Last updated on August 18th, 2019

Healthy breakfast oatmeal jam bars filled with homemade berry chia jam or your favorite store-bought jam. Sweetened with only a hint of coconut sugar and maple syrup. These cozy berry crumble bars are made with whole grain oat flour, mildly sweet sorghum flour, and rolled oats!

This post is sponsored by Bob’s Red Mill, a year-long partner of Snixy Kitchen

Zoella starts preschool next week and she can barely contain her excitement. Once a day for a couple of weeks this summer, she asked me to measure how tall she was on the wall. A week into this routine, she inquired, “Am I big enough yet?”

Me: “For what?”

Zo: “To go to my big girl school.” 

She’d been checking. Every single day for two weeks. She can’t wait to grow up.

Healthy Breakfast Oat Bars 

Over the past two weeks Zoella’s also naturally transitioned from waking up early to sleeping in (I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS DAY!). The problem is, her preschool has a hard start time earlier than she ever goes to daycare. Yesterday. Lucas tried to wake her by abruptly opening the black out curtains and pulling off the covers, with a full volume “time to get up!” Guess how that went? She was grumpy and late, that’s how.

She’s fully taken after me in the morning: we need slow gentle wake-ups, preferably with our morning drink ready (steamed milk for her, matcha for me). Best not talk to either of us for at least 20 minutes. But let’s be real: I have two kids under 4, that’s not how mornings go. Usually there’s lots of rushing and short tempers (for both of us).

So I’m on a mission to make wake-ups as smooth as possible, and my plan starts with these gluten-free breakfast oatmeal jam bars with homemade berry chia jam. She perked right up when woken with, “do you want a fruit cookie bar for breakfast?” Mom: 1, Grumpy Morning Monster: 0.

These gluten-free breakfast oatmeal jam bars are the fifth recipe in a year-long partnership with Bob’s Red Mill. So far this year, I’ve made gluten-free pop tarts with strawberry jam, gluten-free matcha crepe cake, gluten-free almond flour pasta, and gluten-free blueberry cobbler. Now I’m making these healthy breakfast oatmeal jam bars with homemade berry chia jam to mark the beginning of back to school season!

Gluten-Free Breakfast Bars

As tempting as it is to fold chopped nuts into the crumble, I’ve made these healthy berry crumble bars nut-free so I can send them as a treat in Zoella’s lunchbox. Her new preschool is nut-free, so I’ve been working on developing some healthy hearty breakfast and snack recipes. 

The base and crumble for these gluten-free breakfast bars uses a combination of Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free oat flour, sorghum flour, and gluten-free rolled oats. As a pair, oat and sorghum give the bars a lightly sweetened wholesome cookie flavor with a bit of depth. 

Sorghum is a new-to-me flour in gluten-free baking, recommended to me by my friend Amanda who uses it often in gluten-free baking. She describes it as slightly sweet with a fine texture that’s a little bit cakey. I’ve now gone through three bags, working it into various recipes over the past two weeks. 

Sorghum flour pairs beautifully with breakfast treats, offering warmth and cozy sweetness to your baked goods. Use interchangeably with millet flour or to sub it in for 1/3 of your oat flour in a favorite recipe. 

Healthy Berry Crumble Bars

Without any refined sugar, I feel good about serving these healthy berry crumble bars to my kids for breakfast. I’ve only lightly sweetened the bars with a combination of coconut sugar and maple syrup. The natural sugars in the berries and subtle sweetness of sorghum and oat flour drive the flavor.

For these bars, I used a homemade berry chia jam, but I also tested them with store-bought jam. If you’re opting for store-bought jam, keep the bars on the healthy side by looking for a jam without added refined sugar.

How to Make Chia Jam

Homemade berry chia jam is so easy and healthy to make. Cook berries – fresh or frozen – with a splash of maple syrup until they thicken and break down. Then add chia seeds and a splash of lemon juice. The jam will thicken up as it cools, but you can spread it onto these bars warm off the stove. Here I’ve used a combination of raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries, but the method will work with just a single favorite berry type.

If you don’t love the slightly crunchy texture of chia seeds, you can also opt to grind up the chia seeds in a coffee grinder before adding them to the berry compote. 

Oatmeal Jam Bars

With the combination of oat and sorghum flour, these oatmeal jam bars are soft and crumbly, while the berry jam adds a subtle chewiness. When warmed up, the jammy berries add more softness and chew to the crumble. Served cold, the crumble firms up like snappy shortbread.

However you prefer to eat them, these breakfast oatmeal jam bars are the perfect way to perk up your morning.

More Gluten-Free Breakfast Recipes

• Gluten-Free Pop Tarts
• Carrot Cake Baked Oatmeal
• Poppy Seed Almond Flour Muffins
• Gluten-Free Chamomile Waffles
• Gluten-Free Mexican Chocolate Muffins
• Cinnamon Raisin Seed & Nut Bread