Banana Oatmeal Bars🍌

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These banana oatmeal bars are the perfect healthy snack or breakfast item. Made with whole food ingredients these are a great guilt-free option that every will love all the way down to the kids!

Recipe Highlights

• How they taste: Banana oatmeal bars are whole oats packed together with mashed bananas, vanilla and a little cinnamon for spice. The texture is soft with the texture of the oats, crunchy walnuts and the added chocolate chips. They are not super sweet with the majority of the sweetness coming from the bananas and the semi-sweet chocolate chips.
• Skill level: Oatmeal bars are super easy to make and because there is no flour you don’t need to worry about over-mixing. Everything can be made in one bowl for easy clean up as well.
• Storage: These bars are shelf stable and they’ll be fine in a container with a lid on the counter for about 2 days. You can store them in the refrigerator to stretch that time but the ingredients used are very shelf stable.

Ingredient tips

• Oats: Whole oats are used in the recipe. Quick oats can be subbed but I have not tested to know the exact volume needed. I’ll add some things to look for in my tips below but it would be a simple swap.
• Banana: Use ripe bananas for the recipe only or for best results. The greener the banana the less sweet and more starchy the flavor will be. But, I’ll add a section below to help you ripen your banana faster.
• Milk: Whole milk was used for the banana oatmeal bars but any milk will work. The milk doesn’t add much flavor but it’s there mostly for moisture.
• Nuts: The walnuts can be subbed or omitted altogether. But, if you remove them be sure to add more chocolate chips in its place. Pecans or even peanuts also go well with this recipe.
• Egg: The egg helps with the hold of the bars. For an eggless recipe, you can omit the egg but the banana oatmeal bars may be a bit more fall apart if that makes sense. Bananas are a great egg substitute so the recipe will be fine.

Chef’s tips

• If looking to sub the whole oats for quick oats you’ll need to look for the texture. Look at the photos, the “batter” didn’t look much different from that. You’ll want it a little stiff but it should not look dry, remember the oats will expand a little when baking.
• If you want sweeter banana oatmeal bars, add an equal part of granulated sugar along with the brown sugar. Also, you can switch the semi-sweet chocolate chip to milk chocolate.
• Allow the banana oatmeal bars to cool before removing from the pan and slicing. If they are hot they are fragile and will fall apart. They are solid once they are cool.
• Line the baking pan with parchment paper so that you can easily lift out the oatmeal bars when they are ready.

Optional Mix-in’s

• Dried cranberries
• Raisins
• Dried fruit
• Fresh fruit (blueberries, strawberries, etc.)

How To Make Banana Oatmeal Bars

1. Preheat the oven then mash up the bananas. Now, in the bowl you can mix everything minus the oats, nuts and chocolate chips.
2. Make sure everything is smooth and combined. Now, fold in the oats, chocolate chips and walnuts.
3. In a baking pan, add the batter and smooth it out so that it’s smooth across the top.
4. Place in the oven and bake until it’s firm. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely before slicing.

How to ripen bananas quickly

There are a few tricks and one is tossing them in a bag with an apple. Seal the bag and the gases between the two will speed up the process. You can do it without the apple as well.

Another option and the quickest is baking the bananas in the oven. Bake them at 300F for 15 minutes on a lined sheet pan. Once they are black, remove from the oven and allow them to cool before mashing.

Recipes to use ripe bananas

• Pumpkin Banana Muffins
• Apple Banana Bread
• Red Velvet Banana Bread
• Banana Bars
• Banana Oatmeal Cookies
• Peanut Butter Banana Bread
• Zucchini Banana Bread
• Chocolate Strawberry Banana Bread
• Cream Cheese Banana Bread

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