Cinnamon Streusel Protein Baked Oats

• Oats - Yep, just plain old fashioned rolled oats. Make sure you don't use steel-cut or quick oats.
• Almond milk - More specifically, unsweetened vanilla. You can use plain or a different flavor if you want, but just make sure that it is unsweetened!
• Banana - 1/2 of a medium banana
• Egg whites - This makes 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!
• Protein Powder - I used vanilla flavor, 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 - To make the oats rise and taste like a cake!
• Brown Swerve - This is what truly makes gives your oats that streusel topping. 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.
• Nut butter - This is optional and the macros below do not include the topping, but after the oats bake you can top them with nut butter or whatever you would like! I did almond butter.

1. Blend - Yep, it's that easy. Baked oats became so popular because they are one of the easiest things to make. Toss all of the ingredients except for the Swerve & topping (if you decide to do one) in a small blender. I love my Nutribullet blender for my overnight oats. It is the perfect size, easy to clean, and can literally blend anything!
2. Pour - Pour your batter into a greased ramekin. Top with a mixture of additional cinnamon and brown swerve to get that streusel topping.
3. Bake - Bake at 350°F for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. I stick around the 20 minute mark because I do like mine to be a little gooey.

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

I get asked about substitutes for applesauce all the time because people are worried that you can taste the applesauce. Well let me assure you, you don't even know it's there. However, if you are still looking for a substitute, you could use 1/2 a banana (mashed) or plain non-fat Greek yogurt.

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!