Baked oatmeal – a staple in our home on the weekends – nourishes our family, providing a much-loved alternative to soaked oatmeal porridge. When my father, a man who rarely enjoys a home-cooked meal, comes to visit there is, inevitably, one imperative dish on the menu: baked oatmeal – all the better when it’s dotted with dried cranberries, apricots and nuts. I could pan-fry a great steak or roast a chicken so savory and herbaceous it could bring tears to your eyes, but it is always baked oatmeal that must greet him on his visits.
And why not? Baked oatmeal is both deeply nutritive and deeply satisfying. Steel cut oats are gently soaked overnight in water acidified by a touch of yogurt or fresh whey which helps to increase not only your body’s ability to better digest the grain, but also your body’s ability to better absorb its minerals. Oats are rich in minerals, including phosphorus, magnesium, manganese, iron and zinc, but due to the effects of naturally occurring antinutrients found in whole grain, such as phytic acid, those minerals due your body little good unless oats are properly prepared as they are in this recipe. Moreover, oats are a rich source of B vitamins including folate – that critical nutrient which is vital to reproductive health and the proper development of babies growing within their mothers’ wombs (read more about best sources for vitamins and minerals).
Serve baked oatmeal with plenty of fresh yogurt and a touch of maple syrup.
In our home, we serve baked oatmeal on Sunday mornings with a hefty dollop of fresh, homemade yogurt – occasionally including a touch of maple syrup as a treat. This recipe for baked oatmeal yields approximately sixteen servings, which means plenty of leftovers to serve us a quick and easy breakfast for the rest of the week.
Baked Oatmeal with Dried Fruit & Nuts
Wholesome, filling and a perfect alternative to soaked oatmeal porridge, baked oatmeal nourishes and satisfies. This recipe for baked oatmeal is seasoned with cinnamon and dotted by the inclusion of raisins, dried cranberries and apricots, though you can use any dried fruit you have on hand. A combination of chopped almonds and dried cherries yields a beautiful result. Some families might find they prefer baked oatmeal without the addition maple syrup; yet others, who are just beginning their transition into real food may prefer to sweeten the dish with up to one-quarter cup maple syrup. I recommend you choose grade B maple syrup, which is richer in flavor and less expensive than grade A maple syrup.
Ingredients for Baked Oatmeal
- 1 pound steel cut oats
- 1 cup walnuts, or other nuts
- 2 tablespoons yogurt, kefir, whey or buttermilk (see sources), for soaking
- dash unrefined sea salt
- 6 pastured eggs
- 2 cups whole, fresh milk (see sources)
- up to ¼ cup maples syrup (optional)
- ½ cup raisins or dried cranberries
- ½ cup dried unsulfured apricots, diced
- 2 tablespoons cinnamon
- ¼ cup coconut oil, plus extra for greasing baking dish
Method for Preparing Baked Oatmeal
- Pour the steel cut oats and nuts into a ceramic container or mixing bowl.
- Add enough filtered water to completely submerge your oats and nuts. Add a dash of salt and a two tablespoons of fresh yogurt, whey, kefir or buttermilk.
- Allow the oats and nuts to soak, covered, overnight in a warm place in your kitchen – about eight to twelve hours.
- After the mixture of oats and nuts has soaked overnight, dump them into a colander to drain and place the mixture back into the ceramic container or mixing bowl.
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and grease a 13 x 9-inch rectangular baking pan with coconut oil or another wholesome fat of your choosing.
- Meanwhile beat together eggs, milk, maple syrup (if you’re using it), until well-combined and frothy.
- Pour the mixture of eggs, milk and maple syrup over the soaked oats and nuts, stirring well to combine into a porridge-like mixture.
- Gently fold dried fruit, cinnamon and coconut oil into the porridge-like mixture.
- Pour the mixture into a greased baking pan and smooth it out with a rubber spatula to ensure even baking and a good appearance.
- Bake in an oven preheated to 375 degrees Fahrenheit for forty to forty-five minutes or until the oatmeal achieves a pleasing golden-brown color on top, a knife inserted into its center comes out clean and free from liquid and the fragrance of baked oats, dried fruit and cinnamon perfumes your kitchen.
- If you can bear the wait, allow the baked oatmeal to cool for five to ten minutes before cutting into squares and serving.
YIELD: 12 to 16 servings
TIME: 10 minutes (preparation), 8 to 12 hours (soaking), 40 to 45 minutes (baking)
This looks like a fantastic recipe. I have three questions before I try it:
Where did the maple syrup go? It’s in the ingredient list, but it’s not mentioned throughout the recipe.
Do you grease the casserole dish?
