Chocolate Peanut Butter Protein Oatmeal Bake
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If you’re in need of a simple, healthy breakfast in bulk or something to feed the family over the weekend, this oatmeal bake has you covered. It’s high volume (filling), high protein, and has real peanut butter inside so you know it’s tasty.
And before you dive in, I’ll add that even if you just need one serving, the recipe is super easy to cut down to fit your needs.
Protein Oatmeal Bake Ingredient and Substitutions
This oatmeal bake is as easy as throwing everything in a bowl, mixing, and baking. So, I’ll just briefly touch on a few ingredients you might have questions about modifying.
Protein Powder
The recipe calls for vanilla with added cocoa powder. But feel free to use a chocolate protein powder if that’s what you have on hand. You might add an extra 1/3 scoop to account for the loss of cocoa.
Like I mentioned in my white chocolate raspberry protein cheesecake, one of the most important things to keep in mind when using other protein powders is scoop size.
The recipe calls for PEScience Select which is a blend of whey and casein. If you’re using a whey-only protein powder, you may need to add a bit more protein powder or reduce the milk slightly.
This protein oatmeal bake is hard to mess up since you’re kinda under baking it, though. So don’t sweat it too much!
Rolled Oats vs Quick Oats
A lot of my protein oatmeal recipes (like the infamous Butterfinger Proats from my Protein Oatmeal Guide) use quick oats for fast cooking. If you wanted to use quick oats instead of rolled oats, that should work fine but the oatmeal bake might cook a bit faster.
Peanut Butter and Canned Pumpkin
Ah, the real MVP—peanut butter. You can use any nut butter you’d like for this oatmeal bake, but I wouldn’t recommend using something like a powdered peanut butter. You’ll need some fat to balance the protein powder and avoid a dry and tough finished product.
The canned pumpkin is there to add some fat-like properties without the actual fat and calories of something like peanut butter. You’ll never know it’s there but if you wanted to use something else, try unsweetened apple sauce, another fat source, or just more peanut butter.
To see apple sauce in action, check out my protein carrot cake recipe.
I’ll also add that if you wanted to reduce the fat even further and deal with a slightly less delicious oatmeal bake, you could use the powdered peanut butter and use more pumpkin. You can also use a full fat milk to accommodate for some lost fat from other ingredients.
All right, let’s get to cooking. If you make this oatmeal bake, I’d love to see it! Snap a pic and tag me on Instagram @mason_woodruff or you can join my free Facebook group and share it with the crew.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Protein Oatmeal Bake
Oatmeal and protein powder mixed with peanut butter and dark cocoa—all baked for one gooey breakfast treat.
Ingredients
- 1/2 C (40g) Rolled Oats
- 1 1/2 scoop (47g) Vanilla Protein Powder*
- 2 Tbsp (10g) Unsweetened Dark Cocoa Powder
- 1/4 tsp Baking Powder
- 3 Tbsp (50g) Peanut Butter
- 1/4 C (60g) Canned Pumpkin
- 1/3 C (80mL) Unsweetened Cashew Milk (or your choice of milk)
Instructions
- Preheat an oven to 350F.
- Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
- Add the pumpkin, peanut butter, and milk. Stir well.
- Transfer the ingredients to a 6.5" cast iron skillet or similar sized baking dish. (Different dishes will affect cook time.)
- Smooth the top of the mixture and bake for 12-15 minutes, depending on the dish and desired center. I purposely left out any food safety concerns so you can have this like gooey oatmeal or more done like a breakfast cookie.
Notes
1/2 the oatmeal bake has 8 Smart Points. Nutrition facts do not include any additional drizzle. For the drizzle, I melted a tablespoon of peanut butter and chocolate chips.
*I used PEScience Select protein powder. You can use my affiliate discount code mason to save 15% on PEScience products.
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 2 servings Serving Size: 1/2 the oatmeal bakeAmount Per Serving: Calories: 350Total Fat: 15gCarbohydrates: 27gProtein: 27g
Made with quick oats
Chocolate PB pro powder (and cocoa powder)
Applesauce instead of pumpkin
coffee instead of milk
YUM!!!
I like your style! Great tweaks. 🙂
How much applesauce did you sub for the pumpkin? Gram to gram?
Did you use your 5” cast iron skillet for this or a larger one?
Yes ma’am, I used the 5″.
Awesome. Thank you!
Soooo good! I quartered the recipe and used PE Science chocolate peanut butter protein. Was seriously so good!
Should I refrigerate the leftovers or will they be fine left on the counter with some plastic wrap?
If you under bake it (still gooey in the center), I’d probably refrigerate it to be safe. If it’s baked through, you could probably leave it covered at room temp. Though I think the safe bet would be refrigerating.
Oh man! This was yummy! I drizzled some sf choc syrup and some sf caramel sauce on top…DELICIOUS!
I love how quick and easy this is to make. This is great for meal prep sundays. This week I’m going to try making it replacing the milk with coffee.
Made this for family we had in town and drizzled some WF chocolate sauce and it was a big hit!
