Apple Pie Protein Baked Oats

• Oats - Yep, just plain old fashioned rolled oats. Make sure you don't use steel-cut or quick oats. You need 1/4 cup.
• Almond milk - More specifically, 1/3 cup of unsweetened vanilla almond milk. You can use plain or a different flavor if you want, but just make sure that it is unsweetened!
• Unsweetened applesauce - Make sure it is unsweetened! You need 1/3 cup.
• Egg whites - 3 tablespoons, to make the oats fluffy and gives you extra protein.
• Sugar-free syrup - You can use any liquid sweetener of choice, but I prefer to use a sugar free breakfast syrup because it is super low in calories! You need 1 tablespoon.
• Protein Powder - I used 15 grams of vanilla flavored protein powder, but you can use whichever flavor you would like! My personal favorite is by the brand Prozis (either the zero diet whey vanilla or the natural vanilla whey isolate). You can actually use the code “KATIE10″ for 10% off at Prozis!
• Cinnamon, nutmeg, salt - For flavor.
• Baking powder - 1/4 teaspoon to make the oats rise and taste like a cake!
• Brown Swerve - 1 tablespoon. Swerve is my go-to as a sugar replacement. For this recipe, I used the brown Swerve as substitute for brown sugar. If you are not familiar with Swerve, it is a zero-calorie, low-glycemic sweetener that measures cup-for-cup to sugar. It’s completely save and natural, with no artificial ingredients, preservatives or flavors. It is safe for diabetics and Keto approved. You can purchase Swerve off of Amazon here.
• Green Apple - 1/2 large green apple, diced.

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray a 12 oz. ramekin with nonstick spray.
2. Blend all ingredients except for the apples in a blender and pour into an oven save ramekin.
3. Scatter the green apples in the batter of the ramekin. Top with the 1 tbsp. brown sugar swerve substitute and additional cinnamon, if desired. If you want more caramelized apples, you can sauté them a little bit in a pan before adding them to your batter.
4. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. I take mine out at the 25 minute mark because I like them to be a little gooey.
5. Top with anything you want! I did honey and pecans.

For the Egg Whites

Feel free to substitute this for one large egg, or if you can't have eggs there are lots of egg substitutions out there!

For the Applesauce

You could also use 1/2 a banana (mashed) or plain non-fat Greek yogurt. I prefer the applesauce, because it gives the best consistency and really brings out the apple flavor!

For the Almond Milk

Use any milk that you would like! Almond milk is my favorite because I personally have a food sensitivity to lactose and almond milk is very low in calories.

For the Protein Powder

The whole point of these oats are to be low calorie and high protein...BUT if you do not like using protein powder or are not interested in having protein in your oats, you can omit the protein and just use less almond milk. Or, you could use the same amount of milk and more oats!