It’s been fooooorever since I’ve made baked oatmeal! I’ve been craving that peanut butter and chocolate lately, so instead of making a full blown dessert, I decided to work those flavors into a breakfast-worthy baked oatmeal. This Peanut Butter Brownie Baked Oatmeal is super rich and delicious without being overly sweet. In fact, it only has 1/4 cup brown sugar for the entire dish! The rest of the sweetness comes from mashed bananas, which also keep the baked oatmeal nice and moist. I like to keep my baked oatmeals with just a light kiss of sweetness, so if you’re looking for something more on the dessert level, consider doubling the sugar.
Want more oatmeal recipes? Check out our Oatmeal Recipe Archives!
This post contains some affiliate links, which means that we make a small commission off items you purchase at no additional cost to you.
What is Baked Oatmeal?
If you’re new to the baked oatmeal club, let me say first that the texture is not crunchy like granola (a common misconception when looking at the photos). It’s a moist semi-solid, similar to bread pudding. Baked oatmeal makes a great reheatable breakfast for the week and it even freezes great if you just want a portion once in a while. You can eat it cold, warmed up, or with a splash of milk over top. It’s totally up to you. It does need to be refrigerated after baking, though.
Remember how cocoa puffs would turn the milk in the bottom of your bowl into chocolate milk? This kinda does that. :D Hello childhood!
Can I Substitute the Banana?
While I haven’t tried any substitutes for the banana in this particular recipe, I do make other baked oatmeal recipes with applesauce or yogurt instead. My first choice here would probably be yogurt because the dairy will most likely pair well with the chocolate.
Peanut Butter Brownie Baked Oatmeal
Servings 6Ingredients
- 1.5 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3 medium bananas) ($0.68)
- 1 large egg ($0.27)
- 1/4 cup natural peanut butter ($0.31)
- 1/4 cup brown sugar ($0.04)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract ($0.28)
- 1/2 tsp salt ($0.02)
- 1 tsp baking powder ($0.06)
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon ($0.05)
- 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder ($0.29)
- 2 cups whole milk ($1.12)
- 3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats* ($0.50)
- 2 Tbsp natural peanut butter (for topping) ($0.15)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375ºF.
- Mash the bananas well, then place them in a large mixing bowl along with the egg, peanut butter, brown sugar, vanilla, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, and cocoa powder. Whisk until the mixture is mostly smooth (there may be small pieces of banana).
- Add the milk to the chocolate banana mixture, and then whisk until smooth again. Add the dry rolled oats and then stir until combined.
- Pour the oat mixture into a 2-3 quart casserole dish coated with non-stick spray. Drizzle the remaining 2 Tbsp peanut butter over the oats and drag a knife through to create swirls. If needed, warm the peanut butter slightly to make it runny enough to drizzle over the oats.
- Bake the oats in the preheated oven for 45 minutes. Serve warm, or refrigerate until ready to eat.
See how we calculate recipe costs here.
Notes
Nutrition
Have you tried this recipe?Mention @budgetbytes or tag #budgetbytes on Instagram!
How to Make Peanut Butter Brownie Baked Oatmeal – Step by Step Photos
Begin by preheating the oven to 375ºF. Mash 3 to 4 bananas until you have 1.5 cups of banana mash.
Place the mashed banana in a large mixing bowl along with 1 large egg, 1/4 cup natural peanut butter, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp baking powder, and 1/2 tsp cinnamon. Whisk these ingredients together until they’re fairly smooth.
Add 2 cups whole milk to the mixture and whisk until smooth again. You may have some small chunks of banana and that’s okay.
Finally, stir 3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats into the batter until everything is well combined.
Pour the oat mixture into a 2-3 quart casserole dish coated with non-stick spray. Drizzle 2 Tbsp more natural peanut butter over the oat mixture. You may need to warm the peanut butter to get it runny enough to drizzle.
I like to drizzle it in thin lines going horizontally, then drag a knife in the opposite direction a few times to create subtle swirls. Bake the oatmeal in the preheated oven for 45 minutes.
After 45 minutes the Peanut Butter Brownie Baked Oatmeal will look a little more like this and your house will smell AMAZING. Now you can dig in, or refrigerate it for later.
Baked oatmeal is actually really good both warm AND cold.
But my favorite way to eat it is warmed with cold milk poured over top. :)
Can you sub maple syrup for the brown sugar? My concern is altering the consistency. Thanks!
