in your baked oatmeal recipes, but I wonder if you’ve ever tried a flat out savory version? Like maybe ham and cheese or a small fish and kale or a curry version or something?
I’ve only made one of your baked oatmeal recipes, so I don’t have a good sense of what kind of moisture and holding requirements you’d have to work through.
Hmm, I haven’t though about a savory version! Sounds like a strata made with oats instead of bread! It would be a little tricky, since I usually depend on mashed or puréed fruit for moisture and texture purposes in the oats, but I suppose you could use something like plain yogurt?
Yes, and you could lean towards wet vegetables like tomatoes, wilted greens, zucchini and summer squash.
Made it yesterday, and so far it’s quite a delicious breakfast ❤ I vehemently hate raisins and didn’t have any walnuts BUT I did have some dried cranberries and pecans, so not only I used them up, but also got (imho) an upgraded version. Win !
Do you think I could make this overnight in a slow cooker if I increased the liquid amount? I’ve made “baked” oats like these in it before and this seems like a delicious flavor I’d like to try. Saves me on time in the morning ;)
Honestly I’ve never tried to make a baked dish like this in a slow cooker before. :) But if you’ve made baked oats in a slow cooker before and it turned out well, it’s definitely worth a shot!
How did you get such low prices for walnuts and creamcheese? Walnuts for the amount you gave were 1.10 for me and 4 Oz creamcheese was 1.25. Are you buying in bulk? Or live in a small city?
I live in Nashville now and am lucky to be near an Aldi store, which has incredible prices. If you don’t have access to an Aldi store, walnuts are often less expensive if you can get them from a bulk bin, rather than pre-packaged, and for cream cheese I always buy the generic brand, and sometimes it’s on sale. Prices in cities do vary, as you mentioned, and prices definitely change over time, so I find that looking at the relationship between the ingredient prices is more valuable than looking at the actual price itself.
I’m interested how you’re getting .50 for 1/3 cup walnuts and .60 for 4 oz creamcheese? It was about 1.10 for that amount of walnuts and 1.24 for 4 oz creamcheese for me. Are you buying in bulk?
This was great! I didn’t have raisins so I did increase the brown sugar to a 1/2 cup and I thought the sweetness was perfect. I also didn’t have cream cheese so I subbed nonfat greek yogurt for the topping and that worked really well. All of the kids like it as well as my husband and I. This counts as getting them to eat veggies right? ;)
I have been making your baked oatmeals for a looong time, and although they’re all pretty good, this is the first true rival for funky monkey that I’ve come across. Well done, Beth, well done.
Just made this for my breakfasts for the rest of the week. Turned out pretty nice- I wouldn’t say it tastes like carrot cake, but it’s still pretty good! It has enough heartiness to keep you full for a while and a good contrast between the carrot oatmeal and the sweeter cream cheese topping. Make sure to reheat any leftovers you eat, it’s definitely better hot.
For anyone curious I prepped this at night and refrigerated the wet ingredients and the topping (separately) and in the morning mixed in the dry ingredients and topped with cream cheese mixture. It turned out great and even the leftovers were good! Any idea if this freezes well?
I wonder if I could put this together in the evening and bake it in the morning? Or would the oats soak up too much liquid?
They definitely will soak up the liquid, but that might not be a bad thing. :) I haven’t tried it this way, though, so I’m not sure how it will turn out.
I made this two nights ago and omitted the cheesecake topping (as I stated above) and used almond milk instead of moo milk. I found the oatmeal to be a bit dry so I’d recommend checking the dish at 35 minutes if you want that custardy center. This could have something to do with using almond milk. I’m not sure how their moisture levels compare.
Another thing I pondered while making this… The water I boiled my carrots in smelled like… carrots, duh! It’s possible some of the flavor from the carrots ends up in the water (like a broth) and down the drain. If I try this again, I’d steam them. I imagine that would be more beneficial nutritionally as well.
Another Budget Bytes recipe, another oopsie on my part. I looked in my cabinet to make sure I had all the ingredients, glanced in, saw I had Old Fashioned Oats, but never picked up the container to see how much was in there, and when I went to make the oatmeal I only had 1 1/2 cups. Even though it wasn’t what the recipe called for, I was pleased it was exactly half. Even with my personal snafu, the recipe still turned out well. I used 1 1/2 cups of Old Fashioned Oats, and 1 1/2 cups of Quick Oats, and it turned out well, not mushy at all. I wouldn’t recommend using Quick Oats for the entire recipe as I think it would be mushy, but in an oopsie moment, it worked out in my favor.
This recipe wasn’t overly sweet, and is very filling. It was delicious right out of the oven, and still the same level of tastiness reheated for breakfast throughout the week.
I enjoyed this baked oatmeal so much, I’m not going to try the banana version!
