What I Eat For Breakfast: The Overnight Oats Tutorial

I go through lots and lots of breakfast phases. I went through a pancake phase, an Eggo Waffle phase (um, yum), a fruit & greek yogurt phase, a no breakfast phase, a big breakfast phase… I’ve been through it all. But right now, I’m in an Overnight Oat phase. Let me introduce you to my current favorite breakfast and one that I have been eating almost every day. I’m going to take you through exactly how I make it, step by step.

So why is overnight oats amazing?

1. It’s the easiest thing EVER. You don’t cook anything. You make it the night before in less than 3 minutes. When you wake up, it’s there waiting for you and all you need to do is eat it.

2. Once you have the basic recipe down, you can do SO many different things with it.

3. You can serve it cold which is awesome for these summer days. Or, you can heat it up on a chilly morning.

4. It’s incredibly healthy. Oats help to reduce cholesterol and are a whole, unprocessed source of carbohydrates which are necessary to start your day.

The basic premise of overnights oats is this:

You throw dry oats right out of the oat container into a bowl. You add whatever fruit you want. You then add something that the oats can absorb so that they can plump up overnight (yogurt, milk, water). Add some spice. Put it in your fridge. Then, overnight, the oats absorb the liquid and when you wake up, it’s ready and waiting for you. You can do this straight into a tupperware if you want to take it to work. That’s it!

Now here is the step- by- step.

The night (or day) before:

So this is what I use. Grab a bowl, 1/2 cup dry oats (old fashioned or quick, either way), a fruit of choice and a liquid of choice. Other fruits that I love are bananas, nectarines or apples. I also add some ground flax for some healthy fats and my liquid of choice is usually a little water + unsweetened vanilla almond milk. Spices I use are nutmeg and cinnamon. The almonds are for later.

The first step is to dump the oats into the bowl. I use 1/2 cup oats, but you can use 1/3 if you want a little less. This girl has a hearty appetite, so I always go with 1/2 cup.

Next, I sprinkle in my flax, maybe about a tablespoon.

Then comes a dash of nutmeg and a bigger dash of cinnamon

And then I add in my fruit, this time it was obviously blueberries.

Finally, I cover the entire mixture with a little bit of water and unsweetened vanilla almond milk. Some people like to use yogurt here to make a thicker mixture, some use just water, some just milk. Whatever strikes your fancy. I like a little milk, a little water. I don’t measure here, but I would guess it’s about a cup or 1.5 cups of total liquid.

If you’re adding nuts, keep these aside to add in the morning. I like to keep my nuts crunchy instead of letting them get soggy.

In to the fridge…

And then you just leave it!

In the morning, I wake up and go straight to the fridge to pull out my oats that made themselves overnight. In the summer, I eat these cold, but you could warm them up in the microwave for a minute or two if you’d like.

The oats have plumped up, most of the liquid has been absorbed, and I have a hearty and incredibly healthy meal waiting for me.

I’ve also recently made them with nectarines and peanut butter:

And I’ve done them many, many times with banana (my go-to).

I would also check out this recipe that I posted a long time ago which goes over how to make Strawberry Overnight Oats In A Jar.

Basic Overnight Oats

• 1/2 cup dry oats
• 1 cup water or milk
• fruit of choice
• cinnamon (optional)
• nutmeg (optional)
• 1 T ground flax (optional)
• nuts or peanut butter (optional)

1. Combine everything into a bowl except for nuts if you want to keep them crunchy. Stir.

2. Set in fridge overnight

3. Eat in the morning! Eat cold or heat up if desired.

Variations:

• Fruit: apples, banana, nectarine, blueberries, strawberries… anything
• Add Yogurt to thicken. Water or Milk.
• Sweeteners: I don’t sweeten but you can put some maple syrup, honey or jam in
• Healthy fats: flax, nuts, peanut butter, other nut butters
• Add on top in morning: cereal, granola, nuts, raisins, additional fruit

*It doesn’t matter what you put in the night before vs. the morning. Just keep out whatever you don’t want getting soggy!

Have you tried Overnight Oats? Is this something that you’d give a try?