Overnight Crockpot Oatmeal Banana Bake – Vegan & Gluten-Free

Do you know what the two most delicious words in the English language are?

CROCKPOT BREAKFAST.

Do you know why?

It allows you to NOT use your brain first thing in the morning! I don’t know about you, but I am not  a morning lark by nature.

Pre-FPIES and FructMal, I had a few overnight crockpot breakfasts that made life at 8:00 a.m. worth living.

I’d throw everything in the crockpot before bed, turn it on, and in the morning, breakfast was served, eaten, and cleaned up within an hour of our heads rising off the pillows.

It was glorious!

I lost all those recipes when FPIES and FructMal came into our lives, though, and have been forced to get up every morning and actually COOK before double digits on the hour register.

This stinks.

Consequently, I was thrilled when I discovered this recipe by Inspired Taste and knew I could make it a crockpot meal!

Beyond changing it to work in the crockpot, I obviously couldn’t do it as written; it calls for too many ingredients on our verboten list. It took a few attempts to get this right, but I have managed to create an overnight, crockpot breakfast bake that is allergy-friendly and delicious!

Here’s what you do:

Get your dry ingredients together. This would include the oatmeal, salt, cinnamon, baking powder, and optional add-ins (like nuts, raisins or chocolate chips). Mix them together well.

 

Get your wet ingredients together.

To start with, make yourself a chia ‘egg’. (For those that don’t know what I’m talking about, read up on it here.)

 

Then grab your milk, maple syrup and vanilla. Mix all your wet ingredients together in a bowl.

 

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, mix them together well, and set aside.

 

Go dust off your crockpot (hey, it’s not used to working at night!) and spray the inside with oil. Pour the ingredients into your crockpot; you may need to gently nudge some of the thicker bits around until the top is level.

 

Now go slice up a banana. I only had frozen bananas, so fresh or frozen would surely work fine. Slice it on an angle; this makes it prettier, but mostly it means fewer banana slices to deal with!

 

Lay the banana slices on the oatmeal mixture. If you stop right there, you run the risk of your bananas turning brown by morning. So take a spoon (or your finger – won’t tell) and press those banana slices down into the mix until they are completely covered. No brown bananas, now!

 

Now, let’s discuss the chocolate aspect of this recipe. If you don’t think chocolate would tickle your fancy, just skip on down. If, on the other hand, you think chocolate rules the universe (hello, friend!), here’s something for you to decide: if you have safe chocolate chips, do you want to add them at the beginning of the recipe to your dry ingredients? or do you want to sprinkle them over the top at the end?

That’s strictly a personal preference thing; it depends on if you like your chocolate bursts spread throughout or an even layer on top.

If, however, you don’t  have any safe chocolate chips, you could do what I did and use some of my homemade chocolate syrup as a drizzle over the top.

See?

 

Whether you use chocolate or not, at this point, you are officially done dumping things in the crockpot.

This needs to cook for 6 hours on low, so get out your timer (if you have a crockpot and don’t have a timer, you’re limiting yourself – go get one!) and set it to turn on 6 hours before you want to eat. Then turn the crockpot on to LOW (don’t set the timer and forget to turn on the crockpot! Ask me how I know this…hint: it involves tears.) and go to bed.

In the morning, you’ll wake up to this:

 

Yum!!!

Now, you can get creative with this recipe!  You could add some raisins or other dried fruit instead of chocolate chips (or in addition), chopped up nuts, change up the spices, change up the fruit, whatever sounds good to you! But this is how I did it and it is YUM.

And it means that, at least for Jed and Darrel’s breakfast, I don’t have to cook in the morning every.single.day!

<Happy Dance Happy Dance>

So there you have it! An overnight breakfast that is hearty, filling, healthy, allergy friendly, and MOM FRIENDLY!

Enjoy!!

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OVERNIGHT CROCKPOT OATMEAL BANANA BAKE

– 2 c. oats
– 1 tsp. baking powder
– 1 tsp. cinnamon
– 1/2 tsp. salt
– 1/2 c. chopped walnuts, chocolate chips, raisins (or all!)

– 2 c. milk (I used cashew milk)
– 1/3 c. maple syrup
– 1 T. chia seeds + 3 T. hot water mixed (egg replacer)
– 2 tsp. vanilla

– 1 banana sliced

1. Mix together your dry ingredients (this would include any optional ingredients you would like to add).
2. Make up the chia egg.
3. Mix together all the wet ingredients.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix together well.
5. Spray the inside of your crockpot with oil or non-stick spray; pour the ingredients into the crockpot.
6. Slice the banana and lay the slices on top of the oatmeal mixture. Press down into the mixture gently until covered by the oatmeal mix.
7. If you want to add chocolate at the end, drizzle chocolate chips or chocolate syrup on top of the recipe at this time.
8. Put the lid on your crockpot, and set it up: Plug it in to the timer, set the timer to turn on 6 hours before you want to eat, turn the crockpot on to the LOW setting, and go to bed.
9. Wake up and enjoy your delicious, ready-to-eat breakfast!

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In case you’d like to make the syrup for yourself, here’s the recipe:

Chocolate Syrup

– 1/2 c. maple syrup
– 3/4 c. water
– 3/4 c. + 2 T. unsweetened cocoa powder
– 1/8 tsp. salt
– 1 T. vanilla extract

1. Mix the maple syrup and water in a pan; heat until simmering. Remove the pan from heat.
2. Add the cocoa powder and salt and whisk until fully incorporated.
3. Add the vanilla, whisk together well, and pour into a glass jar.
4. Store in the fridge for up to 3 weeks.
5. Enjoy the best chocolate syrup you’ve ever had!

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What would you add to your overnight breakfast oatmeal bake? Do you have any overnight crockpot breakfasts that rock your world? Do tell! (Seriously, I’m getting tired of spending the first 3 hours of my day cooking!)