During the hot summer months all I ever want to eat is lemon raspberry slushies. There’s something about that sweet tart flavor that I find ultra refreshing.
Lemon raspberry muffins are also pretty tasty, so I thought, “why not put that flavor into oatmeal for summer?” It worked very well!
I increased the size of this recipe so that I could use a whole bag of raspberries and not have any left over (I hate having odds and ends of things in my cupboards and freezer). This recipe makes 8 sizable portions. Because I increased the volume and it contains some fairly tart ingredients (lemon, raspberry, yogurt), I also upped the sugar just a smidge. It’s still only about 1 tablespoon per serving, which is far less than most colas and breakfast cereals.
While mixing up the lemon raspberry “custard”, the scent was so intoxicating that it took everything in me to not eat it raw (there are eggs in there, so that’s a big no-no). The lemon zest, vanilla, and raspberries combined create this magical, cake-like smell that was absolutely heavenly. This is definitely one of my top 3 favorite baked oatmeals (#1 is the banana bread, #2 is the pumpkin pie flavored). You’ve gotta try this one!
Oh, and hey, it’s summer, so you might just be able to find fresh raspberries for a lower price than frozen!
Lemon Raspberry Baked Oatmeal
Lemon Raspberry Baked Oatmeal
Ingredients
- 3 cups old fashioned oats ($0.51)
- 1 1/2 cups plain yogurt ($0.75)
- 1 1/2 cups milk ($0.56)
- 2 large eggs ($0.36)
- 1/2 cup sugar ($0.08)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract ($0.28)
- 1 tsp baking soda ($0.05)
- 1/2 tsp salt ($0.02)
- 1 large lemon ($0.69)
- 12 oz. frozen raspberries ($3.39)
Instructions
- Clean the lemon well, and then remove the zest using a fine cheese grater or zester. In a large bowl, combine the lemon zest, juice from half the lemon, eggs, milk, yogurt, sugar, vanilla extract, salt, and baking soda. Whisk until smooth.
- Stir in the raspberries (thawed), and then stir the oats. Coat a casserole dish with non-stick spray and pour in the oat mixture.
- Place the dish in a preheated 375 degree oven and bake for about 45 minutes or until the center is no longer liquid. Serve hot.
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Notes
Nutrition
Step By Step Photos
First clean the lemon well to remove any debris or waxes on the surface of the lemon. Zest the lemon, trying to get as much of the yellow and as little of the white pith as possible.
In a large bowl combine the lemon zest, juice from half of the lemon, milk, yogurt, eggs, sugar, vanilla extract, salt, and baking soda. Whisk until smooth.
Allow the raspberries to thaw before you use them so that they don’t clump up in the mixture. Also, if you add them frozen it will make the whole mixture very cold and then it will take much longer to bake.
Stir the raspberries into the milk mixture.
Lastly, stir the oats into the lemon raspberry mixture. Coat a casserole dish with non-stick spray and pour in the oat mixture. This dish was slightly too small for this recipe, but it still worked. If you choose a large dish, the oat mixture will be more shallow and will cook faster. If you use a smaller, deeper dish (like mine), it may take longer to bake.
Bake the oats in a preheated 375 degree oven for about 45 minutes or until the center is no longer liquid. The center might be slightly jiggly, but it should not be wet to the touch. As it bakes it will also rise up, so you can gauge the done-ness by whether the center has risen to the height of the outer edges.
I like to eat mine with a little bit of cold milk poured over top! You can either divide it into individual portions and refrigerate, or just refrigerate the whole dish and scoop some out each morning. I give it a quick reheat in the microwave and then I’m good to go!
For the poster that asked about doing it with Steel Cut oats… I just did it, and it turned out great! I doubled the milk, and doubled the yogurt (I used greek as that’s what I had in the house) and baked it in a 9 x 11 glass casserole dish for and hour and 15 minutes. Perfect! Has that chewy steel cut texture, and the lemon raspberry flavor is UH-MAY-ZING! I like my oatmeal the next day, when it’s cold and chewy ;)
Mama May – Fresh raspberries should work exactly the same as frozen :) Use the same quantity and everything! You’re lucky!
How would fresh raspberries be you think? Here in the Willamette Valley in Oregon raspberry picking is plentiful this time of year!
Duffey – Oooh, lemon cherry sounds amazing! The baking soda just helps it fluff up a touch while it bakes. Since there’s already a bunch of acid from the lemon juice, you can use baking soda instead of baking powder. I didn’t measure the lemon zest and juice, I just used what I got from one lemon. Those two ingredients are pretty flexible so even if you had a slightly larger or smaller lemon it would still be fine :)
We made this today for Father’s Day. I didn’t have any raspberries and I had already gotten cherries at the store earlier so I used cherries instead. It turned out wonderful! I doubled the recipe since we are a family of 7. No leftoevers! I was wondering, what purpose does the baking soda serve? How much lemon zest and juice to you need? I wasn’t sure with doubling it. Great idea using cupcake tins. I am going to try that next time.
this looks fabulous! I cannot wait to try it this weekend. The only substitution I will make is to use Stevia instead of sugar.
I love baked oatmeal and have been looking for a new recipe…most of the ones I find have a lot of fall flavors. This one is perfect for summer! It’s soooo good. Thanks!!
Oh wow, thanks for the quick reply! I just pulled it out of the oven. I eyeballed the milk and added coconut and almonds to beef it up a bit more. Its really yummy and seems to be basically the same consistency as normal porridge/oatmeal, maybe a bit drier. I definitely like it though!
When I saw someone say about apple pie baked oatmeal, you could probably do it in a similar way to an apple crumble. I know we have had it for breakfast before and you could make it more of a breakfast with more oats maybe
Anna – You could replace the yogurt with milk, if you’d like. But, maybe reduce the volume to about 1 cup to keep it from being too watery.
could this be done without the yoghurt?
I’m a sucker for raspberry/lemon flavor too, so this was an excellent recipe! By the way, they popped out of the muffin tin just fine! I’m excited for 10 more servings of this! I think they would freeze well too. Thanks for the recipe!!
carlygrey – Excellent ideas (especially the muffin tin)!! Thanks for sharing :D
I just made this with coconut nectar sugar and coconut milk instead of using the dairy products and refined sugar, mainly because I didn’t want to go to the grocery store (haha) but also because I try really hard to limit my dairy and sugar intake. The mix also fit perfectly in a dozen cupcake pan. Even though it’s 8 portions, this made it stretch a little bit more and had some eggs with one cupcake portion to up my protein intake. Delightful!! I’m curious to see if these will become dense enough once cooled to pop out of the cupcake pan for an on-the-go breakfast treat. They are still pretty hot from the oven.
Thanks for the fast reply! I love soy and almond milk, thanks for that suggestion. Maybe i will have to experiment with adapting this into bars and post my results!
Gina – Other readers have used soy and almond milk in the baked oatmeal recipes with good success, although you may want to reduce the sugar if you use a sweetened variety. To make these into bars you could probably just reduce the liquid a bit, although I’m not sure how much without experimenting with it. The baked oatmeal is already semi-solid (I had to break it up for the photos) but probably too soft for bars.