Baked Banana Oatmeal

Last week my mom and I flew to Florida to visit my Grandma for a few days. (That’d be why I wasn’t around here much in the past week.) Our girls-only trip is becoming an annual ritual that brings together three generations of women in our family. I feel lucky we’re able to do this, and we always have a good time. We also always end up eating out a lot and having lots of “we’re on vacation so it’s allowed” treats, such as containers of cookies found deep in the recesses of Grammy’s freezer. I was good about the cookies this year – only two the whole trip – but there was ice cream, and apple dumplings, and peanut butter-filled pretzels, and more ice cream.

Needless to say, when I woke up this morning, back in my own bed in Nashville, I was in the mood for something healthy – and it doesn’t get much healthier than oatmeal. Oatmeal, you may have noticed, is one of my favorite breakfasts/breakfast food ingredients. I love it baked, cooked up with apples and pecans, stirred into my favorite muffins, and made into granola. Oatmeal is the good stuff; it’s healthy and it fills you up. It’s a good post-family visit/junk food detox kind of thing.

Today’s recipe for Banana Baked Oatmeal is the latest oatmeal recipe to be making frequent appearances in our kitchen. It’s considerably healthier than a lot of the baked oatmeal recipes out there (containing no added fat and relatively little sugar) and it’s chock full of bananas, one of my top-five favorite foods. It’s incredibly filling and is simple to make. It’s also pretty darn tasty with the flavor of bananas and a crunchy, caramelized brown sugar topping. All in all, it’s a pretty delicious way to get back on the healthy-eating wagon.

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Baked Banana Oatmeal
Adapted from Kath Eats Real Food

Ingredients:
2 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. kosher salt (or 1/8 tsp. table salt)
1 very ripe banana, mashed
1 1/2 cups milk (I use skim)
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 to 3 T. light brown sugar, divided
2 ripe bananas, sliced

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray an 8x8-inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, stir together the oats, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, whisk together the mashed banana, milk, egg, vanilla, and 1 tablespoon of the brown sugar. Add the oats to the milk mixture and stir to combine.

Spread half of the sliced bananas in a single layer in the baking dish.

Pour the oat mixture over the bananas and top with the remaining sliced bananas.

Bake for 25 minutes. Remove the oatmeal from the oven and sprinkle the remaining 1 to 2 tablespoons of brown sugar over the top. (You can add more or less to taste.)

Turn the broiler on and place the oatmeal back in the oven. Broil for 1 to 2 minutes, or until the brown sugar melts. (Keep a close eye on it because the sugar can turn black if left under the broiler too long.)

Remove the oatmeal from the oven and cut into four pieces. Serve hot.

Serves 4.