Chocolate Baked Oats Recipe (Healthy!)

These Chocolate Baked Oats have a texture between baked oatmeal and cake and are a delicious, sweet treat that’s healthy enough to enjoy for breakfast!

Chocolate for breakfast? Sure–why not?! When it comes in the form of these good-for-you Chocolate Baked Oats it’s a great way to fuel your day!

Oatmeal recipes are an all-time favorite at my place. I happen to think I have the best oatmeal recipes on the Internet. 😉

These Chocolate Baked Oats are a little different than my usual baked oatmeal recipes. This Berry Baked Oatmeal is without a doubt an absolute favorite, along with Peanut Butter Banana Baked Oatmeal. Both of those use my regular formula for creating baked oatmeal.

So what makes this Chocolate Baked Oats different? One little thing, which is why I’m calling it baked oats instead of baked oatmeal. Instead of using all old fashioned oats, we blend half of the oats into oat flour (or just use half oat flour).This little difference changes the texture drastically. These Chocolate Baked Oats have a more cake-like texture than that of baked oatmeal. This is what I was going for as lately my son, Luke, isn’t loving the texture of oatmeal. This fixed that problem!

Ready to roll? Let’s make some baked oats!

Recipe Ingredients–What You Need

We need simple ingredients for this chocolate baked oats recipe, most of which are readily available at our homes. I have mentioned the alternatives for ingredients that you can swap, so even if you can’t find an ingredient, you know what to use in its place.

Oats

The first and primary ingredient that we need for this recipe is 2 cups of old-fashioned rolled oats. We’ll use 1 cup to make oat flour and the rest keep in their rolled oats form to add to the batter. I’ve used quick-cooking oats for this recipe, but my preference is old fashioned oats instead of quick oats. Steel cut oats won’t work here.

Rolled oats are a gluten-free whole grain packed with nutrition and offer several health benefits. For starters, oatmeal is an incredibly nutritious breakfast option. It is rich in manganese, fiber, and Vitamins B1 and B5.

Studies show that oats contain the antioxidant avenanthramides that lower blood pressure, regulate blood sugar, and have anti-itching and anti-inflammatory properties.

Cocoa Powder

As we’re making chocolate oats, we will add ¼ cup cocoa powder to the recipe. Cocoa powder gives this baked oatmeal recipe a rich chocolate flavor. Cocoa powder is known to improve cognitive health by improving focus and attention. Secondly, it contains iron, zinc, and selenium that work together to boost your immune system. And most importantly, cocoa powder has polyphenols that improve cholesterol and blood sugar levels and reduce the risk of heart disease.

You can also try chocolate protein powder as an alternative to cocoa powder. I haven’t tried this, but think it would work just fine!

Baking Powder

We will add 1 ½ tablespoons of baking powder to the recipe. It is chemical leavening that helps baked goods rise, making them light and fluffy.

Milk

We also need 1 cup of milk for this baked oats recipe. As this is a gluten-free recipe, you can choose to use any type of milk, dairy or non-dairy milk. Regular milk works, but you can also use use a cup of almond milk, coconut milk, oat milk, or soy milk. Unsweetened is my preference.

Eggs

We need 2 large eggs for this recipe to bind all the ingredients together. Eggs are rich in protein, Vitamins B6, B12, and D.

However, if you’re following a vegan diet, check out these vegan egg substitutes. You can use a  flax egg as a healthy substitute for regular eggs. Just mix a tablespoon of ground flax seeds with 3 tablespoons of water, and wait for 5 minutes for it to thicken and turn into an egg white-like sticky consistency.

Peanut Butter

For added flavor, we need ½ a cup of peanut butter. I used natural peanut butter, but if you want, you can also use almond butter or cashew butter. The point is to use nut butter without added sugars, and it helps give the oat mixture a cake-like texture.

Maple Syrup

As we’re not using any kind of sugar in these chocolate-baked oats, but we will sweeten it up by adding 1/3 cup of pure maple syrup. You can also use honey or unsweetened applesauce to add natural sweetness to the chocolate oatmeal.

Avocado Oil

Please note this this ingredient isn’t shown in the photo. It was added during a later recipe testing and I didn’t get a photo. I found adding in oil made the overall texture more moist and I liked it a lot better. If you don’t have avocado oil you could use melted coconut oil.

Chocolate Chips

For the final chocolate-y touch, we will add ½ a cup of chocolate chips to the recipe. I used stevia-sweetened  chocolate chips; however, you can also use dark chocolate chips, double chocolate chips, mini chocolate chips, or white chocolate chips.

We will add ¼ cup of chocolate chips to the oat mixture and use the remaining to add as a topping.

How to Make Chocolate Baked Oats

This heart-healthy oatmeal recipe is a simple mix-and-bake recipe, and you can prepare it in under 30 minutes. Here are the instructions to prepare it:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease an 8X8 or 9X9 inch baking pan and set aside.

2. Put 1 cup of the rolled oats in your blender and blend until it turns into oat flour.

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the oat flour, the remaining 1 cup of rolled oats, baking powder, and salt.

4. Add the milk, eggs, avocado oil, peanut butter, maple syrup, and 1/4 cup of chocolate chips. Stir until combined.

5. Pour the oatmeal mixture into the prepared baking pan. Top with the remaining 1/4 cup of chocolate chips.

6. Bake in the preheated oven until the top is set, for about 20-30 minutes.

Allow the Chocolate Baked Oats to cool before spooning out servings. Enjoy!

If you try this recipe or any of my other healthy recipes, please let me know what you think in the comments below and don’t forget to leave a star rating. Share your photo on Instagram and tag me and I’ll feature you. I can’t wait to see you try this!

Recipe Variations and Tips & Tricks

Although this chocolate-baked oats recipe is pretty straightforward, here are some tips and tricks to help you make it the best ever.

1. This healthy chocolate-baked oats recipe is already a creamy sweet treat, but if you’d like to make it a straight-up dessert, throw in some chopped peanut butter cups. Keep it healthy with these Healthy Peanut Butter Cups!

2. For more depth of flavor, add a teaspoon of vanilla extract to the oats mixture.

3. Use a high-speed blender or food processor to blend the oats into smooth oat flour.

4. Top the chocolate-baked oats with fresh berries, fresh fruit, or my vegan caramel sauce (pictured above) for extra nutrition and flavor!

If you had fun baking and devouring this delicious chocolate baked oats recipe for breakfast, I have plenty of more healthy oatmeal recipes for you. Try my Carrot Cake Baked Oats, high protein overnight oats,  apple pie overnight oats, peach baked oatmeal, and low-sugar oatmeal recipes the next time you’re craving something nice and healthy for breakfast.

Happy baking!