These vegan blueberry breakfast bars are healthy oatmeal bars with a juicy, sweet blueberry chia seed jam and crunchy oatmeal crumble on top. An easy healthy breakfast recipe to make in 20 minutes and meal-prep all your weekly breakfasts!
What are vegan blueberry breakfast bars?
These bars are a healthier version of the classic blueberry breakfast bar recipe but here made without butter, cornstarch, or dairy. They are naturally sweetened with unrefined sugar from maple syrup and loaded with plant-based proteins from oats and chia seeds.
How to make healthy blueberry oatmeal bars?
This is easier than you think to make your own breakfast bars with berry jam. It takes only 3 steps and minimal pantry ingredients to create a healthy oat bar to start the day. The best part of this oatmeal crumble breakfast bar recipe is that the base and crumble pieces on top use the same recipe! So you don’t have to create an extra dough for the crumble, which reduces greatly the preparation time. Let me explain step-by-step how to make the healthiest blueberry breakfast bars, 100% dairy-free, gluten-free, and refined sugar-free!
Oatmeal base and crumble
As I mentioned above, you need only one dough to create the base and crumble. The trick is to make the whole oatmeal dough first and then set aside 1/2 cup of dough to use later as a crumble. The ingredients you need to prepare these two layers are:
- Oat flour – make your own, it is easy and cheap. Simply bring rolled oat into a blender, blend on high speed until a fine powder forms. It shouldn’t take more than 30 seconds in a high-speed blender. Measure the amount you need to make the recipe and store the leftover in an airtight container in the pantry for later. Also, if you don’t have oat flour you can use all-purpose flour for this recipe.
- Rolled oats or instant oats if preferred
- Maple syrup or brown rice syrup or agave syrup.
- Coconut oil – you can also use avocado oil to decrease saturated fat but the base will be more fragile. Don’t skip oil nor use applesauce as an oil-free replacement, it doesn’t work.
- Vanilla
- Salt
Blueberry chia jam layer
This is where this recipe stands out. A regular blueberry breakfast bar uses cornstarch to set the jam layer. Cornstarch, as its name tells you, is mostly starch, which is very high in calories, carbohydrates, and it’s poor in nutrients. That’s why this healthy breakfast blueberry bar uses chia seeds to set the jam. Chia seeds are super-seeds loaded with healthy fat, plant-based protein, calcium, iron, and magnesium! So this really adds a healthy boost to your breakfast bars! All you need to make the blueberry layer is:
- Blueberries – fresh or frozen, no need to thaw.
- Maple syrup or brown rice syrup or agave syrup.
- Lemon juice
- Chia seeds – white or black both work the same. If you can’t eat chia seeds for any reason a healthy swap is flaxseed meal, replace the chia seeds in this recipe with 2 tablespoons of flaxseed meal.
- Lemon zest – optional and only if you are using untreated lemon!
How to store your bars?
These vegan gluten-free breakfast bars store really well in the fridge in an airtight container for up to one week. Also, you can freeze the bars and defrost the day before.
Grain-free option
I know that many of you love paleo vegan options for my recipes which means finding a grain-free alternative. So below I listed my easy swap tips to turn this recipe into a vegan paleo blueberry recipe.
- Almond flour – use this flour instead of oat flour.
- Nuts– replace rolled oats by chopped walnuts, almonds, pecan or shredded coconut or a combo of all!
More healthy vegan breakfast recipe ideas
I love to share with you our family’s favorite healthy vegan recipes and you may also like the following vegan gluten-free breakfast recipes.
Made this blueberry oatmeal breakfast bar recipe and you want to share a picture with me? Join me on Instagram, I reply to all your messages.
Your friend, Carine
Blueberry breakfast bars
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cup Oat flour - or all-purpose flour or spelt flour
- 1 1/4 cup Rolled oats
- 1/3 cup Maple syrup - or agave or rice syrup
- 1/3 cup Coconut oil - , melted
- 1/4 teaspoon Salt
- 1/2 teaspoon Vanilla
Blueberry chia seed jam
- 2 cup Blueberries - fresh or frozen
- 3 tablespoons Maple syrup - or agave or rice syrup
- 2 tablespoon Lemon juice
- 2 tablespoon Chia seeds
- 1/2 teaspoon Lemon zest
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Line a baking pan size 8 inches x 8 inches with parchment paper. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine all the crust ingredients: oat flour, rolled oats, maple syrup, melted coconut oil, salt and vanilla.
