Healthy Chocolate Baked Oatmeal With Cherries

Chocolate Baked Oatmeal for breakfast? - Yes, please! These delicious oats are loaded with good-for-you ingredients like fresh cherries, walnuts, and cacao powder. It's a healthy Oil-free vegan breakfast recipe your family will love.

No doubt, oatmeal is one of the most popular breakfast recipes for most people. Just take my 3-minute Oatmeal bowl - easy, healthy, and delicious.

But what happens if you want to make your breakfast a little bit fancier?

You could always make my best-ever vegan waffles. Or...

Enter Chocolate Baked Oatmeal! Yes, chocolate for breakfast, how can anyone refuse this? Add cherries, and walnuts and you've got a full range of nutrients to start your day off right.

This delicious No-Bake Oatmeal comes together in just 10 minutes and with 9 healthy ingredients. It's great for Sunday brunch with family or friends, or as a make-ahead breakfast that just needs to be reheated.

Ingredients

My favorite thing about this Chocolate Oatmeal Bake is that all ingredients are really healthy so you can be satisfied about your dietary choices.

• oats - for this recipe it's best to choose rolled oats, or old-fashioned oats. Quick oats might become mushy. Use Gluten-free oats if you need to;
• rising and binding ingredients - baking powder and chia egg or flax egg. And if you're not vegan you can use a regular egg;
• something crunchy - I love adding Walnuts, because they have the highest concentration of good Omega-3 fatty acids. You can replace Walnuts with Pecans, Pistachios or Almonds.
• chocolate component - what makes this oatmeal really chocolaty and flavorful is a combination of Cacao powder and chopped chocolate. Also, make sure you pick Cacao powder over Cocoa powder. It's less processed and contains higher amount of nutrients. As for the chocolate, I recommend dark chocolate bark. My recent favorite is Hu Chocolate, that's made without refined-sugar, oils and other bad ingredients; Enter the code IRYNA15 for 15% off www.hukitchen.com.
• sweetener - in my sweet recipes I always try to use Maple syrup instead of regular sugar. Maple syrup is a natural sweetener and contains several minerals and nutrients that you won't find in sugar;
• liquid ingredient - I used Almond milk but Oat milk, Soy milk or any other plant milk will work;
• fruit - I made this oatmeal bake with fresh pitted cherries, however you can use blueberries, blackberries or other berries. You can even make this with frozen fruit.

This Cherry Baked Oatmeal is juicy, hearty and delicious. You almost feel like eating a dessert for breakfast. And that always sounds yummy.

To me, baked oatmeal always tastes better when it's warm. So I recommend to either consume it immediately or if you plan to enjoy it the next day, make sure to place it in a fridge and then reheat.

Storing And Reheating

To ensure a maximum freshness, I recommend to store the leftovers in the refrigerator for no more than 2 to 3 days.

If you're planning to finish the leftovers, you can either pop the pan with the oatmeal in a preheated to 350 F oven for about 15 minutes or reheat for 20 seconds in a microwave.

Another option would be to add the leftovers in a sauce pan with a bit of milk and reheat until it's warm.

Recipe Variations

This wonderful baked oatmeal recipe can be customized to your liking or the availability of ingredients.

• Crunchy ingredients - in addition to Walnuts, you can stir in some sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds; Coconut chips would also be a great option to scatter on top.
• Fruit - you can make this with fresh berries/fruit only or use a combination of frozen and fresh fruit;
• Creaminess - if you like this fruity baked oatmeal to be even creamier, you can stir in a spoon or two of almond butter or coconut cream.

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