Oatmeal Banana Bites

This is a family-friendly, make-ahead recipe for family bike camping– the kind I used on Mother's Day Off family bike camping trips.

This recipes contains the primary ingredients I like to have for breakfast anyway– oatmeal and bananas– but in a more portable format. Although they are quite healthy, they look like cookies. So my daughter thinks they are a treat when she doesn’t otherwise like to have oatmeal. These took me about 15 minutes to put together and were ready in about 30 minutes from start to finish. I even managed to fit in making them after arriving home from work and before heading out for a quick overnight bike camping trip. The recipe comes from Dreena Burton’s Cookbook Plant-Powered Families, one the cookbooks we are using to find meals are kids enjoy that without eggs or dairy. The recipe is vegan, gluten-free, sugar-free and oil-free!

Ingredients

• 1 cup rolled oats (use gluten-free certified oats for gluten-free option)
• 1 cup oat flour (use gluten-free certified oat flour for gluten-free option)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon sea salt
• ⅛ – ¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 cup pureed overripe banana (roughly 2 large bananas; see note)
• 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract or ½ –¾ teaspoon vanilla bean powder
• 3 tablespoons nondairy chocolate chips (optional, can substitute dried fruit; see note)

We don’t stock oat flour– I just whiz some rolled oats in our blender for a few seconds to create some.

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a mixing bowl, combine the oats, oat flour, baking powder, cinnamon, sea salt, and nutmeg. Stir through until well combined.
• Add the banana, vanilla extract, and chocolate chips to the dry mixture, and stir through until combined. Using a cookie scoop, place 2-tablespoon mounds of the batter onto the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 13–14 minutes, until just firm to the touch and a light golden on top. Remove from oven and let cool on pan for a minute, then transfer to a cooling rack.
• Banana Note: Use an immersion blender and a deep cup to puree your bananas (this is easiest, but a blender or small food processor will also work). It produces a very liquefied mixture, not like what you can get through mashing. Idea: Try adding raisins, chopped dates, or chopped dried banana in place of the chips

Recipe yields enough for snacks and breakfast for a parent and one or two cycling children. For context, a normal adult oatmeal portion
would be about 1/2 cup of oats, and this recipe includes 4 times that.

Related Recipes

• Even Keel Trail Bars is another make-ahead recipe posted here for backpacking or family bike camping.