Overnight oats are brilliant! Convenient, simple, wholesome. But when you are feeding lots of people, those individual jars are too tedious. Here is our simple hack and some of our favorite recipes.
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Have you tried overnight oats? I remember when the original post first swept Pinterest. It was brilliant, simple, and almost didn’t work for me. Those individual jars are cute, but for anyone feeding more than 1.5 people or trying to make oatmeal to last the week, it might feel tedious.
Sure, you follow the recipes, but they essentially tell you to sweeten the oatmeal to taste and figure out what works for you. First of all, I love recipes like that. Second, I don’t want to spend the time taste-testing each little oatmeal jar. I’ve read a lot of posts on overnight oatmeal, but none of them addressed feeding a crowd.
How to Make Overnight Oats for a Crowd
Here’s a secret (it’s not, really).
Use a big bowl, add liquid and sweetener to taste, then either cover and refrigerate the bowl or spoon it into individual jars. That way you can still take a cutesy mason jar picture for Instagram.
Not that I encourage a pinterest-perfect facade. I’m just sayin’.
So here is my solution. It’s not brilliant, by any means, but since I haven’t seen it anywhere else, I think it’s worth sharing. Because it’s easy, it’s cheap, and it’s fast. – 3 qualities that more often herald a bad dating relationship than healthy food that feeds a crowd.
This Overnight Oats Recipe is:
- Gluten-free
- Dairy-free
- Make-ahead
- Easy
- Crowd-friendly
- Whole food
- Allergy-friendly
- Egg-free
- Vegan
- Vegetarian
Overnight Oats Flavor Variations:
Try the flavor combinations in these recipes!
- 5 Recipes from Chocolate Covered Katie
- Peanut Butter Oats from Minimalist Baker
- 8 Classic Overnight Oats Recipes from Wholefully
- Or just search “overnight oats” on Pinterest and find every recipe you can imagine.
If you try this recipe, let us know! Leave a comment, rate it, and tag a photo #cheapskatecook and @cheapskatecook on Instagram.
Overnight Oats for a Crowd
Overnight oats are brilliant! Convenient, simple, wholesome. But when you are feeding lots of people, those individual jars are too tedious. Here is our simple hack and some of our favorite recipes.
Ingredients
- 3 cups oats, (quick or old-fashioned)
- 4 1/2 cups liquid, (see Recipe Notes for suggestions)
- 6-8 tbsp sweetener, (see Recipe Notes for suggestions)
- Pinch of salt
- Add-ins, (see Recipe Notes for suggestions - excuse the repetition)
Instructions
- Take a large bowl or container with a lid, and fill it about halfway with oats.
- Add liquid until oats are just barely covered. Add optional salt and some sweetener (better to add less than you need at first).
- Stir well. Taste test, and add more sweetener if needed.
- Option 1: Cover your bowl and refrigerate it. It will keep for up to 3 days. When ready to serve, set out a variety of add-ins and let everyone spoon out a bowl of oatmeal and flavor it as desired.
- Option 2: Stir in whatever add-ins you desire then cover and refrigerate for up to 3 days.
- Option 3: Divide the oatmeal into jars and flavor them individually. Cover and refrigerate for up to 3 days.
Notes
- Liquids - Any kind of dairy or non-dairy milk (dairy and almond are my favorites), plain or flavored kefir, Greek yogurt and milk/water, plain yogurt and milk/water, flavored yogurt and milk/water.
- Sweetener - Whatever you like! Raw honey, maple syrup, sugar, brown sugar, coconut sugar, evaporated cane juice, sucanat, rapadura (those last two links are for educational purposes in case you don't know what those sweeteners are - I've never purchased those particular brands), date paste (not an affiliate link; just a recipe), stevia, molasses (use with another sweetener as molasses has a very strong flavor). Consider what add-ins you will use when choosing your sweetener. For example, if you're making raspberry oatmeal, you might not want to use molasses. However, molasses tastes great with apple cinnamon oats.
- Add-ins - Chopped nuts, chia seeds, ground flax seeds, hemp hearts, chopped fruit (almost any kind), cocoa powder, protein powder, collagen powder, superfood powders (matcha, cacao, baobab and other words I can't pronounce), etc.
Recommended Products
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Nutrition Information
Yield 6 Serving Size 1/2 cupAmount Per Serving Calories 194Total Fat 3gSaturated Fat 0gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 2gCholesterol 0mgSodium 24mgCarbohydrates 38gFiber 4gSugar 10gProtein 5g
Please note: The actual calories and nutrition of this dish will change depending on what ingredients you use. Nutrition information is not always accurate.
More Easy Make-Ahead Breakfasts:
What You Can Do Now:
What add-ins do you like on your overnight oats? Chia seeds? Chopped fruit? Protein powder?
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Do you have something like this anywhere?
High Protein Oats (Or Grits)
2c steel cut oats (or undegerminated grits, pricey but a good alternate for oats)
3 soup spoons yogurt or kefir OR 3T vinegar—coat grains
6c water
Mix all and let sit 12-24hrs, covered, no stirring needed.
Bring to a simmer on low heat, stir well a few times. Add 10 eggs, 2 at a time, stirring well each time. Cook about 10 min till eggs are set.
Makes 6 servings. A complete breakfast with a glass of raw milk and a piece of fruit.
We add dulse flakes so we dont add salt, but if you dont eat dulse, add 2t salt to the recipe. You should always salt grains when cooking them. If you want to sweeten this, you wont need near as much sweetener if it has salt in it.
We eat redhot and pepper on our grits too, and usually a little butter but its ok without.
YES, this is a savory oatmeal. Breakfast needs NO sugar beyond fruit or lightly sweetened plain yogurt/kefir.
This makes 3 meals for my 2 kids. I put them in corelleware as washing gummed up glass jars is insane. Dishwashers dont get the gunk off, trust me. I use corelleware coffee saucers for the lid as they suck down into the porridge and seal pretty well.
Right now, were doing one pot of oats and one pot of grits per week. I make breakfast twice a week! Smoothies w/eggs on Sundays.
My kids eat eggs DAILY. I eat them almost daily. Rarely do they know they are eating them tho, no egg-fatigue!
This is great! Thanks for sharing.
Another overnight instant breakfast: Apple Pie Oatmeal
1/2c rolled oats, 2 tsp rolled barley, 1/2-1tsp sesame seeds, sprinkling of salt, cinnamon (if not using Ceylon cinn, use spme nutmeg too), 1/2 apple, diced, per bowl. Stir in 1c yogurt and cover & chill overnight. Next morning add coconut flakes and soaked raisins & almonds, 2T each bowl. I add soaking water too.
Oats have little phytase so the barley (altho its a gluten grain, eliminate for glutenfree) adds some, to deactivate the phytate.
I also add 6T rolled barley to my big batch steel cut oats that I wrote about in another comment. Forgot to add that; my old, stressed brain apologizes.
Delicious! I want to try barley with steel cut oats. We just started making that.