This easy and versatile recipe for Steel Cut Overnight Oats is simple, delicious, and customizable with endless add-ons!
I love breakfasts that cook themselves (let’s be serious, count me out as a fan of any food that cooks itself, as long as it’s not depressing).
We have a breakfast that comes and goes depending on the morning, the attitudes of the kids and mom who may or may not be morning people, any last minute morning cravings and a few other things.
I have lots of great breakfast recipes, but there are others that aren’t suitable for busy school mornings.
Our family eats classic breakfast foods over and over again after we change. Now, our weekly rotation for the last month one plus consists of these treats:
Blender Wheat Pancakes (at least 1-2X per week; whatever was the most pancakes made in the previous cycle)
Em’s Overnight Pancakes (I use this if I don’t have any in a pancake batter)
Refrigerated bran muffins (I keep cooked muffins in the freezer, serve structure in yogurt and green smoothies)
French Toast (no recipe, just a simple egg/milk mixture on homemade bread)
Cold cereal (1X a week, more or less, on mornings when I can’t stand the same cold breakfast; we try to eat cereal on the healthy end of the spectrum – high fiber / low sugar – which is probably why only my poor kids don’t like cold cereal)
Scrambled eggs and toast (again, no recipe)
There are a few other breakfast options that I’ll give from time to time, like this slow cooker , overnight oatmeal , or regular oatmeal quickly microwaved in the morning.
But I didn’t share our favorite way to eat oatmeal. And if “no-brainer” is a word that entices you to do something, you’d better listen.
This is unthinkable.
The night before I boil water and add steel cut oats and a pinch of salt. Cook for one minute, cover and rest overnight.
The next morning it was thick and tender and perfectly cooked. A 1-2 minute warm-up is all it takes to get breakfast on the table.
I hesitate to share it with you because I have a feeling most of you already know about it and/or it’s so simple that “recipe” is a bit of a loose term.
We all prefer steel cut oats over regular, which is why this version of oatmeal is a hit everywhere. And guess what?
Although I’ve been making steel-cut oats like this for years, we recently tried a version where half of the steel-cut oats were replaced with quinoa, and it prepared the same way.
Holy sowing.
Our favorite oatmeal toppings are a swirl of honey or maple syrup or agave nectar followed by a generous dollop of fresh fruit (in many varieties, regardless of the season), dried fruit, and sometimes even freeze-dried fruit if i have haven’t done it yet. it took a long time to go to market.
A nice breakfast that cooks itself. And like I said, I love it.
Overnight Steel Cut Oats
Yield: 4 servings
Preparation time: 12 hours 5 minutes
Total time: 12 hours 5 minutes
Material Needed
- 4 cups of water
- 1 cup steel cut oats
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Bring the water to a boil in a medium or large pot (large enough to hold about 4 cups of cooked oatmeal with a little extra space).
- Once boiling, stir in the oats and salt for a minute (watch carefully so they don’t boil).
- Remove from heat and stir. Cover the pan and leave overnight, 8-12 hours.
- The morning before serving, stir the oatmeal to redistribute the oatmeal in any liquid and heat on medium for 1-2 minutes until the oatmeal is heated through.
- Serve with your favorite oatmeal toppings! We like bananas, craisins, agave nectar or a little brown sugar, blueberries and lots of fruit.
Note
Oast/Quinoa: you can see from my photos that sometimes we get a little wild and lost with this recipe and we use half quinoa, half steel cut oats. Same directions and amount of water/salt, just replace half of the steel-cut oats with the rinsed quinoa. Yum!