What is an average baking time to “golden and fragrant?”
Hurry, I’m really hungry!
Dan
Thanks for the comment – I didn’t notice that I left out an ingredient. I add maple syrup at the same time as add the other liquids. I don’t grease the dish, but it couldn’t hurt. For me, at 10K feet, the baking time is about 45 minutes.
Good luck!
Thank you so much, Jenny. I’ll let you know how it works out at 94 feet above sea level (Port Clinton, Ohio). Where are you?
By the way, I’ve never used coconut oil, and I don’t have any. Would you suggest butter or olive oil as a replacement?
Thanks again,
Dan
Delicious! The 45 minute bake-time worked just fine, here, much closer to sea level. I think it would be helpful to include a recommended size for the casserole dish in the recipe — definetly bigger than and 8×8 pan! I didnt’ realize how much the oats would expand when they soaked up all that water — ended up using a 9×13, and that worked quite well. Also, I did grease the pan before baking. Do you?
Thank you for this recipe. I tried this today and thought it was really good. My kids think that it needs a bit more cinnamon and a few more raisins.
I did spray the pan with Pam first. This took about 45 minutes to cook for me and I think it could have used a little longer, but we had to get to school so I couldn’t let it finish all the way. Next time I know.
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It looks very testy. I’ll try to do it. But I always forget to prepare it in the evening. I like oatmeal with milk and raisins. So your receipt is idea for me to do something new. I agree, it’s so healthy. My Mom says it’s the best remedy to be always yang.
So how do you serve this? What is the texture? Is it crispy or more soggy? Instead of yogurt, could you serve with milk or cream? I’m very curious and want to try this but not sure how to serve…
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thanks so much for posting this recipe. my kids love oatmeal and we eat it a lot, and I’m looking forward to trying this.
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I love doing baked oatmeal too, but I soak mine in kefir. I’ll have to try it with steel cut oats. I’ve been using rolled oats.
I make a recipe similar to this, called Amish Breakfast Bake. We are mostly Gluten-free in our house, so we have made this recipe with Gluten-free Oats (Bob’s Red Mill), or Brown Rice, or Cream of Rice. Sometimes we add a handful of coconut, or pureed peaches, or frozen blueberries YUM! Anyway we have made it has been great, a very forgiving recipe. My kids love to wake up to the smell of baked oatmeal : )
My husband isn’t a raisin fan, so we added dried cranberries instead, and I added a splash of vanilla as well, and served it with vanilla cream on top. It was incredible. Thank you so much for the recipe.
We were thinking that this could be made savory, as well, by eliminating the maple syrup and the cinnamon…then adding pastured sausage or bacon crumbled in, and cheese either mixed in or added on top…maybe mushrooms, too.
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Jenny,
Thank you so much for this recipe! After 3 years, I finally came up with an oatmeal recipe my kids ENJOY inspired by this post! Apple/Cinnamon Oatmeal.
http://spaininiowa.blogspot.com/2009/05/baked-apple-cinnamon-oatmeal.html
Thanks again and I’m so glad I found your blog!
Diana
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I’m so happy that you found one that works for your family! This is definitely a standby in our house.
How about nuking the coconut oil in the microwave just until it’s melted and then add to the milk mixture? Then you don’t have to worry about clumps and the coconut oil will distribute throughout.
Hi D: I definitely wouldn’t nuke the coconut oil. We don’t use microwaves in our household and I don’t recommend their use to my readers. I think you’ll find that despite the fact that the coconut oil is chunky when you add it to the oats, it distributes nicely and evenly throughout the baking process. Take Care – J
Hey Jenny!
This looks delish, but I live alone, and I don’t think I could eat the whole thing in any reasonable amount of time. Could I freeze squares of it and heat them up in the oven? Thanks!
I finished this recipe this morning (it’s still in the oven) and would love to make a suggestion for those with chickens, if it hasn’t already been thought of.
I noticed all the “oat’s water” that strained out and since I don’t like to waste things that have nutrients (but I don’t necessarily want to consume it either!) I decided to give this strained water to my chickens instead of their regular water.
They loved it! I’ve never seen them consume so much liquid at one time. Plus, it gives me a great contentment concerning the nutritional value of their eggs and meat, esp. in such a frugal way.
Rachel
Rachel -
Thanks for sharing th great tip about feeding chickens the discarded oat water. I HATE waste in a kitchen, so an ingenious tip like that is awesome.
Thanks for sharing -
Jenny
Rachel ~
I have a dozen backyard chickens who thank you for your great idea!
