Make it: Easy Baked Banana Oatmeal for Busy Folks

When school started back in session in August, I was overwhelmed as a new mom with everything that had to be done in the morning before leaving the house. Kudos to all the working moms out there! It was much more demanding and hectic than I thought it would be.

One thing that helped me get ready in a timely fashion was having things done the night before. I started packing both breakfast and lunch at least the night before so it was easy to grab. I looked for recipes that would be easy to make on Sunday and able to divide into five parts so I could have breakfast for the whole week ready to go.

Although we normally focus on educational materials, I thought I would share this recipe with you since it helped me have something healthy and tasty to eat each morning and made my school day start a little better.

As a bonus, this recipe would work for all sorts of diets such as gluten free, vegan, vegetarian, dairy free and low sugar!

I adapted this recipe from Sweet Roots.

Easy Baked Banana Oatmeal

3 bananas
2 cups oats
2 tablespoons ground flax seeds (I never left these out but I think the recipe would be fine without them too.)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup liquid sweetener such as maple syrup or even a Da Vinci syrup (I tried one time with sugar free hazelnut and it was good!)
Season to taste with cinnamon and salt
1 can coconut milk - both light and heavy work okay for this

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and grease an 8x8 inch pan.

2. Slice the bananas and layer them along the bottom of the pan. If you wish, you can also save some bananas for on the top of the oatmeal.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix together the oats, flax seeds, baking powder, liquid sweetener and vanilla extract. Add salt and/or cinnamon if you would like. I enjoyed this with cinnamon!

4. Press the mixture over the bananas into the pan. If you have more bananas to add to the top of the oatmeal, slice them on top now.

5. Pour the coconut milk over the top of the oatmeal. Don't worry if it doesn't soak in right away.

6. Bake for 40 minutes. I have enjoyed this hot or cold and it's a great amount for the whole week!  Typically I made this on Sunday and divided it into containers for the whole week after it cooled so each morning I could just grab breakfast and go.

Hope this recipe can help make your mornings a little easier.