These Oatmeal Breakfast Bars are the perfect choice for busy mornings or a satisfying snack! They are packed with flavor, like chewy cranberries and crunchy walnuts. Try out these convenient bars for when you’re on the go!
WANT TO SAVE THIS RECIPE?
Enter your email below and we’ll send it straight to your inbox. Plus you’ll get great new recipes from us every week!
Start your day right with my quick and easy Oatmeal Breakfast Bars. Packed with hearty, flavorful ingredients, these bars are designed to energize your mornings and satisfy your taste buds. Each ingredient is carefully selected to create the perfect balance of soft, chewy texture and delightful sweetness that will keep you coming back for more.
Easily customize them by swapping nuts and dried fruits or adding treats like chocolate chips for variety. Their long shelf life makes them ideal for meal prep, ensuring you always have an on-the-go option ready to fuel your busy days.
Jump to:
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Full of flavor: This recipe is full of sweet, flavorful ingredients like cranberries, cinnamon, and even applesauce!
- Stay fresh longer: These bars stay fresh for a long time, making them easy to store for busy mornings.
- Customize: Try adding your favorite ingredients, like chia seeds, other dried fruits, or chocolate chips!
- Quick and easy: This recipe is done in under 45 minutes. Make them ahead to eat in the morning or for a treat!
Recipe Ingredients
- Eggs
- Whole milk— or whatever milk you prefer
- Applesauce
- Vanilla extract
- Honey — Acts as an additional binder and sweetener.
- Baking powder
- White granulated sugar
- Ground cinnamon
- Chopped walnuts — You can also use pecans or almonds.
- Dried cranberries
- Old-fashioned oats — It is important to use old-fashioned oats, not quick oats.
See the recipe card below for full information on ingredients and quantities.
How To Make Oatmeal Breakfast Bars
Recipe FAQs
Both the wet and dry ingredients in this recipe play a role in giving your breakfast bars the best texture possible! One important way to ensure they aren’t too dense is to avoid overmixing the mixture before baking. You want to mix your ingredients just until they are fully combined. In addition to making your bars easier to slice, allowing the breakfast bars to fully cool will leave you with the ideal chewy texture.
I recommend using old-fashioned or rolled oats to make these breakfast bars. Old-fashioned oats will maintain their structure while baking, giving your bars a better texture. These oats also bind better to the other ingredients. If you’re in a pinch, quick oats will work fine, but there will be a slight difference in texture.
These breakfast bars can be stored in a container or Ziploc bag on the counter for up to a week, in the fridge for 2 weeks, or in the freezer for 3 months, making them a great option to meal prep! You can enjoy these bars straight from the fridge or heat them in the microwave for 15-20 seconds to make them a bit softer. Allow frozen breakfast bars to thaw in the fridge before you serve or reheat them. Giving your frozen bars time to defrost before reheating them will ensure they reheat evenly.
Expert Tips
- Extra flavor: For some extra flavor to these bars, you can replace the applesauce with peanut butter or add ¾ cups of chocolate chips to the oat mixture!
- Replace walnuts: You can replace the walnuts with any other kind of nut. We like to switch things up and use almonds or pecans to keep that crunch but add a new taste!
- Add more fruit: In addition to cranberries, you can also use raisins or other dried and chopped-up fruit!
- Press the mixture: It is a good idea to press the mixture into the baking dish with your hands or the spatula to ensure it will cook evenly and properly!
More Breakfast Recipes to Consider
Did you try this recipe? Leave a ⭐️ rating below and share it on Instagram.
WANT TO SAVE THIS RECIPE?
Enter your email below and we will send it straight to your inbox. Plus you will get great new recipes from us every week!
Oatmeal Breakfast Bars
Ingredients
- 2 large eggs
- ½ cup whole milk
- ¼ cup applesauce
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ cup white granulated sugar
- ½ tbsp ground cinnamon
- ¾ cup chopped walnuts
- ¾ cup dried cranberries
- 2 ½ cups old fashioned oats
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350°F and coat an 8×8 inch glass baking dish with butter or nonstick cooking spray.
- Whisk together the eggs, milk, apple sauce, vanilla, and honey in a large mixing bowl until eggs are thoroughly beaten and the mixture is homogeneous.
- Add the baking powder, sugar, cinnamon, walnuts, cranberries, and oats to the mixing bowl. Fold the ingredients together until the wet and dry ingredients are fully combined.
- Transfer the oat mixture to the prepared dish and bake for 25 minutes.
- Allow the dish to come to room temperature before slicing into bars.
- Serve and enjoy!
Notes
- Variations: In addition to cranberries, you can also use raisins. The walnuts can be replaced with any other kind of nut. We like to switch things up by using almonds or pecans. For some extra flavor, replace the applesauce with peanut butter or add ¾ cup of chocolate chips to the oat mixture.
- Allowing your breakfast bars to fully cook makes them much easier to slice and allows the flavors in the bars time to settle.
- Store your bars in a container or Ziploc bag on the counter for up to a week, in the fridge for 2 weeks, or in the freezer for 3 months.
- You can enjoy these bars straight from the fridge or heat them in the microwave for 15-20 seconds. You will want to let frozen breakfast bars thaw in the fridge before you serve or reheat them.
Rita Y
Continues…….Ooops! I just noticed that you have a nice scaling option (thank you for that!). Although that helps, it doesn’t quite answer all my questions. Big project! Bulk cook! My grandsons are 15 and 16 and are both 6’4-5″+ (at last check).
Rita Y
Hi Melissa and Barbara! This will make an ideal Christmas gift for my wonderful grandsons and rest of the family. It looks to be a very flexible recipe on many notes (I’m thinking a whisper of cardamom here).
I’d like to make a much larger batch, baked in 2 standard sheet pans at once and switching racks halfway through the bake.
How much to scale up the recipe from one 8X8″ glass pan to 2 standard metal sheet pans? Times 6? Any other adjustments, such as the leavening and baking time?
And temperature? I recall that there is a 25-degree difference in baking temperatures between baking in glass or in metal pans but I’ve forgotten which way it goes.”
Thank you for creating this recipe for us!
Rita