~Cynthia~
I have the same question as Robin. I, too, live alone and wonder what is good as leftovers. I don’t want to lose nutrient quality if I freeze or refrigerate for later consumption. I’m going to try cutting down the recipes to make smaller servings, b/c I’m not a leftover fan anyway.
Thanks!
Bravo! The more we eat like this, the better we’ll feel. What a great recipe. Roxanne Sukol MD “Your Health is on Your Plate” at yourhealthisonyourplate.com
I’m looking forward to trying this recipe! We are gluten-free as well as dairy, egg and soy free. I wonder if you have any ideas on how I could replace the eggs in this recipe? We eat alot of oatmeal and would love to have some variation.
Sounds yummy…. we are dairy free because of my son’s allergy…
Do you have any ideas of what to substitute for the dairy during the soaking process to make the whole grain easier to digest?
Can this be made with other grains like millet or barley? Do the grains have to be ground or cut, or could I just use a whole grain/groat?
Super yummy!!!! Just had a variation of this for lunch. I am having a hard time not going back for more!!! What I did: I used one third steel cut oats (all I had in the house) and 2/3 of a 7 grain cereal blend (local, organic and similar in texture to the steel cut oats). No dried apricots so I doubled the cranberries. Had a some over ripe bananas so I diced one up and tossed it in. (backed a couple tablespoons of milk out to balance moist banana). Added one extra tablespoon of cinn.(can never have too much) added a splash of real vanilla (makes all baked things better). Opted for 3 tablespoons or so of honey vs maple syrup . I also used raw almonds for my nut add in. The added bonus was since I gave the almonds a chopping in my Vita-mix and I had the coconut oil handy I whipped up some very yummy almond butter
) Thanks for the recipe!!
Thanks, loved this recipe. Our 20 month old calls it oatmeal cake (not sure if its due to appearance of the serving or her mishearing the word ‘bake’
and has requested it for breakfast for the past three days straight 
.
We were low on oats, so I halved the main ingredient quantities (oats, eggs, milk, cinnamon, butter (we didnt have coconut oil)) keeping nuts and raisins the same (we like our nuts and raisins in crazy quantities) and it worked out well for a very hungry but small 2.5 person family! We served it with honey as we are also out of maple syrup and it was great, but I can see how honey can overpower it too. Cant wait to try it with apricots and craberries once we stock up on all that stuff
jenny, have you read that adding a small amount of flour to oats when soaking increases the break down of the phytic acid? i used to only soak mine with water and whey, but now i add a couple of tablespoons of flour… and if someone is dairy intolerant, i think lemon juice would be a nice alternative to
soooo looking forward to trying the recipe. i love steel cut oats! thanks!
whey/yogurt.
I have yet to make any kind of baked oatmeal. It looks absolutely fabulous!
We make baked oatmeal, but this one sounds great! Can’t wait to try it next time.
Re: melting coconut oil, what I do is put the coconut oil in the baking dish and bake it for a few minutes while the oven preheats. This gets the coconut oil melted, tghe dish greased, and the oven preheated, all at once!
I’m so excited to try this. I always say that if I could only eat one dish for the rest of my life, it would be oatmeal and raisins. I love oatmeal in all it’s incarnations and this is one I have never heard of. I feel like I’ve made a wonderful discovery this morning… and perhaps my picky kids might eat it too.
Made this when you first published it. So yummy even my grandson loved it. I didn’t have cranberries or apricots so just doubled up on the raisins (can’t have too many raisins!).
I’m guessing almond milk combined with coconut milk would make a good milk replacer?
Can’t wait to try it!
This is a great recipe, Jenny. I have been trying for years to like oatmeal porridge and I just can’t. I have tried Irish, Scottish and steel cut oats, and I just can’t get myself to really like it. So I have been doing other things with oats, like making cakes and serving with cheese or smoked salmon (I am posting that recipe this week on my blog). But this is a way I think I could really get into it. Thank you so much for sharing!
This looks really yummy but we have milk and egg allergies in our household. I can usually substitute pureed silken tofu for the eggs in recipes like this, but what would be a good acidic alternative to the yogurt or other dairy products in the soaking water? We use soy yogurt for most things, but I don’t know if it provides the acidity needed to maximize the nutrition from the oats.
Any suggestions would be appreciated. I’m really enjoying your blog!
Just wondering how much, in cups, is one pound of steel cut oats? I know dried beans are about 2 1/3 – 2 1/2 cups per pound, but I’m not sure about the oats. I’m hoping to put this together tonight for breakfast in the morning. It’s spring break for my boys, so a special breakfast will be an added bonus!
Thanks!
Kimber -
One pound steel cut oats is just about 3 cups, give or take. Hope you enjoy the recipe!
