Oatmeal Bars are an excellent make-ahead breakfast or afternoon snack. Made with rolled oats, cinnamon, brown sugar, and butter.
This Baked Oatmeal Bars recipe is the perfect Breakfast to get you ready for a big day. For more easy breakfasts to meal prep, try our Raisin Bran Muffins and Baked Oatmeal.
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Sabrina’s Oatmeal Bars Recipe
You’ll love these bars because it’s kind of like a portable version of having oatmeal for breakfast. You can bake Breakfast Oatmeal Bars on the weekends, then have easy, homemade oat squares to grab on busy weekday mornings. Plus, just like oatmeal, these bars are easy to add delicious mix-ins like nuts, berries, raisins, and chocolate chips to.
Oatmeal Bars taste delicious on their own, but you can also add slices of banana, peanut butter, or Strawberry Jam to them when serving. Another idea is to crumble an oat bar over Greek yogurt to enjoy, like granola.
Ingredients
- 1 Cup Unsalted Butter: For this Oatmeal Bar recipe, you want the butter to be frozen. Dice the cold butter into pieces before mixing it with the other ingredients. By using cold butter the oat mixture blends into a coarse and crumbly consistency instead of all creaming together.
- 1 ½ Cup Rolled Oats: You want to use rolled oats, also called old-fashioned oats for this recipe and not quick oats.
- ¾ Cup Brown Sugar: Packed brown sugar adds the perfect amount of rich flavor and sweetness to the rolled oats and butter mix.
- Flavoring: 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon are added for a little more comforting and homey flavor in the Oatmeal Bars.
- Flour, Baking Powder, and Salt: 1 ½ cups flour is sifted together with 1 teaspoon baking powder, and ½ teaspoon of salt to create the hearty base for these satisfying breakfast bars.
Kitchen Tools & Equipment
- Baking Dish: Use a 9×13-inch baking dish to bake your bars in the oven. You can use a glass, ceramic, or metal baking dish. Any that you have on hand will do.
- Baking Spray: You’ll use baking spray to make sure the bars don’t stick to the baking dish.
- Stand Mixer with Beater Attachment: A stand mixer will bring all your ingredients together with ease! Add the flat beater attachment, as that will be the best for this recipe.
- Sharp Kitchen Knife: A sharp knife will allow you to cut the bars into the shape you want. Just make sure they’re cool first, otherwise they might crumble apart.
How to Make Oatmeal Bars
Time needed: 50 minutes.
- Prep Time
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and spray a 9×13-inch baking dish with nonstick baking spray.
- Dough
Add the butter, rolled oats, brown sugar, and vanilla extract to your stand mixer. Then turn the mixer to medium speed until the oats and butter mixture is just combined. In a separate mixing bowl, sift together the all-purpose flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Then add ½ cup of the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients at a time. Keep the mixer at the lowest speed until the flour mixture is just combined into the dough.
- Bake Time
Spread the dough in the prepared baking dish. Then use your hands to gently press on the oat mixture. Pop them in the preheated oven until golden brown, 35-40 minutes.
- Slice and Serve
Then take the baked Oatmeal Bars from the oven, and let them cool before slicing them into squares.
“Can Oatmeal Bars be made ahead?”
Oatmeal Breakfast Bars are an excellent meal prep recipe. After baking, give the bars enough time to cool entirely. Then you can slice them into squares. The bars will be good for up to 5 days so you can enjoy them during the week.
Beyond the 5 days, put the bars in a freezer bag with the layers separated by wax or parchment paper. When you’re ready to serve the sweet treats, let them thaw in the fridge overnight. Then put them at room temperature for an hour or so to soften before enjoying.
Nutritional Facts
Recipe Tips & Tricks
You’ll prefer these bars to the packaged ones, and you’ll be surprised by how easy they are if you follow these tips.
