An easy, healthy recipe with NO refined sugar!
Every afternoon before the sun sinks too low, I lace up my old raspberry red running shoes and slip my keys into my pocket. I turn left at the end of the driveway, sticking to the sidewalk until it stops at the end of the street, before cutting straight through the park, past the playground, and popping out at another street on the other side. I continue strolling along until the bike path appears, turning right to loop back around and pause at the mailbox to collect the Safeway circular, Comcast bills, and free catalogs addressed to our house’s previous tenants.
Some might say I’m a creature of habit.
I usually dial my mom to talk while I walk. With my only other conversation companion during the day being a 15-pound Chihuahua, my extreme introverted self takes a vacation during those phone calls, and I babble on for nearly 20 minutes straight about the science of instant oats, my “penguin”-perfect date night, and setting aside enough “me” time for a lively sports-watching dinner, all while Mom’s patient ears turn numb.
But on the rare occasion where I feel particularly brave, I break out of my comfortable routine and turn right instead of left, tracing a route towards the other side of town that takes me past one of my favorite family’s houses, where I drop off containers of cookies, cake, and monkey bread. We chat in their kitchen, quickly losing track of time as we laugh, and I always leave feeling like a real person again. Not just one who talks to dogs.
Just like my predictable afternoon walking routine, I established one for breakfast too: I always start my day with a banana. I store my stash on the countertop next to the sink, replenishing it with a trip to TJ’s whenever it dwindles down to 3. (TJ’s normally stocks very green bananas…) As the perfectly tasty nutritious treat, I never thought I’d deviate from it…
Until a crazy idea flashed through my brain during my morning run. What about a banana cheesecake… For breakfast?
Modeled off my other breakfast cheesecakes, these individual-sized Banana Breakfast Cheesecakes are smooth and creamy—and still secretly skinny! Packed with protein and bursting with banana flavor, they’re naturally sweetened and contain NO refined sugar. With less than 200 calories, these luscious treats are the perfect healthy, guilt-free way to start your day!
The easy crust consists of just two ingredients: instant oats and unsweetened applesauce. Do not substitute regular old-fashioned oats; they’re thicker and cannot absorb liquid as quickly, which results in a tough crust. But good news: you can make your own instant oats! Add the same amount of old-fashioned oats (or gluten-free oats, if preferred) to a food processor and pulse 5-8 times until coarse. So simple!
I added ¼ cup of mashed banana to the creamy cheesecake filling. The banana actually plays 3 roles: (a) flavor {obviously!}, (b) binder {instead of an egg—so you can lick the spatula!}, and (c) sweetener. Brown speckly bananas contain more natural sugar than their green or plain yellow counterparts, so pick the spottiest one you can find! To round out the sweetness, I added a touch of honey too.
These low fat cheesecakes also require a little cornstarch. The cornstarch helps the filling thicken and set; without it, the cheesecakes would be too liquidy. Although many recipes call for flour, I opted for cornstarch instead to keep these cheesecakes gluten-free.
Bake the skinny cheesecakes for 19-22 minutes—no more! The centers should still jiggle a bit when you gently wiggle the pan. Because we leave the treats in the muffin cups, the warm pan continues to cook the centers as they cool; baking them longer would result in tough gummy cheesecakes. Nobody likes the taste of those!
Loaded with fruity flavor and a whopping 13.6 grams of protein, these creamy Banana Breakfast Cheesecakes still taste like a sinfully sweet treat. Each smooth bite easily slides down your throat, and their luxurious texture fooled my taste testers. Nobody believed they were a skinny, low fat morning meal!
After licking the fork (and plate) clean, I immediately started reevaluating my precious banana stash… So if you’re anything like me, get out of your breakfast rut and bake these for a healthy treat to start your day!
| Banana Breakfast Cheesecakes | | Print |
- ¼ cup instant (quick-cooking) oats
- 2 tbsp unsweetened applesauce
- 6 oz fat-free cream cheese, softened
- 1 tbsp honey
- ¼ cup mashed banana
- ½ tsp cornstarch
- ¼ tsp vanilla extract
- Preheat the oven to 300°F, and lightly coat 2 jumbo-sized muffin cups with nonstick cooking spray.
- In a small bowl, stir together the oats and applesauce. Divide the mixture in half, and press into the bottoms of the prepared muffin cups. Bake at 300°F for 8 minutes. Cool in the pan.
- In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and honey until smooth. Mix in the banana, cornstarch, and vanilla. Spread the filling on top of the cool crusts. Bake at 300°F for 19-22 minutes, or until the centers still jiggle slightly when the pan is gently shaken. Cool to room temperature in the pan before covering with plastic wrap. Refrigerate at least 3 hours before serving.
{gluten-free, low fat, low calorie, high protein}
I have been having such a hard time finding healthy recipes that I would actually like for my diet and just on your site I have found so many I am astonished!! Finally a kindred spirit!!! Lol. Thank you. I can not wait to try any of them! I am such a picky eater and am allergic to anything peppery.