I was out of pumpkin but used unsweetened applesauce and it still came out amazing. Will be a go to recipe. Closer to 2 servings for me but thats mainly bc how good it was lol
Is it okay to use an unflavored protein powder with the addition of cacao powder? I use garden of life raw unflavored protein powder. The powder has quite a thick consistency, and I have noticed that it does not mix well with a regular, morning bowl of oatmeal or chia pudding. The taste is off putting that’s for sure. But I am wondering if it would work better when baked..??? THANKS
I wouldn’t recommend it. Sweetened protein powders are typically very sweetened to mask the natural flavor of protein powder. If you do give it a go, you’ll likely want to add a bit of sweetener in addition to cocoa powder.
This was my first ever experience with baked oatmeal. I decided to try and make just a peanut butter flavor. I omitted the cocoa and mixed together 25g of whey and 25g of casein. I used quick oats instead of rolled oats and baked for about 16 minutes. I tried using the toothpick method to check for it being completely cooked but wished I hadn’t. It ended up much drier than I wanted. Next time I’ll stick to Mason’s recommended cook time 🙂
Absolutely LOVED this bake! Used snickerdoodle PE science because that’s what I had at the time, and the PB I used was Nuts n More dark chocolate. I baked this in an 8″x8″ nonstick square pan. for about 9:30, which just baked it fully through. I ate it with Greek yogurt, and added a few extra dark chocolate chips on top!
This was so good👏🏼
Loved these baked oats! I’m a college gal so oats are my jam, but this recipe puts a delicious, simple twist on plain ole oats. I switched the peanut butter for PB2 just for a little lower fat. The recipe is minimal and ingredients are each fairly cost friendly. Definitely recommend this or any of his recipes! 🙂
This is SOOOOOOOOO GOOD! I have the Cake Pop flavor of PE, so mine tasted different, but AMAZING! Thanks for all your amazing recipes and sharing with us all!
I made this for myself last night with only 2 Tbsp of peanut butter to cut down on some fats. I also did half coffee and half milk for the liquid, and it turned out as fudgy deliciousness only baking for 10 minutes 🤤 I did add some PB Fit drizzled on top like mason for extra yummies, but there is plenty of PB flavor in the recipe if you can’t afford the extra calories (I’d highly recommend making room for those macros though).
This has quickly become one of my favorites! I usually add extra pumpkin to make it extra gooey! I have also topped with chocolate chips before baking and made a peanut butter glaze frosting using PB2, a little protein powder, almond milk, and powdered Swerve. So easy and convenient!
Man oh man this was DELICIOUS!!! 😍😍😍
These remind me of the no-bake chocolate peanut butter cookies my grandmother makes!!! SO. GOOD.
I doubled the oatmeal (gotta love the purple plan) and added 1/4c each of Greek yogurt and applesauce to make up for the added dryness of the extra oats… next time I’m going to try them out as cookies to help with portion control.
Used applesauce and Bowmar PHC without cocoa powder. I don’t know if I had too high of expectations but it was way mushier than I expected. I was expecting the consistency of Nature Valley crunchy granola bars? Loved the flavor but not the texture!
It should be softer on the interior almost like a gooey oatmeal cake. If you want granola, I have several recipes for that! https://masonfit.com/chocolate-peanut-butter-granola/
I made these this morning and the were delish. Is there anyway to make these o eenight and microwave them in the morning for during the week or can you bake a batch and reheat in microwave later?
I bet you could do either. If I had to choose a method, I’d probably go with the overnight version and just heat to warm. Baking and reheating dishes with protein powder can be tricky. Let me know if you try it!
This was AMAZING!!!
How much applesauce did you sub for the pumpkin? Gram to gram?
This was quick and easy! I used frosted chocolate cupcake from pescience and it still turned out pretty good with a nice chocolate flavor. I would maybe add some sweetener to this next time though to give it a more dessert flavor if that’s what you’re looking for.
hi,
can you use plant based protein powder?if so do i need to tweak anything?
tnx!
It’s hard to say. Every protein powder is a bit different. You can try matching the consistency before baking using the photos above and hope for the best. Good luck!
Can you use greek yoghurt instead of pumpkin? If so, how much?
I’ve not tested it, but Greek yogurt is usually a safe bet for substituting in recipes like this. I’d probably start with a comparable amount (1/4 C).
Would vegan protein powder be ok in the recipe? I do not tolerate dairy.
Probably so. It might take a little experimenting to get the ratios right. Every protein powder is a bit different. Good luck!
I make this for dessert for my husband and I on Friday night, it’s the perfect treat to end the week!!
This was absolutely delicious! I used chocolate protein powder instead of vanilla and swapped in applesauce for the pumpkin and it came out unreal! I had never had baked oats until making this recipe, and now I will continue to make them! I also had to use a muffin tin to bake the oats, so the time for baking decreased a bit, but there was no issue whatsoever; still absolutely delicious!
The pumpkin in this is a game changer. It works so well as a binder and makes everything gooey and moist, and the best part is you can’t even taste it in there!! I would have preferred it a little sweeter than mine came out, but I’ll just note that for next time. The serving size is actually pretty filling, so I ended up doing half of it…still a good little protein boost! Pairs well with coffee 😉
Great recipe. I subbed pumpkin for applesauce and used PB2 since that’s what I had on hand. I wish I would have used regular PB as mine came out a little dry. Next time I’ll use reg PB!