- Use a pizza cutter to slice your bars
- To make slicing super easy, use a pizza cutter to shape your bars. You could even use a clean ruler to get nice, straight lines that will look so professional, yet taste deliciously homemade.
- Be sure to pack your brown sugar
- “Packed brown sugar” means that when you measure your brown sugar in a measuring cup, you use clean hands or a spoon or spatula to pack the sugar down as it tends to pour out with gaps of air inside it. If you don’t pack it down you risk having bars that don’t taste quite as good or have the right texture.
- Use parchment paper
- If you struggle at all to get the bars out of the pan, use some parchment paper in the bottom and then you can easily lift the bars out. You should still use nonstick spray so everything comes off nice and easy.
What to Pair With Oatmeal Bars
Oatmeal bars would be a great staple in your grab-and-go breakfast routine. Bake them on the weekend, slice them, and place them in a sealed container. Then when you walk out the door grab a bar, plus a banana, or a handful of berries, or a box of raisins, or any other fruit you enjoy. Add to that a container of yogurt, a hard boiled egg, or some cheese and you’ll have an easy breakfast.
How to Store
- Serve: After the baking time, you want to make sure you let the bars cool before removing them from the pan. Otherwise, they’ll break. You also don’t want to leave them out at room temperature for more than a few hours.
- Store: To keep the Oatmeal Breakfast Bars fresh, keep them in a covered container in the fridge. They’ll stay good for up to 5 days.
- Freeze: You can also seal the bars in an airtight container with parchment paper between the layers. Then they’ll stay good frozen for up to 4 months.
Ideas to Serve Oatmeal Bars
While Oatmeal Bars are great to eat at home for breakfast, you can also use them as a lunch box addition, or an anytime snack. They would even be great for gifting! You’ve heard of a muffin basket before. Make the basket a little more versatile by adding these Oatmeal Bars and other breakfast bars. They’d make a great gift to say thank you to someone for hosting your overnight stay, giving you a ride, or hosting a party.
Frequently Asked Questions
This homemade Oatmeal Square recipe makes a relatively nutritious breakfast or healthy snack. The oats are high in fiber, lower blood sugar, and have antioxidants. These bars also keep you full so that you won’t be snacking as much in the morning.
If your Oatmeal Bars are crumbling when you take them out or cutting them, make sure they have cooled fully before handling. You also should watch the baking time as your bars might be over- or under-baked.
Recipe Card
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter , frozen and diced into pieces
- 1 1/2 cup rolled oats
- 3/4 cup brown sugar , packed
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cup flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and spray a 9×13-inch baking pan with baking spray.
- Add the butter, rolled oats, brown sugar, and vanilla extract to a stand mixer and beat on medium speed until just combined.
- Sift together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.
- On the lowest speed setting, add in ½ cup of flour mixture at a time until just combined.
- Spread in baking pan and gently press the dough into the pan.
- Bake until lightly browned, 35-40 minutes.
- Cool completely before slicing.
Nutrition
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Variations
- Sweeteners: If you don’t want to use brown sugar, you can swap in maple syrup, honey, or molasses. Keep in mind, that these sweeteners add more liquid, so you may need to add a handful of extra oats to get the right texture.
- Strawberry Oatmeal Bars: There are lots of flavor variations that you can try with this recipe, and one reader favorite is adding a layer of strawberry jam to the center. The Strawberry Oatmeal Bars have a little extra sweetness and are still perfect for breakfast.
- Fruit Bars: You could also mix in actual fruits to make Cherry Oatmeal Bars, Banana Oatmeal Bars, or a Blueberry Oatmeal Bars recipe.
- Peanut Butter Oat Bars: To make the bars with peanut butter, you can heat creamy peanut butter in the microwave so that it’s slightly melted. Then drizzle it over the bars.
- Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Bars: Of course, chocolate chips are an easy and delicious addition to this baked good. You can use semisweet chocolate chips, milk chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, or dark chocolate chips. Try a combination of chips if you like, or dried fruit and chocolate chips together.
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