Blueberry Coconut Baked Oatmeal

I made this recipe to finish my steel-cut oatmeal, and it turned out to be one of my favorite oatmeal recipes ever! I did change a few things, mainly using brown sugar instead of Stevia (which I dislike). I also didn’t have enough blueberries to make blueberry sauce or to top the dish, but I don’t think it’s essential – as long as you have enough blueberries baked in. The dish is vegan, too, but the coconut milk makes it very creamy, and it smells just heavenly.

For the oatmeal
1 ½ cups steel-cut oats
¼ cup brown sugar (a bit more would be fine if you don’t really have a topping)
¼ cup unsweetened dried blueberries
¼ cup unsweetened coconut flakes or grated coconut
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. ground ginger
½ tsp. fine sea salt
1 dash vanilla extract (or vanilla bean paste)
4 cups unsweetened vanilla almond milk (or your non-dairy milk of choice)
2 cups unsweetened coconut milk
1 ½ cups fresh blueberries (frozen are OK too; no need to thaw them)

For the blueberry sauce
2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

For the oatmeal
Preheat oven to 350 °F with the rack in the center. Lightly coat a 13x9x2" baking dish with cooking spray.

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. (I confess that I used 1 can of coconut milk, then topped it up with almond milk to make 2 cups, in addition to the 4 cups of almond milk. No sense in opening a fresh can of coconut milk to use only a little of it, right?)

Bake for 60 minutes. The oatmeal will appear not done when you take it out of the oven. Remove from the oven and let it cool to room temperature. Then put it in your refrigerator overnight for best results. It will thicken nicely in there. You may prefer to reheat it before serving it.

For the blueberry sauce
Heat the blueberries with a splash of water over medium high heat. When you hear them sizzle, reduce heat to medium and cook for about 5 minutes until saucy. Mash the blueberries against the side of the pan with a spatula.

Serve oatmeal with some blueberry sauce. You can also top it with coconut flakes, extra blueberries, or vegan whipped cream