A base recipe for overnight oats, how long they keep in the fridge and five flavours to rotate. Five minutes in the evening, breakfast ready by morning.
Porridge that cooks while you sleep
Overnight oats are rolled oats left to soak in milk and yoghurt in the fridge overnight. The oats drink up the liquid and soften into something close to cooked porridge, only cold and a little firmer. In the morning all you need is a jar and a spoon.
It is the easiest breakfast to make several days ahead. You need jars with lids and five minutes in the evening.
The base recipe
This makes one jar. Make three at once and breakfast is sorted until Wednesday.
- 100 ml (scant ½ cup) rolled oats
- 100 ml (scant ½ cup) milk or oat milk
- 50 ml (3 tbsp) yoghurt or skyr
- 1 tbsp chia seeds
- 1 pinch of salt
- 1 tsp honey or maple syrup (optional)
- Stir everything together in a jar with a lid.
- Refrigerate for at least six hours, ideally overnight.
- Stir in the morning. If it is too thick, loosen it with a splash of milk.
- Add toppings just before you eat.
The chia makes it creamy and holds the liquid, so it never turns watery. Without chia, use about 50 ml less milk. You won't taste the salt, but without it the oats taste flat.
Which oats work best
Ordinary rolled oats give the best result: soft, with a little chew left. Jumbo oats need longer and stay tough after a single night. Quick oats and fine oats turn to mush within a couple of hours. Certified gluten-free oats work exactly like regular ones.
How long do overnight oats last?
The base keeps for three days in the fridge with a lid on. After that the oats and yoghurt turn sourer and the texture goes tired. For a full week of breakfasts, mix three jars on Sunday and two more on Tuesday evening.
Fresh fruit, banana and nuts don't like waiting. Banana browns, berries weep and nuts go soft. Grated apple and carrot survive a night; everything else goes on the same morning. Frozen berries can go straight in, since they thaw overnight and colour the oats.
Five flavours to rotate
Start from the base recipe and change only what is listed here.
- Apple pie: one grated apple, 1 tsp cinnamon and a pinch of cardamom in the oats. Top with chopped walnuts.
- Blueberry and lemon: 100 ml frozen blueberries and the zest of half a lemon in the oats. Top with a few more blueberries.
- Cocoa and banana: 1 tbsp cocoa and an extra teaspoon of honey in the oats. Slice half a banana over it in the morning.
- Peanut butter and raspberry: 1 tbsp peanut butter in the oats, whisked into the milk first. Top with frozen raspberries thawed in the fridge.
- Carrot cake: half a grated carrot, 1 tsp cinnamon and 1 tbsp raisins in the oats. Top with a spoonful of skyr.
More protein without powder
Swap the 50 ml of yoghurt for 100 ml of skyr or quark and the jar goes from just over 10 grams of protein to around 20. It sets thicker and tangier, so loosen it with a splash of milk in the morning. A tablespoon of peanut butter or hemp seeds adds a few grams more.
How to do it in Samla
Save the base recipe and the flavours you like as recipes, and put breakfast in the meal plan next to dinner. Add three servings on Sunday and two on Tuesday, and the oats, yoghurt and chia land on the shopping list with the rest of the week. How to plan the rest of the week is in a weekly meal plan for the whole household.
