Oatmeal: The Meryl Streep of Breakfast Foods

Four ways to eat oats, from four creators: stovetop, overnight, baked and blended. Same grain, four completely different breakfasts.

Oats are one of the few foods that work sweet or savoury, hot or cold, and cost almost nothing.

Stovetop oats

Chocolate strawberry oats from Liv (@nourishwithliv). The simplest version, and still the best on a cold morning.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup oats
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup oat milk
• Fresh strawberries
• Banana
• Milk chocolate nut spread
• Maple syrup

Method

1. Heat the oats on the stove with the cinnamon and milk, and cook until creamy.
2. Top with banana, strawberries and nut spread, then drizzle with maple syrup.

Overnight oats

White chocolate and raspberry overnight oats from Alice (@aliceejane). For mornings when you do not have time to stand at a stove.

Ingredients

• 50 g oats
• 80 g raspberry yoghurt
• 10 g white chocolate protein spread
• 10 g vanilla whey protein
• Raspberries

Method

1. Mix the oats, yoghurt and whey together in a container.
2. Top with raspberries and the spread.
3. Leave overnight.

Baked oats

Double choc baked oats from Vanessa (@vanessa__genevieve), which makes cake for breakfast entirely reasonable.

Ingredients

• 40 g rolled oats
• 1/2 scoop protein powder
• 2 1/2 tbsp sugar-free maple syrup
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2/3 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup almond milk
• 20 g sugar-free choc chips
• 20 g milk chocolate protein spread

Method

1. Blend the rolled oats on high speed. Add the rest of the ingredients, excluding the choc chips and choc spread, and blend until combined.
2. Stir in the choc chips. Add two thirds of the batter to a greased mini cake tin, top with half the choc spread, then layer the rest of the batter over it. Bake at 180C for 20 to 25 minutes.
3. Drizzle with the remaining choc spread.

Blended overnight oats

Biscoff blended oats from Scarlett (@scarlactive). All the texture of baked oats without turning the oven on at 6am.

Oats

• 40 g oats, blended into flour
• 40 g golden ice cream flavoured protein powder
• 250 ml unsweetened almond milk

Toppings

• 40 g smooth Biscoff spread
• 2 Biscoff biscuits

Method

1. Mix the oat ingredients together. Make sure the oats are blended smoothly.
2. Set in the fridge overnight, or at least 2 hours.
3. Just before eating, melt the Biscoff in the microwave for 30 seconds and pour it over.
4. Let it set in the fridge for 5 minutes, then add the biscuits on top.

Which method should I pick?

• Stovetop if you want it hot and have ten minutes. The creamiest result, and the most forgiving.
• Overnight if mornings are rushed. Zero effort at the time you actually need it.
• Baked if you want something that eats like cake. The most effort, and the biggest payoff.
• Blended overnight for the texture of baked oats with the effort of overnight oats. The best compromise of the four.

Why blend the oats?

Because it turns oats into a batter rather than a porridge, and it is the step that makes the baked and blended versions work.

Whole oats stay recognisably oaty however long you cook them. Blended into a coarse flour they behave like a cake mix: smooth, and able to hold air from baking powder. If your baked oats have come out stodgy, this is almost always why.

You do not need a powerful blender. A few pulses in anything is enough, and slightly uneven is fine.

Are overnight oats healthy?

Yes, with the caveat that it depends entirely on what goes in with them.

Oats themselves are genuinely good: whole grain, high in soluble fibre (beta-glucan, which has reasonable evidence for cholesterol), slow to digest, and very cheap. Soaking them overnight makes no meaningful nutritional difference to cooking them; it is a convenience method, not a health method.

What changes the picture is the additions. Two of the recipes above include chocolate spread and Biscoff, which are confectionery. That is fine as a treat breakfast, and it is not the same as a bowl of oats with fruit.

The claim that overnight oats are healthier than cooked oats does not hold up. Same oats.

Is there a downside to overnight oats?

A few, and none is serious:

• They are cold. Genuinely the main objection, and a real one in winter.
• They can be under-seasoned. Cold food needs more flavour than hot food. A pinch of salt does more than people expect.
• Portion creep. They are easy to build into a very large bowl with toppings.
• Phytates. Oats contain compounds that bind some minerals. Soaking actually reduces them slightly, so if anything overnight oats are marginally better here.

The occasional claim that raw oats are hard to digest is overstated. Soaking softens them, which is the point of the method.

What should I not put in overnight oats?

Very little is off limits, but a few things do not work:

• Fresh banana, added the night before. It browns and goes slimy. Add it in the morning.
• Steel-cut oats. They will not soften enough. Rolled or quick oats only.
• Crunchy toppings, added early. Granola, nuts and biscuits go soft. Add them at the last minute, as the Biscoff recipe above does.
• Too much liquid. Roughly 1:1 oats to liquid by volume is the starting point. More and you get soup.

Can I eat oats every day?

Yes. Oats are one of the better things to eat daily: whole grain, high in fibre, filling, and inexpensive.

The only genuine cautions are coeliac disease, where oats need to be certified gluten free because of cross-contamination, and a small number of people who react to avenin, a protein in oats. Both are uncommon.

Variety is still worth having, less because oats are a problem and more because no single food covers everything.

Which protein powder works best in oats?

It depends where in the process it goes, and this matters more than the brand.

• Cold applications such as overnight and blended oats: anything works. Whey blends most smoothly.
• Hot stovetop oats: take the pot off the heat and stir the powder through at the end. Adding whey to a boiling pot makes it clump.
• Baked oats: plant protein and collagen handle heat better than whey, which tightens and dries.

100% Whey Protein is our house-brand option, and the full protein range has the alternatives.

For more like this, browse the full recipe collection.