- Jenny
Hi Jenny,
Is there anything you would recommend I use in the recipe if I do not want to use milk? Can’t wait to try out the recipe!
MacKenzie
Laurin -
If you suffer from food allergies in your home, I’d be very careful about relying on so much soy. Soy is highly allergenic and linked to autoimmune disease and other disorders. Soy milks, soy yogurt and tofus aren’t properly prepared to mitigate their very high level of phytic acid – an antinutrient that binds up minerals, preventing your body from fully absorbing them. Moreover, soy can be very goitrogenic – that is, bad for the thyroid. We eat soy only occasionally and as a condiment and only if it’s been fully fermented: natto, tempeh, naturally fermented soy sauce.
In terms of replacing eggs – you could probably omit them entirely from this dish and not have it suffer much. I include them because they’re rich in nutrients: biotin, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin A etc. I’d also use a coconut-based yogurt over a soy-based yogurt, for serving. For soaking, you can use any acidic medium, but it’s all the better if it’s also probiotic – with plenty of beneficial bacteria.
Blessings -
Jenny
Jenn -
You might like this version. I’m not a huge oatmeal fan, but I like this. I’m intrigued by your cmbination of oat cakes with cheese and salmon, though. I’ve been thinking about doing a savory version of baked oatmeal, but haven’t gotten around to it quite yet.
- Jenny
Erin -
Yes, oats are notoriously low in the enzyme phytase which helps to mitigate the antinutrient phytic acid, both wheat and rye are rich in phytase so adding a bit of either (provided the flour is freshly ground) would be a good addition.
Take Care -
Jenny
How long will this keep in the fridge? I cook a lot and always have leftovers but am never sure how long things hold….
This looks delicious and perfect for spring! I think I’m going to try it this Sunday for our Easter breakfast! Thanks for sharing!
I am SO making this for Easter morning breakfast!
Thankyou so much for sharing this! I made this recipe this morning for my family, and everyone gave it a thumbs up!
It was really delish! A keeper in our house!
I don’t usually get very excited about oatmeal unless it’s folded in with cookies or something – but this looks wonderful! Definitely going to try this one out.
Question on the baked oatmeal: won’t the oats spoil if I keep them with buttermilk on the counter overnight?
Can I use reconstituted powdered buttermilk?
Adore your blog–its changing the way I think about food.
This looks really fantastic, will give this a try!
Mmmm… I had something very like this at a friend’s home months ago, and loved it. This looks like a lovely rendition.
Yum! I made this last night and could hardly go to bed, I just kept eating it!
I was trying to find the response to the question of whether or not this will work with regular oats – sorry if I missed it! Has anyone tried it? Looks yummy, can’t wait to try this recipe!
Well I tried this last night/this AM. I liked it, and I am not a steel cut oatmeal fan at all. I halved the recipe with no problem, I have a small household. Next time I would probably soak the oats the full 12 hours to see if that made it a little less chewy, and I would try to add a little more milk to see if that would make it more custard-like. I think that’s the beauty of this recipe, it has alot of potential to adjust it to your taste; like adding apples would be good. I also like the idea of having leftovers for the rest of the week.
I made this yesterday for my family and they LOVED it. I was suprised how sweet it really was without the added maple sugar (we did pour a little on with the cream). I added some dried cherries and cocnut and it was fabulous. Thanks for sharing.
Aimee -
I’m glad you like it! Baked oatmeal has, hands-down, become the most popular recipe at Nourished Kitchen. So easy, so versatile and super yummy. You’re right, too – the sweetener really isn’t all that necessary.
Blessings -
Jenny
Finally made this today, with dried blueberries and almonds. Hubby and my littlest daughter loved it, but my older daughter didn’t. She’s the finicky one — doesn’t drink milk, eat much in the way of starches/grains, etc. I was hoping to find something other than scrambled eggs, hot dogs, and cheese for her to eat. Overall, though, I’d say it was a success, and will make it again!
I loved baked oatmeal! I eat it cold out of the fridge when I am racing out the door or I warm it up and add milk for a more traditional bowl of creamy oatmeal.
Just made mine for the week with raisins and, of all things… dried persimmons! Found them at my FM last weekend. They are so good.
Loved this recipe and put a link on my blog. Thanks!
I’ve been looking for a new recipe. Looks so delicious. Looks more like a dessert than fuel for the morning. Wonderful way to nourish your body.
We serve this cut into squares. It’s not really crispy, but it’s definitely not soggy like regular porridge. In baking it turns into a firm casserole that, when cooled to a palatable temperature, will cut away in nice squares. I’ve served it with cream and coconut milk–both went over well.