I’m so touched that you’d like to try so many of my recipes Tracey! That means a lot to me. 🙂 I can’t wait to hear what you try first and what you think of it!
I would like to make these for an office birthday party (in 2 days). If you’re able to respond quickly enough, can you tell me how you’d adjust this recipe and the cook time for a mini muffin tin? I need to make enough for about 15 people so I figured mini muffins or combining them into a larger pan and so I can cut them. Which do you think would work better?
That’s really kind of you to want to bake these for the office birthday party Robin! If you’d like to make them in a mini muffin tin for about 15 people, then each jumbo-sized cheesecake should yield about 4-5 mini cheesecakes. Cook the crusts for the same amount of time, and the filling should require about 14-17 minutes. I’m excited to hear what you think of them!
Hello Amy! I was wanting to make these for a friend and I, however she’s allergic to apples. Is there anything you might suggest that we could substitute for the applesauce?
That’s really sweet of you to want to bake these to share with your friend Krystle! You can substitute mashed banana for the applesauce in the crust. I’m guessing she isn’t allergic to bananas! 😉 I can’t wait to hear what you two think of the cheesecakes!
I LOVE this recipe! Cheesecake erryday ?
I’ve put you in my article “Top 5 health and fitness reads” on http://www.bodybysamantha.com.au, hopefully I’ll send some traffic your way, your recipes are the best x
Thanks so much Samantha! 🙂
Hi Amy! These look so good! I am trying to work them into my diet and have to count up all my macro nutrients. Do you have the exacts posted somewhere? Thanks so much!
Thanks Blaire! You can find the full nutrition information underneath each recipe on my blog. 🙂 I can’t wait to hear what you think of the cheesecakes!
Amy, this is an amazing idea for a Valentine’s treat.
Thanks Terri! I’d love to hear what you think of the cheesecakes if you try them! 🙂
Cheese cake for breakfast! I love it. The crust is perfect with the oatmeal and applesauce.. Great idea. I am always looking for something a little healthier. Thanks.
Thanks Amy! I’d love to hear what you think if you try these cheesecakes! 🙂
Hi Amy,
Here I am again, requesting answers to my doubts at the proper place ?
Don’t know when I’ll try these cheesecakes but need to know if there’s a substitute for the applesauce. I’m certain I won’t find it here in Portugal.
Have to let you know that your black been brownies are scrumptious!!! Can’t get enough of them ??? and like you said no ever guesses what their made of.
Beijinhos
Raquel
I’m so glad you enjoyed those brownies Racquel! 🙂 For the applesauce in this recipe, an equal amount of yogurt may be substituted, or half the amount of milk. With either of those, you’ll want to add a bit of sweetener to compensate since neither of those is as sweet as applesauce. I can’t wait to hear what you think of these cheesecakes when you try them!
Would it be okay to substitute the cream cheese with a greek yogurt?!
No, I don’t recommend that! Greek yogurt isn’t nearly as thick and stiff as cream cheese, so the cheesecakes would never set. If you’d like to substitute Greek yogurt cream cheese (it’s very similar to Neufchâtel cream cheese), then that’s fine. 🙂 I can’t wait to hear what you think of these cheesecakes Olivia!
This sounds fantastic! I actually stumbled across this recipe looking for a cake recipe for my toddler’s upcoming birthday. We eat pretty healthy and (perhaps consequently) she’s not very into cake. But she loves bananas and wants to have someplace to stick candles.
So my question– could I scale the recipe up and make it into a full sized (maybe even extra large) cheesecake? Would anything need to change about the baking to get it to set correctly?
Also, I’m super excited about the crust. I have an applesauce oatmeal crust that I’ve been making for things for the past few months, but it’s like 8 or 10 ingredients (oatmeal, almond flour, applesauce, egg, baking powder, salt, coconut oil, etc,etc). I think you may have just given me back years on my life!!
Oh, and I meant to also ask, would this be good with a little cinnamon thrown in?
I’m so honored that you’d consider using my recipe for such a special celebration! Happy birthday to your little girl! 🙂 I think cinnamon would be a lovely addition! I haven’t tried scaling this up to make a full-sized cheesecake, so I’m honestly not sure what modifications might be necessary. I know it’s possible to scale up the recipe and still bake them in individual muffin cups though! I can’t wait to hear what everyone thinks of it Sage!
It totally works!! In case anyone else wants to know, it’s about 6x the recipe to make a 12 in springform (6-8x for the filling, if you want it thicker), and you might need to bake just a smidge longer, but I think I baked it for 22 (maybe 23) minutes and it worked beautifully! And the cinnamon is great in it, too — like banana bread cheesecake! yum!
I’m so glad it turned out! Thank you so much for letting me know about turning it into a full-sized cheesecake; I really appreciate that info! 🙂
I have to correct my comment about the cooking time. I first did 4x the recipe in a 12 in pan and that didn’t even make it to the edges (maybe an inch thick in the middle and thick enough that it didn’t spread) but I just redid it with 8x in a 12 in pan and definitely had to bake it for longer. But still awesome!
Thanks for the update Sage — I really appreciate it! 🙂