Thanks again for another great recipe!
Oh jeez, I meant to say; I enjoyed this baked oatmeal so much, I’m GOING to try the banana version.
Hahah, story of my life. I always *think* have an ingredient, only to find out I don’t, or don’t have as much as I thought. :)
I have a bunch of steel cut oats to use up…do you think this recipe would do well with those instead of old fashioned AND what sort of modifications would you use?
Unfortunately I think you’d need to make a LOT of changes if you used steel cut, and I’m not sure it will work without actually testing it. Steel cut oats need a lot more liquid and a lot more cooking time to soften, so you’d have to change a lot of the ingredient ratios and baking to make that swap. :(
I was super excited for this but it was extremely bland even though I increased the brown sugar to 1/2 cup. It may need more cinnamon and nutmeg. Could you finely grate the carrots instead of steaming them?
The first time I tried a carrot cake baked oatmeal I used shredded carrots and it didn’t turn out well (IMHO). The carrots still seemed hard and uncooked after baking and there wasn’t much carrot flavor, which is why I opted for the steamed and mashed carrots this time.
Very good! Made it according to your recipe and enjoyed it very much. Thank you!
Could I used canned carrots since you’re mashing them up anyways? I have so many so I’m just curious… I love carrot cake but I’ve never actually made it aside from the box.
The only issue you might have with canned carrots is that they may have a lot of added salt, which probably wouldn’t work well in this recipe.
This turned out great! I steamed my carrots in my rice cooker for 15 minutes in a bit of water. It was even better the second day after the oats had a chance to soften more. I think I might try using sweet potato and pecans for the next batch.
I made this and it’s good–I like that it isn’t overly sweet and the topping kind of brings it all together. I used neufchâtel cheese for lower calories and fat. However, I am not a big fan of the boiled and mashed carrots. Do you think this recipe would still work if I were to shred them instead?
The first time I tried making a carrot cake baked oatmeal I tried it with shredded carrots and it didn’t work well at all, IMHO. The carrots didn’t seem to soften at all and there was not carrot flavor throughout the dish. Also, when you use mashed carrots it helps create the custard-like consistency of the baked oatmeal. All of my baked oatmeals have some sort of mashed fruit or vegetable, like bananas, apple sauce, sweet potato, etc. So changing that part might change the texture of the dish as a whole.
I love your baked oatmeals, but I would like to add more protein to them, because I get fewer food cravings if my breakfast is higher protein. Any suggestions for how much egg or whey protein I could add and how much sugar I could take out of these recipes and still taste good?
I’ve added 2 scoops of protein before to her other baked oatmeal recipes with no change to the recipe itself, I just use a heavy hand when pouring the liquid.
That said, if you add a third scoop you’ll likely need an extra few tablespoons of milk – unless you’re removing sugar.
Hard to say how much you could take out and have it taste “good” – it’s a matter of preference, if it were me, I would start with 1/4 sugar and taste my batter before baking, you could add more from there depending on taste.
I made this today, and added 1/4 tsp ginger. It was a hit with everyone, including my brother in law who professed he hates oatmeal and raisins. Win!
Just made this for Easter breakfast- delicious. Used Wheat Montana 7-grain blend & neufchatel type cream cheese. I did not have any walnuts so used Trader Joes toasted pumpkin spice pumpkin seeds- great addition. I would have posted a picture of my results but did not see an upload. Cooked the carrots and measured everything out the night before to speed up prep time.
Would make this again- husband is on his 3rd bowl
I made this today since we have a ton of carrots to use up, and it was great! I set it to bake while we made dinner (the spinach kale skillet–one of our favorites!) and then had some of it for dessert. I mashed the carrots with a fork, which took kind of awhile, but it didn’t matter that they weren’t completely mashed. I didn’t have nutmeg on-hand, so used cloves, which still tasted great. I also used a teensy bit more brown sugar since I wasn’t using raisins. Now our house smells like Thanksgiving! I ended up eating about 1/4 of the pan over the course of the last hour, so…be careful!
*I meant SAUSAGE kale skillet!
I’m a big fan of your baked oatmeal, especially chocolate banana! Carrot cake sounds interesting but I’m looking for that decadent dessert-for-breakfast splurge kind of meal. I’ll try experimenting with the sweetness, maybe candy the walnuts.
We don’t frost our carrot cake, so.im wondering how this would be without it.
I really feel like the cream cheese topping makes this extra special. Also, since the oat part of it is not really sweet at all, the topping adds that little bit of sweetness needed to make it reminiscent of carrot cake.
I omitted the cheesecake topping for my first attempt and wish I wouldn’t have.
You’re speaking my language, Beth. I LOVE carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. What a perfect pairing to enjoy for breakfast. I’m definitely going to make this recipe very soon!!!! :-)