Warm Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal Recipe

This post may contain affiliate links. Read our disclosure policy

Warm Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal Recipe

In only a few minutes you can have this warm and comforting peanut butter healthy banana oatmeal. These oats only have a few simple ingredients but they make for one fantastic oatmeal bowl!

One morning before class, I really wanted a breakfast to make me feel good. What better solution than making some oatmeal?

I don’t go out of my way to buy a jar of peanut butter that often. But, luckily at the time of making these oats, I had some peanut butter on hand!

I’ve made some Chocolate Peanut Butter Overnight Oats, and Chocolate Chip Strawberry Peanut Butter Oats. But what about a classic combo of peanut butter and banana? Well, let’s see how that goes! I had also been making lots of overnight oats at the time, so I finally wanted to have some hot oatmeal, and using quick cooking oats definitely helps save time on a busy morning before heading to work! A simple start to the morning is just essential sometimes! And let me tell you this was so delicious!

What Makes This Warm Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal So Good?

These banana chocolate chip peanut butter oats are so simple to prepare and they're so delicious! Not to mention they're jam-packed with nutrition, so there's everything to love about this oatmeal recipe!

What I love so much about these oats is how warm and creamy they are! All of the ingredients meld so much together! These banana chocolate chip peanut butter oats are absolutely decadent and you can make them any day! I also found them very filling. The peanut butter and banana really soothed my throat and tummy! This would be great to enjoy on a cold winter’s morning to warm you up and get ready to start your day with a boost of energy!

Tools Needed

• Pot
• Mixing bowl
• Spoon

Ingredients in Warm Peanut Butter Banana Oats

When writing out this ingredient list, I realized how simple these oats are! Here are the couple of pantry staples you’ll need to make these:

• Quick oats or rolled oats: either one works.
• Banana
• Milk
• Smooth peanut butter
• Chia seeds
• Vanilla extract
• Chocolate chips
• Honey

Yep, that’s it! The simplicity of these oats really make this a classic breakfast recipe!

How to Make This Healthy Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal Recipe

Making this peanut butter banana oatmeal recipe is super simple. Be sure to check for the FULL PRINTABLE RECIPE at the end of this post!

To begin, we’ll add the oats and milk to a pot, and bring the oats to a boil.

Now, let’s add our vanilla extract and our chia seeds. I actually bought ground chia by mistake in this picture, but it produces the same results!

Then, transfer your cooked oats into a serving bowl.

Next, drizzle some peanut butter. I had opened a new jar of peanut butter just for this recipe, and this was absolutely heavenly!

Now drizzle on your honey.

Add a few slices of sliced bananas on top of the peanut butter and honey, evenly around the circumference of the bowl.

The final touch is a couple of chocolate chips to bring this all together!

I'm definitely sure that you're going to adore this recipe for a quick and cozy breakfast on a cold winter’s morning - or whenever you want it!

Which Oats to Use for This Peanut Butter Oatmeal

I reach for quick oats here because the whole point of this one is speed. It is a minute of prep and about seven minutes of cooking, and quick oats are the cut that actually gets there in that time. Rolled oats behave the same way and just want another minute or two to soften. Either one works here, so use whichever box is already open.

Steel cut oats are the one cut I would not use here. They need twenty to thirty minutes of simmering and considerably more liquid than the milk this recipe calls for, so they will still be chalky by the time everything else is ready. If steel cut is all you have, cook them separately to their own timing and then build the bowl of oats on top exactly as written below.

Whichever you use, the quantities are on the recipe card at the bottom of this post, and they scale. As written it makes 2 servings from two thirds of a cup of oats and a cup and a third of milk, which is a generous single breakfast or a comfortable two if you are sharing.

Milk, Nut Butter and Sweetener Swaps

Any non-dairy milk works in place of the dairy milk. Almond milk keeps things light with a faint nuttiness that suits the peanut butter, soy milk gives you the creamiest result and the most protein of the three, and oat milk makes the sweetest bowl of the lot. Swapping the milk is also most of what you need to do to make this vegan; the other half is the sweetener.

Honey is the sweetener as written, added to taste, and the drizzle of honey that goes over the top at the end is doing as much for the look of the bowl as for the flavor. Maple syrup is the direct swap if you are keeping it plant-based, and the recipe card lists it as the substitution for exactly that reason.

On the PB itself: I used smooth peanut butter, but natural peanut butter, the kind that separates in the jar, is genuinely good here. Stir it back together properly first, and because it is looser than the stabilized kind it drizzles more evenly over hot oats. Almond butter and sunflower seed butter are both in the FAQ below, and cashew butter is the other one I would happily use, milder and a little sweeter than peanut.

One thing worth saying plainly: there are no eggs in this recipe at all. It is not a baked oatmeal and nothing needs to set, so it is naturally egg-free before you change a thing. Leftovers keep in the refrigerator for a few days and reheat with a splash of milk to loosen them back up.

And if you are wondering why this tastes more like a treat than a health breakfast: peanut butter, banana and chocolate chips is the flavor set you would put into cookies. That is not an accident, and it is a large part of why a plain bowl of oats becomes something you actually look forward to on a cold morning.

Toppings, Add-Ins and Storing Leftovers

The recipe as written finishes with peanut butter, banana, honey and chocolate chips, and that is genuinely enough. But this is a forgiving bowl and none of the following will hurt it, so treat them as add-ins rather than part of the recipe. A pinch of salt stirred into the oats while they cook is the one I would not skip; it does not make the oatmeal salty, it just stops the sweetness sitting flat. A pinch of cinnamon does something similar for the banana.

For crunch, chopped walnuts, pecans or plain roasted peanuts all work, and coconut flakes are good if you want something lighter than nuts. Blueberries are the fruit I would add alongside the banana rather than instead of it, since they hold their shape in hot oats where most soft fruit collapses. Between the oats themselves and the chia seeds there is already decent fiber here, and the peanut butter and chia bring the healthy fats, which is a large part of why this keeps you full through a morning.

One note on oats I did not cover above: instant oats are not the same thing as quick oats. Instant are cut finer and partly cooked already, so they will work in a pinch but they turn to porridge faster and lose the little bit of texture that makes this worth eating. If instant is what is in the cupboard, pull the pot off the heat a minute early.

For leftovers, cool the oats and move them to an airtight container in the fridge. They will thicken overnight, which is normal. Reheat a portion in the microwave for a minute or so with a splash of milk stirred through first, and it comes back almost exactly as it was. Cold from the container it makes a perfectly good snack, and either way it is the kind of easy breakfast you can make on Sunday and still be glad of on Tuesday.

Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal FAQ