If You Have Peanut Butter And Bananas, You Have An Easy On-The-Go Breakfast Ready In 32 Minutes

If you have peanut butter and a couple of bananas hanging around, you only need 32 minutes to turn them into a breakfast you'll want to wake up for. Jessica Morone's PB and banana oatmeal breakfast cookies take 15 minutes to prepare and 17 minutes to bake. The batch yields 24 cookies total, which could easily stretch over the week or serve to a group. Make them ahead of time and breakfast on bleary or hectic mornings becomes as simple as reaching into the cookie jar.

The clever part about these cookies is that even though it seems a little subversive to have dessert for breakfast, the recipe is basically repurposing some pretty common breakfast ingredients — peanut butter and mashed bananas with oats, along with maple syrup, cinnamon, and a few optional mix-ins like walnuts, raisins, and chocolate chips. The results are delicious and, naturally, are vegan too (and gluten-free if you use certified gluten-free oats). Their substantive but compact form makes them especially convenient if your breakfast needs to head out the door with you. As Morone puts it, they're "cozy and filling, like a bowl of oatmeal you can hold in your hand."

Nutrient profile-wise, peanut butter bumps up the protein and fat, giving the cookies a richness while the oats form their structure and contribute fiber and a little more protein. The chocolate chips may be less conventional breakfast fare, but having a little chocolate hidden amongst the macronutrients can make eating a healthy breakfast a little more appealing.

These cookies are such a great "on-the-go" breakfast because, other than the balanced nutrition-to-joy factor, their biggest advantage is logistical. Making them takes half an hour on the day, but you aren't committed to more prep work every morning. You don't have to blend a smoothie, crack any eggs, or scrape and soak a crusty oatmeal pan. A 24-cookie batch gives you enough to portion out over several breakfasts (and snacks), so the time spent mixing and baking pays off later in the week. 

There's also room to adapt the cookies to your preferences or what you have in your pantry already. Morone suggests swapping in another nut butter, sunflower seed butter for a nut-free version, or swapping the walnuts and raisins for other nuts and dried fruits. Pumpkin seeds and chopped dried apricots would be a slightly unexpected but wonderful combination, and the recipe developer also suggests swapping in chia or flax seeds. You don't need to make every variation at once. The point is that a batch of this recipe can flex according to what sounds good, your dietary needs and on-hand ingredients.

Cookies may not be on the list of the 25 most popular breakfast foods in the U.S., but a breakfast you can prepare ahead is especially helpful on mornings when sitting down to eat is the first thing sacrificed to the clock. These cookies are highly portable, and don't require reheating or assembly. Best of all, they don't amass a collection of dirty dishes first thing in the morning when you need to run out the door.