I love these peanut butter banana oatmeal cups for an easy make-ahead breakfast or snack for the week! They’re great hot or cold and ready in just 30 minutes.
These mixed berry banana oatmeal cups turned out to be a popular recipe on my site, so I decided to experiment with a different version involving one of my favorite ingredients: peanut butter! I love baked oatmeal in general, and oatmeal cups are great for weekly meal prep.
Now that school is back in session (I’m almost a month into my second year of law school!), I’ve gone back to doing most of my cooking once or twice a week. My mornings are full with running, getting ready for the day, and starting schoolwork before my morning classes, and some nights, I have class until 6 pm, so anything I can make in advance is helpful.
Here’s how I usually do it:
Snack Recipes
I usually end up making one or sometimes two of these recipes per week.
-Some kind of baked oatmeal
-Energy bites like these brownie coconut ones or these chocolate chip peanut butter ones
–Chia pudding with berries and bananas
–Almond flour banana bread or these double chocolate peanut butter banana muffins that I love
I usually keep my freezer stocked with energy bites and a fun baked good like banana bread or muffins for when friends come over (and for myself)!
Lunch & Dinner
In addition to easy, low-prep meals like veggie omelets, oatmeal, protein pancakes, salads, etc., I tend to make a couple of main dishes per week. I’ll double recipes of anything that freezes well, so my freezer is currently full of things like:
-Mason jars of homemade bolognese sauce
-Mason jars of soup or chili
-Chicken meatballs
-Most pasta or rice dishes
Other favorites that don’t freeze well: I’ve been really into Mexican spaghetti squash and avocado chicken salad lately!
Misc.: I typically sauté veggies like mushrooms, onions, and peppers for omelets in advance, and I chop veggies for a few days’ worth of salads at a time. This week, I’ve also had homemade hummus in the fridge to have with carrots, celery sticks, or almond flour or rice crackers, and that’s been amazing.
So, that’s how I try to make mostly homemade cooking work with a full school schedule these days!
Last weekend, I made these peanut butter banana oatmeal cups (plus chia pudding) to have on hand for breakfast and snacks.
These little cups freeze really well individually (better than slices of baked oatmeal, I’ve discovered), and you can microwave them or pop them into the toaster oven straight out of the freezer. They’re convenient and easy to grab on my way out the door if I don’t have time to make breakfast.
Usually, I’ll try to add some kind of protein, too, like chicken sausage that I’ll pop in the microwave (fancy, I know). And when our power went out one morning last week, it was nice to have these ready to go since I actually couldn’t cook anything.
I’ve experimented with a few different versions of these peanut butter banana oatmeal cups, and here’s what I’ve learned:
• Natural peanut butter (no sugar or oil added), regular peanut butter, and PBFit (powdered peanut butter) work equally well in this recipe. It’s quite forgiving!
• The banana slices on top are mostly for decoration. You can definitely omit them if you don’t love the texture of cooked or reheated banana, especially if you’re planning to enjoy them later. I’ve actually left the banana slices off more often than not.
• A drizzle of peanut butter on top really takes these to the next level, especially if you wait to add it until just before serving or reheating.
If you try these peanut butter banana oatmeal cups, let me know in a comment (and leave a star rating!) or take a photo and tag me @livbane on Instagram! I’d love to see!
Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal Cups
Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a medium or large mixing bowl, mash bananas. Whisk in egg, then add peanut butter and honey. Stir well and then add milk and vanilla.
- On top of the liquid ingredients, add oats, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt. Stir dry ingredients together on top and then mix dry ingredients all the way in with liquid ingredients.
- Spray muffin pan with cooking spray and distribute batter evenly among tins. Top each muffin cup with a banana slice if desired. Bake for 18-20 minutes, until mostly set. Top each muffin with a light spread or drizzle of peanut butter, if desired (you can briefly heat it to thin the consistency for drizzling).
- Store in a air-tight container or gallon-size zipper bag in the fridge for up to a week or freezer for up to 3 months.
Notes
Nutrition
For more baked oatmeal recipes, check out:
These sound delicious! Question though; in the batter do you only add 3 TBSP of peanut butter? You have that the 4 TBSP is divided in the instructions so wanted to make sure!
Hey Erin! Sorry about that– just fixed the recipe!
Yum! Thanks for all of the great breakfast and snack idea!
Do you have to use quick oats? Could you use steel cut oats or old-fashioned instead? I’m excited to try this out!
Hi Tara! You can use old-fashioned oats; they’ll just be a bit more chewy but still great! Steel cut will be too crunchy, unfortunately 🙂