These small batch cherry oatmeal bars are packed with fresh cherry flavor and a crumbly buttery oatmeal base and topping. Use frozen cherries to save money and eat them year round.
[This recipe was originally posted in August 2020. It has been updated with new cooking instructions, expert tips, FAQ, and ways to repurpose/use up ingredients]
Table of contents
These cherry oatmeal bars are similar to Starbucks Michigan cherry bars. They're a fresh, delicious, and easy summer dessert, especially since they take about 15 minutes to prep, and 30 to bake. Use frozen cherries to save money.
If you need to use up other frozen berries, you can use whatever you have instead of the cherries.
These oatmeal cherry bars are great as is, or served with ice cream or yogurt for a delicious dessert, snack, or even fun summer breakfast.
Single serving desserts are great, but getting a couple servings out of a dessert is great too.
Ingredients
Scroll down to the cherry oatmeal bars recipe card for the amounts of each ingredient, but here's a quick visual + description of what's in this recipe.
- Cherries: Frozen cherries are easy, less expensive, and available year round. You can use fresh cherries too. I like using cherries vs cherry pie filling because they are more tart and fresh tasting.
- Water: It helps create a nice thick filling when cooking the cherries and other ingredients down.
- White Sugar: This combo adds nice sweet flavor without competing with the cherry filling, it's also necessary to get a nice, thick filling.
- Corn Starch: Thickens your cherry filling. It's necessary for a gooey cherry filling in your oatmeal cherry bars.
- Lemon Juice: Adds some nice tartness to the cherry filling, makes it taste light and refreshing.
- Salt: Brings out the flavors in the crust, topping, and filling.
- Whole Wheat Flour: I like the slight nutty flavor of whole wheat flour in these bars. But you can use all purpose flour if you have it.
- Old Fashioned/Rolled Oats: adds nice texture and flavor to both the crust and topping in these cherry oatmeal crumble bars.
- Dark Brown Sugar: dark brown sugar has a bit more molasses than light brown sugar does. It adds a nice deep flavor to the crust/topping
- Baking Powder: Just a sprinkle helps your crust rise a bit to be flaky and not too dense.
- Cold Butter: key to a flaky crust and crumbly topping for your oatmeal cherry bars.
Instructions
Scroll down to the recipe card for more detailed instructions. Here's a quick overview + photos to see how to make this recipe in general.
1. Make cherry filling. The first step to make these cherry oatmeal bars is the cherry filling. Cook cherry filling ingredients in pot, stirring occasionally until sauce thickens (5-8 minutes). Refrigerate to cool.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
3. Prepare Oatmeal Mixture. This will be used for the base and for the topping. Mix together whole wheat flour, old fashioned rolled oats, dark brown sugar, baking powder and salt to large mixing bowl.
4. Cut cold butter chunks into oatmeal mixture.
5. Assemble oatmeal cherry bars. Press ½ of flour/oatmeal mixture into parchment lined 8x8 metal baking pan. Pour cooled cherry mixture over base. Spread out. Sprinkle remaining oat topping.
4. Bake cherry oatmeal bars for 20-30 minutes, or until cherry filling is bubbling and topping is golden brown. Remove and cool before serving. Eat as is or serve with vanilla ice cream or yogurt.
Storage/Reheating Tips
Store in airtight container on counter for up to about 7 days. Or until bars start to smell funny. They should last longer in the fridge. Or freeze individual cherry oatmeal bars for a couple months.
Substitutions/Tips
- Swap frozen cherries for fresh pitted cherries in these cherry oatmeal bars if you have them. Add an additional tablespoon of water (or maybe more) if it gets too thick while cooking.
- Start with 1 T lemon juice. Add 1-2 additional tablespoons of lemon juice depending on how sweet your cherries are. If the filling is just a bit too tart, it's perfect. The buttery, sweet crust cuts some of the tartness of the filling.
- Swap whole wheat flour for all purpose flour if that's what you have.
- Swap light or regular brown sugar for of dark brown sugar. The dark brown sugar has more molasses in it than the others, and the flavor is great. But use what you have/can find.
- Use cold butter to get a slightly flaky crust.
- Other great add-ins: Chopped nuts, mixed berries (but you might need to adjust water, lemon, etc in filling).
FAQ
Make oatmeal bars like these easy cherry oatmeal bars recipe. You can also add them to other fruit recipes like this Summer Berry Salad, Skillet Peach Crumble, Peach Cobbler, or Blueberry Oreo Ice Cream.
You can use peaches, strawberries, strawberries & rhubarb, raspberries, or blackberries instead of making oatmeal cherry bars. Adjust cornstarch, sugar as needed.
Oats can be eaten raw, baked, or cooked over the stove. They're great in lots of different dishes like oatmeal, overnight oats, smoothies, and cherry oatmeal bars.