- Squeeze the batter with your hands to bring all the ingredients in contact and create a dough that sticks together. If too dry (may happen if you are using a coarse oat flour), add 1-2 tablespoons of water, add 1 at a time, until the dough is soft and stick together.
- Press 13/4 cup of the dough all over the baking dish, using a spatula to smoothen the dough and making sure there is no hole left. Set aside leftover dough in a small mixing bowl, in the fridge, this will be used for the crumble top of the bar.
- Place the pan in the fridge while you make the blueberry chia seed jam.
blueberry chia seed jam.
- In a small saucepan, add the blueberries, maple syrup, lemon juice, lemon zest and chia seeds
- Cook for 1-2 minutes on medium heat until bubbles form on side of the pan.
- Mash the blueberries using a fork or potato masher and keep cooking for 2 minutes, stirring all the time to avoid the jam to burn. It should slightly thicken but stil be very runny, it will thicken in the oven don't worry.
- Pour the jam on top of the prepared crust the use the remaining dough to crumble all other the bar.
- Bake the bar for 35 minutes or until crispy on top and golden.
- Remove from the oven and cool in the pan 10 minutes before transferring onto a cooling rack.
- Cool for 3 hours or until it reaches room temperature before slicing into 16 bars. Waiting will prevent the bar from crumbling and the jam will set perfectly.
- Store the bars in the pantry in an airtight container for up to 3 days or in the fridge for up to 1 week. Otherwise freeze and defrost the day before breakfast.
Notes
Nutrition
I just made this recipe exactly as posted.
I’m about to place in the oven.. while I’m hoping and assuming the flavor will be great the measurements are just off. The 1/2c of reserves crumble is not nearly enough for the topping.
9 x 5 pan?? That would be ridiculously small. Maybe that’s why the measurements are just off to me. So so small.
I used a 9 and a half x 12 pan and just barely made it. We’ll see what happens.
I am sorry to hear that but a 9 inches x 5 inches pan is a conventional slice pan in New Zealand. If your pan is larger it will obviously impact the amount of batter needed to cover the bottom of the pan and crumble on top. You can always double the recipe if you are using a large pan. XOXO Carine
This recipe works in an 8×8 inch pan. Mine is cooling right now, it smells and looks amazing! I added some cinnamon to the crumble mixture.
I just made this. And We all loved it. However half cup reserve was not enough for top. It has to be 1.5 cup for top and same for bottom too. I will definitely add more oat ( flour and rolled in total) I gave 5 stars because it is SUPER YUMMY recipe. My 10 year old is hard to please and he is loving it. He said ” i never knew something healthy could be this good) 🙂 Thanks
Thanks for the lovely feedback. I am glad you love it. XOXO Carine
Oh my yum!! Made these with raspberries and they were delicious! Making them again with blackberries this time. Can’t wait!!
Raspberries sounds delicious too! Thanks for the lovely comment, Enjoy the recipes around here, XOXO Carine
Absolutely delicious! I practically ate the entire pan by myself. Made it exactly as written except for the lemon zest as I completely forgot, but it was good as is.
Just made these and everything was perfect! Waited the 3 hours and cut them up, they are delicious!
I am super excited to make these….I will post after the finished product!!
I can’t wait to see your picture! Enjoy, XOXO Carine
Been making these for months, one of my favorite snack, breakfast, or even dessert options! I added cinnamon to the crust mixture, delicious! I like to add whipped cream to a warmed up bar and eat it for dessert sometimes. Thanks!
Can almond or coconut flour be used in place of oat flour?
No sorry, these flours won’t work as there is no eggs in the dough and it won’t hold, be very crumbly.
Everyone in my household loved these!!! I thought the crumble topping was a good amount. Thanks you!