Description
Easy breakfast bake using cottage cheese, oats, fresh blueberries. Great for meal prep and weekend mornings.
Ingredients
Base Mixture
- 2 cups (about 450 g) full-fat cottage cheese
- 2 large eggs
- 2 tablespoons melted coconut oil (or unsalted butter)
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
- 1 ½ cups (about 150 g) rolled oats (gluten-free if needed)
- 4 tablespoons brown sugar or sweetener
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- About 4 tablespoons milk (any kind), as needed
Topping
- 1 cup (about 150 g) blueberries, halved if large
- 2 tablespoons flaked almonds (or mixed seeds)
- 1 tablespoon sugar or sweetener
Instructions
Line your pan with parchment paper. Don’t skip this step unless you want to hate your life later when you’re scrubbing burnt breakfast off your pan.
Put cottage cheese, eggs, coconut oil, maple syrup, and vanilla in your blender. Blend until completely smooth with no lumps at all. This usually takes about a minute depending on your blender. If you see any cottage cheese chunks keep blending because those will ruin the final texture.
Stir oats, brown sugar, and baking powder together in a big bowl. Make sure the baking powder gets distributed evenly or you’ll have weird dense spots. Add the blended cottage cheese mixture and stir everything together. It should look like really thick oatmeal at this point.
If your batter is too thick to spread easily, add milk one tablespoon at a time. Different cottage cheese brands have different moisture levels so you might need more or less milk. The final consistency should be spreadable but not runny.
Spread the mixture evenly in your prepared pan. It doesn’t need to be perfectly smooth but try to get it relatively even so it cooks uniformly. Scatter the blueberries on top – I like to halve the really big ones so they distribute better and don’t create huge pockets of fruit.
Sprinkle the flaked almonds over everything then add that final tablespoon of sugar. The sugar helps everything get golden and crispy on top.
Put it in the oven for about 40 minutes. You’ll know it’s done when the top is golden brown and the center feels set when you press it gently. Don’t overbake or it gets dry and nobody wants dry breakfast bake.
Let it cool for at least 10 minutes before cutting or it will fall apart when you try to serve it. I usually cut it into 16 squares but you can make them bigger if you want.
Notes
Don’t overbake this thing. It should still be slightly tender in the middle not dried out like cardboard. If the edges start browning too fast cover it with foil for the last 10 minutes. Nobody wants to eat dry breakfast that tastes like sawdust.
Different cottage cheese brands have different thicknesses so you might need to adjust the milk. Store brands tend to be thinner than name brands so start with less milk and add more if needed. The batter should spread easily but not be soupy.
If your blueberries keep sinking to the bottom toss them with a tiny bit of flour first. This helps them stay suspended in the batter instead of all ending up at the bottom. I learned this from my mom who used to do it with chocolate chips in muffins.
Check your baking powder expiration date. Old baking powder won’t work and your breakfast bake will be dense and flat instead of fluffy. I keep mine in the fridge to make it last longer but replace it every year or so.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 40
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American