Other good summer dessert recipes
How to repurpose
Crumble or chop up small and serve leftover cherry oatmeal bars over yogurt or vanilla ice cream.
What to do with leftover ingredients
When you're cooking for one, you often have leftover produce, cans of whatever ingredient, etc. Here are a couple ideas on how to use up the leftover ingredients. It'll help you save money by wasting fewer ingredients.
- Frozen cherries: add them to this Overnight Oatmeal recipe
- Lemon juice: use some in this Single Serve Lemonade or Pan Seared Pork Chops
Did you make these cherry oatmeal bars? Leave me a comment & rating to share how they turned out!
Small Batch Cherry Oatmeal Bars
Equipment
- Small sauce pot
- Rubber scraper
- Large mixing bowl
- Measuring Cups
- Measuring Spoons
- Two knives or pastry cutter
- 8x8 pan
- Parchment Paper
Ingredients
Cherry Filling
- 2.5 cups frozen cherries or fresh
- 3 tablespoons water
- ¼ cup white sugar
- 1 tablespoon corn starch
- 1-3 tablespoons lemon juice about the juice of ½ lemon
- pinch salt
Oatmeal Base & Topping
- ¾ cup whole wheat flour
- 1 cup old fashioned oats
- ½ cup dark brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup cold butter cut into chunks
Instructions
- Add all cherry filling ingredients to small sauce pot (2.5 c frozen cherries, 3 T water, ¼ c white sugar, 1 T corn starch, 1 T lemon juice, pinch of salt).
- Cook, stirring occasionally until sauce thickens. This should take between 5-8 minuets. Break up cherries with a spoon or your rubber scraper if you desire smaller chunks of cherries. Add 1-2 T more lemon juice depending on how sweet the filling is. Place in refrigerator to cool.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- While cherry filling is cooling, prepare oatmeal mixture. This will be used for the base and for the topping. Add ¾ c whole wheat flour, 1 c old fashioned rolled oats, ½ c dark brown sugar, ½ teaspoon baking powder and ½ teaspoon salt to large mixing bowl. Mix together.
- Add ½ cup chopped cold butter. Cut into flower/oat mixture with two knives or with a pastry cutter until butter is pea sized. (watch video to learn how to cut butter into flour mixture.
- Place parchment paper in an 8x8 metal baking pan.
- Press about ½ of flour/oatmeal mixture into baking pan to form a pressed crust with an even thickness.
- Pour cooled cherry mixture over base, spread over crust.
- Sprinkle remaining flour/oatmeal mixture to make crumbly topping. Do not press down topping.
- Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until cherry filling is bubbling and topping is golden brown. Remove and cool before serving.
- Eat as is or serve with vanilla ice cream or yogurt. Refrigerate leftovers for 3-5 days.
Notes
- Use fresh pitted cherries if you have them. Add an additional tablespoon of water (or maybe more) if it gets too thick while cooking.
- Start with 1 T lemon juice. Add 1-2 additional tablespoons of lemon juice depending on how sweet your cherries are. If the filling is just a bit too tart, it's perfect. The buttery, sweet crust cuts some of the tartness of the filling.
- Swap whole wheat flour for all purpose flour if that's what you have. You can also use light or regular brown sugar instead of dark brown sugar. The dark brown sugar has more molasses in it than the others, and the flavor is great. But use what you have/can find.
- Use cold butter to get a slightly flaky crust.
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Audrey Drake says
Made cherry squares today Turned out really good. I used cherry pie filling, but. Next time I going to use my homemade cherry filllng. Thank you for sharing the recipe.
Rebecca says
great idea! love how versatile this recipe can be. let me know how it turns out
Jen says
I had about 5 cups of fresh tart cherries so I doubled the recipe. Added some chopped pecans in with the top part of oatmeal mixture. Turned out great! Thank you!
Rebecca says
oh great addition of pecans! glad it turned out well. I bet it's so good with fresh tart cherries.
Anita says
This looks so good I bet it will be perfect for breakfast. I'm going to try with some frozen blueberries since that's what I have in my freezer right now. 🙂
Rebecca says
great idea! that'd be so good
Marlynn says
These bars are the most delicious way to enjoy the season's ripest cherries! No leftovers - they were gobbled up!
Rebecca says
ya they don't last long
Tawnie Kroll says
I am all about cherries right now and these were so good! They didn't last 2 days in my house! YUM
Rebecca says
ya they don't last long at all! thanks!
Jacque Hastert says
I love how you can use fresh or frozen cherries in this dessert! Since it has oatmeal listed as an ingredient, that means they are acceptable for breakfast, right?
Rebecca says
always!
Lizet Bowen says
I was looking for a dessert for this weekend, and I just found it!! we love cherries. Can't wait to try it!
Rebecca says
yay! enjoy