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Why You’ll Love My Recipe
This delicious and zingy twist on a date square will make you glad you’ve got leftover cranberry sauce in the fridge. These cranberry oatmeal bars are chewy, soft, and perfect for baking and freezing in advance.
If you’re a fan of oatmeal cookies in general, you’ll also love my healthy banana date oatmeal breakfast cookies and whole wheat oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (these are a little more indulgent!).
Reader Review
Thank you for this recipe! I was looking for ways to use up cranberry jelly that my kids will like. 🙂 This was perfect! The bottom is a nice cookie texture, the middle jammie, and the topping crumbly. I will add this to my recipe box. Thanks again!
Karlynn’s Recipe Notes
- Skill Level: This is a very easy recipe.
- Total Time: Making these bars will take you approximately 45 minutes from start to finish. You will also need to let them cool for a while before slicing them.
- Variations: This is a very basic recipe that can be made with pretty much any jam, jelly, or fruit preserve. Try using some homemade Apple Butter or Strawberry Freezer Jam for the middle layer. If you’d like an extra bit of sweetness, sprinkle on some chocolate chips (white, milk, or dark chocolate, depending on your personal taste).
- Tools Needed: For this recipe, you’ll need a medium bowl, a mixing spoon, a 9×9 baking pan, and a fork or pastry cutter.
What You’ll Need For Ingredients
Crust: This simple recipe makes use of a basic crumble crust, made of oats, flour, brown sugar, baking soda, and butter. This crust will work just as well with any gluten free flour or oats you normally use, and you can also replace the brown sugar with a no calorie sweetener.
Cranberries: You can use some leftover cranberry sauce or cranberry jam for this. If you haven’t got any, try using any jam you happen to have in the house. Most fruits will work with the simple crumble crust for this recipe.
How To Make Cranberry Oatmeal Bars
This is a brief overview of the recipe. The full list of ingredients and step-by-step instructions are in the recipe card below.
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and set aside 9×9 baking pan.
- Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Cut in butter. Mix until crumbly.
- Press 2/3 of the mixture into the greased 9×9 pan. Pour on the cranberry sauce or cranberry jelly and smooth it out into an even layer. Crumble the rest of the dry mixture over the cranberry layer.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes. Let cool and then slice into 25 squares.
Karlynn’s Tips and Tricks for Making Cranberry Oatmeal Bars
Patience: Let these bars fully cool before trying to slice them, or they may be too crumbly. You could also try chilling them in the fridge or freezer for a few hours before cutting them.
Easier Slicing: If you’d like to make these bars even easier to cut, try baking them in a silicone pan, letting them cool, and then carefully popping them out on to a cutting board. You could also line the pan with parchment paper and leave enough hanging over the edge of the pan to use as handles to take the bars out. Or avoid slicing altogether and use silicone food molds to make individual servings. Just adjust your baking time accordingly.
Storage Instructions
You can store these bars in the fridge in a sealed container for up to 5 days, or in the freezer for a few months. Layer them with sheets of wax or parchment paper to make them easier to separate and defrost later.
More Delicious Oat Recipes
If you love oats but you’re looking for something a bit heftier than squares, try this filling Oatmeal Bread!
Or make a batch of Pumpkin Baked Oatmeal for a tasty and nutritious breakfast.
Spiced Apple Oatmeal Cookies and Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies are both great options for a filling snack.
There you go. A delicious oatmeal bar that you can make in advance and freeze for a month or two, if you don’t devour them immediately. Let me know how you like them.
Happy Baking!
Karlynn
Cranberry Oatmeal Bars
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups quick oats
- 1 ½ cups flour
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup butter
- 1 ½ cups cranberry sauce/jelly
Instructions
- Mix the first 4 ingredients together, then take the butter and cut it in, until it’s perfectly crumbly. I find that rubbing it between your palms lightly works so well.
- Firmly press ⅔ of the mix into a greased 9 inch x 9 inch pan.
- Once the bottom layer is done, pour the cranberry sauce, or jelly, on top and spread out in an even layer.
- Crumble the rest of the topping over the jelly.
- Bake in a 350 degree oven for 35-40 minutes until it's a lovely brown color and crisp on top.
- Cool this completely and then slice into 25 squares. It is crumbly but if you are patient and cool it for a long time, they hold together.
Notes
- Because you don’t make the filling, you can use as much OR as little cranberry sauce for the filling layer as you like in these bars!
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Rose says
Thank you for adding the gluten free options and thank you for the recipe without 10000 ingredients. I’m making as I type. I made (and failed miserably) a very complicated banana bread recipe yesterday that I had made perfect before and so I was looking for something simple to make up for it. Very excited!
another prairie girl says
Thank you for this recipe! I was looking for ways to use up cranberry jelly that my kids will like. 🙂 This was perfect! The bottom is a nice cookie texture, the middle jammie, and the topping crumbly. I will add this to my recipe box. Thanks again!
A Canadian Foodie says
Now, that is a great way to use up the jelly! I have been using the syrup on ice cream (naughty me) and it is SO delicious! I was thinking of a pavlova with a high bush syrup gelee. Now, doesn’t that sound refined!
I probably won’t make the squares. I do not have kids and I do not need to eat them all myself. But, you have me going. Surprise muffins. I made those with my students: a dollop of jam in the middle (dough half way up, jam in the middle, top with dough)… or thimble cookies. THOSE I will definitely do with this jelly next year when I bake (as I was not well enough this year.)… and hmmm….instead of sugar, mix it with apples in a crisp. Oh YUM.
OK. I just might make those bars… but, I love the idea of the gelee, too. Where are accents for the comments?
🙂
Valerie