It might change the consistency some, but since the ingredient amount is fairly small overall, I don’t think it will be a huge issue. But that’s my guess, sometimes it’s hard to know without actually trying it. :)
Love your recipes! Where can I find the calorie counts for the recipes? Thank you!
Hi Eileen, I’m sorry I do not have the nutritional information for my recipes. There are plenty of online calculators that allow you to put recipe ingredients in and it will calculate for you, but I do not trust these and therefore can’t post the stats with good conscious. If you still want to try calculating them anyway, just google “recipe nutrition calculator” and you’ll find several to choose from.
I added about a quarter cup of chocolate PB2 (powdered peanut butter) and this made them very peanut buttery tasting. I don’t like mushy, so adding the powder and about half a cup more oats made this more into oatmeal bars.
How long would this keep in the fridge for?
about 4-5 days
Oh my goodness! This is amazing! I have never made baked oatmeal before and didn’t think I would like it, but this tastes so good. It will definitely be going into my list of go-to recipes from now on. Thank you all the great recipes (especially all the vegetarian ones)!
I ADORE this recipe, but I’m a bit of a slow mixer and our mornings are often a little hectic – thinking about mixing this the night before and just adding the milk and oats in the morning before baking. Has anyone else done this? Would it mess with the texture or anything?
As long as you mix in the oats in the morning, it should work just fine. :) You may find that you need a couple extra minutes of baking time since the liquids will be very chilled going in.
I almost always make my baked oatmeal completely (oats and all) the night before and leave it in the fridge. In the morning, I let it sit out on the counter while the oven preheats and then pop in the oven. Sometimes I add a little extra milk, but with this recipe I did not. I find that given the “forgiving” texture of baked oatmeal, you really can’t mess it up. If it is a bit dry after baking, splash some milk on it. :) However, I haven’t found that it’s drier that baked oatmeal not made in advance.
Wonderful – thank you both!
We loved this baked oatmeal recipe! We’ve also made the pumpkin pie baked oatmeal and apple pie baked oatmeal several times, which were both fantastic! The only surprise with this recipe is that we expected it to have a peanut butter and brownie flavor and both of these flavors were on point, but we were surprised by how banana-y it tasted. Both of us like bananas, so this was fine with us! Someone who doesn’t like them may want to cut back, though.
I made this today and it wasn’t particularly sweet. The only thing I can think of was that I didn’t measure out 1.5 cups of bananas exactly, I just used 3 medium bananas, but I doubt that’s it since I can mostly only taste banana. Any guesses? I love the texture and concept of an easy breakfast for the week, but I want to commit to the sweetness more.
Yes, I purposely didn’t make it very sweet, but if you prefer a more dessert-like flavor you can double the brown sugar to 1/2 cup and that should do it. :)
I would like to suggest adding honey for a natural sweetness instead of brown sugar if you’re trying to get a healthy snack/breakfast. Great for an energy boost and if it’s local you get the added benefit of an immune boost.
I want to try this recipe and will probably do the same. :)
Every time I make this, people at work ask me what it is and today someone asked me for the recipe! Not only is it a great way to use bananas that are past their prime, it’s great that it makes 6 servings, so if I can carve out a couple hours on a weekend to make it, I have breakfast for the whole week ahead! I love the peanut butter flavor, and that it’s not too sweet but still feels indulgent!
I subbed applesauce for the egg and almond milk for regular milk due to dietary restrictions and this was delicious. This will be going in my regular rotation and I can’t wait to try your other baked oatmeal recipes!
I replaced the mashed bananas with pumpkin puree and this makes for a very tasty but not too sweet breakfast dish that’ll last all week!
I would love nutritional information posted with the recipe too!
This was ok but doesn’t hold a candle to the pumpkin pie baked oatmeal. It’s a much dryer end product, as well. Maybe it was my hippie PB but the mixture def wasn’t sweet enough to keep up with the cocoa. Kids liked it, though!
Love your recipes, thanks for your work!
Make it vegan: chia or flax egg, oat milk instead of whole dairy milk (I’m sure another would work just fine, just make sure it’s unsweetened).
Tastes dreamy; thanks for this!
I like bananas, but not really in baked items. How much of the banana flavor do you taste? Looks great otherwise!
I could taste the banana. You can try substituting unsweetened apple sauce instead. :)
Would you use the same amount? I‘d suppose apple sauce would be runnier than mashed banana?
Yes you use the same amount.