These vegan blueberry breakfast bars are healthy oatmeal bars with a juicy, sweet blueberry chia seed jam and crunchy oatmeal crumble on top. It’s an easy, healthy breakfast recipe to make in 20 minutes and meal-prep your breakfasts for a whole week!
I’m a self-proclaimed breakfast bar expert. Just have a look at all my previous recipes and you’ll see what I mean: Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bars, Raspberry Oatmeal Bars, Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal Bars, Apple Oatmeal Bars, and No-Bake Oatmeal Bars.
They are all amazingly simple and delicious recipes. And the combination of blueberries and lemon is amazing, just try my Blueberry Lemon Blondies to be convinced!
These bars are a healthier version of the classic blueberry breakfast bar recipe but are 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.
Ingredients and Substitutions
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:
- Homemade Oat flour – You can make your own oat flour. It is easy and cheap. Bring rolled oats into a blender and blend at 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 leftovers 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 – You can also use coconut nectar, 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 the oil, nor use applesauce as an oil-free replacement. It doesn’t work.
- Vanilla – For flavor.
- Blueberries – Fresh or frozen, no need to thaw. For the blueberry layer
- Lemon juice – To give the jam its distinctive tangy taste.
- Chia Seeds – White or black both work the same. If you can’t eat chia seeds, a healthy swap is a flaxseed meal. Replace the chia seeds in this recipe with 2 tablespoons of flaxseed meal. Chia seeds are super-seeds loaded with healthy fat, plant-based protein, calcium, iron, and magnesium!
- Lemon Zest – optional and only if you are using untreated lemon!
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 greatly reduces 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!
- Preheat Oven and Prepare Pan: Preheat your oven to 350°F (180°C). Line an 8-inch x 8-inch baking pan with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Prepare the Crust: In a large mixing bowl, combine oat flour, rolled oats, maple syrup, melted coconut oil, salt, and vanilla.
- Squeeze the mixture with your hands to form a dough. If too dry, add 1-2 tablespoons of water, one at a time, until the dough is soft and sticks together.
- Press 1 3/4 cups of the dough evenly into the prepared baking dish, using a spatula to smoothen it. Set aside the remaining dough in a small bowl in the fridge for the crumble topping later.
- Chill the Crust: Place the pan in the fridge while you prepare the blueberry chia seed jam.
- Make Blueberry Chia Seed Jam: In a small saucepan, combine blueberries, maple syrup, lemon juice, lemon zest, and chia seeds. Cook for 1-2 minutes until bubbles form on the sides of the pan.
- Mash the blueberries and continue cooking for 2 more minutes, stirring constantly. The jam should slightly thicken but remain runny.
- Assemble and Bake: Pour the blueberry jam over the crust. Use the remaining dough to crumble evenly over the jam.
- Bake for 35 minutes or until the top is crispy and golden.
- Cool and Slice: Allow the bars to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.
- Cool for 3 hours or until they reach room temperature before slicing into 16 bars. Waiting helps the bars set properly without crumbling.
Step-By-Step Instructions
Storage Instructions
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 them the day before.
Allergy Swaps
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 almond flour instead of oat flour.
- Nuts– replace rolled oats with chopped walnuts, almonds, pecan or shredded coconut, or a combo of all!
More Healthy Vegan Breakfast Recipes
I love to share simple healthy vegan recipes, so you may also like the following vegan gluten-free breakfast recipes.
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Vegan Blueberry Breakfast Bars
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cup Oat Flour - or all-purpose flour or spelt flour
- 1 ¼ cup Rolled Oats
- ⅓ cup Maple Syrup - or agave or rice syrup
- ⅓ cup Coconut Oil - melted
- ¼ teaspoon Salt
- ½ teaspoon Vanilla
Blueberry chia seed jam
- 2 cups Blueberry - fresh or frozen
- 3 tablespoons Maple Syrup - or agave or rice syrup
- 2 tablespoons Lemon Juice
- 2 tablespoons Chia Seeds
- ½ teaspoon Lemon Zest
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Line an 8-inch x 8-inch baking pan 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 1 3/4 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. You will use it for the crumble on 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 the sides of the pan.
- Mash the blueberries using a fork or potato masher and keep cooking for 2 minutes, stirring all the time to prevent the jam from burning. It should slightly thicken but still be very runny. It will thicken in the oven, don't worry.
- Pour the jam on top of the prepared crust then 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.
Can this recipe be made with out chia or flax seeds?
You can replace chia seed by cornstarch but the jam need a binder
These are SO SO yummy!
I cannot do any oils.
Any sub for that coconut oil??
I didn’t try something else, probably nut or seed butters like tahini, peanut butter or cashew butter should work
I am on a whole food plant based diet and I do not use oil. The recipe looks great, but, can I substitute applesauce for oil?
Unfortunately I didn’t try the recipe oil free, it might not hold together with oil replacement like applesauce.
what could I sub the oil with? Would love to make this oil free
I am not sure it will work oil free or with oil replacer, apple sauce for example will keep the dough too soft.
Could you use pineapple instead of blueberries for the jam.
I guess, I didn’t try so its hard to tell
Love simple vegan recipes like this one. Quick and amazing!
Hello Carine, this was simply scrumptious!
My family ❤️It! I made a few tweeks:
Added chopped almonds & ground flax to the crust; chilled crust 1hour, baked crust alone for 10 minutes, then added blueberry jam. My mother was a well known baker & I never desired to compete with her skills. Nevertheless, this recipe has me convinced me that I inherited traits from my mama! You have convinced me that vegan can taste great❤️❤️
Thank you so much, this is a keeper❤️
Absolutely loved these and my kids did too! So delicious. Going to try the recipe with strawberries this week. Such an easy recipe and delicious!
I made these last week and they were absolutely delicious, I used less maple syrup than the suggested amount and they were just sweet enough for me. I’ll keep this recipe with me forever.