3 Easy Overnight Oats Recipes to Make for Breakfast

Breakfast can sometimes be the hardest meal of the day.  There’s often limited time, you don’t want to be cooking at that time of the morning, but you need something that gets you through until lunch.  One idea to consider is overnight oats recipes – ready when you are, full of nutritious stuff and ideal to keep you going until lunch.

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What are overnight oats?

Overnight oats are also known as Bircher muesli after a Swiss physician called Maximilian Bircher-Benner who first gave the mixture to his patients.  You can soak the oats overnight in natural yoghurt or in fruit juice, depending on the recipe and what you prefer.

You can use jumbo oats or porridge oats for the job – or even some of each.  If you want to add extra flavour, toast the oats in a non-stick pan for a couple of minutes before you make the dish.  Spread them around with a silicon spoon so that they don’t stick and when they become fragrant and a little brown on the edge, tip them into a tray and leave them to cool.

Two of the favourites to add to the mix are grated apple or pear.  Not only do they give the mix a nice flavour, but they count as one of those five-a-day fruit and vegetable portions.  You can also add other fruit to enhance the flavour.

The next morning, the final step is taken – adding the toppings.  You can add fruits, nuts or seeds, a drizzle of honey, crunchy granola and any other favourite.  Much in the same way as you would with a smoothie bowl, you can jazz up the dish and increase the health benefits.   

Health benefits

Now apart from being a great option for something easy and tasty for breakfast, it is also interesting to note that there are some solid health benefits to overnight oats recipes that you should consider.

1.     Fuller longer while burning fat

The first part of this was particularly interesting for me because I find if I try to do too much in the hour or so before lunch, I end up with the shakes – it is like my energy levels have run out and I’m on fumes.  But with oats of any kind, they are a slow release energy food, so they release the energy at a slower rate while speeding up the calorie burning.  One study showed that by swapping 5% of daily carbohydrates for resistant starch (which is in oats) could boost the metabolism by 23%!

2.     Ensure you get a good breakfast

Mentally we know that eating a healthy breakfast is super important but sometimes life gets in the way.  Just grabbing a quick croissant is okay but not every morning!  A bacon sandwich for breakfast is a lovely treat but not ideal as a daily choice.  By preparing overnight oats recipes ready to use the next day, you can ensure you get a good breakfast – and then can have a guilt-free one another day.

3.     You get more nutrients

The soaking part of overnight oats is interesting because those oats then absorb more nutrients from the other ingredients than they could if they were just mixed with the fruit and eaten.  The reason for this is something called phytic acid – this breaks down when oats are soaked.  That’s good because otherwise it stops mineral absorption and can also mess around with digestive enzymes.

4.     Lower cholesterol and help your heart

This one applies to any type of oats dish including oatmeal – oat bran contains beta-glucan which reduces cholesterol levels by 5-10%.  Two servings of oatmeal a day can affect this, but overnight oats can do the same in a single portion because of the extra minerals and nutrients that come from the fruit in the recipes.

Easy overnight oats recipes

All this shows that overnight oats are simple to make and have plenty of health benefits as well as being a convenient breakfast option.  The last step is to look at some easy overnight oats recipes to try out.

Blueberry Overnight Oats

What You Need

• ⅓ cup old-fashioned (rolled) oats
• ⅓ cup plain Greek yoghurt
• ⅓ cup plain almond milk
• 1 tablespoon chia seeds
• ½ tablespoon of honey
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ cup blueberries
• 1 Mixing bowl

How to Make It

Take the mixing bowl, and mix the oats, milk, chia seeds, yoghurt honey, and vanilla until it’s properly covered. Cover the bowl with a cling wrap and place in a refrigerator until it’s chilled. Spoon into a bowl and top with the blueberries and cinnamon. You can even place the blueberries on a tuft of yoghurt.

Chia Overnight Oats

What You Need

• ½ cup rolled oats                                  
• ½ cup milk regular or almond
• ½ tablespoon chia seeds                                                                                               
• 1 teaspoon honey
• ¼ cup fresh fruit of your choice

How to Make It

The only major step in making these overnight oats will be to mix all of the ingredients together in a decently sized bowl. Once you have mixed them enough to have completely covered all of the ingredients in each other, you can simply cover the bowl with a cling wrap of some kind and leave it in the refrigerator overnight. The next morning you can take it with you to eat at work before you get started. 

Date Overnight Oats

What You Need

• 2 cups rolled oats
• 2 cups water
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoon lemon juice
• 2 cups milk or almond milk
• ⅛ teaspoon salt
• 4 chopped dates

How to Make It

Like most overnight oats, this process is quick and painless. Simply mix the ingredients in a medium-sized bowl until they look thoroughly mixed together. Be sure to cover the bowl properly before storing so that it doesn’t end up absorbing the other flavours from nearby foods. You can then put the mixture in the refrigerator or icebox to cool for a night, then scoop some into a cup and top with some extra cinnamon to enjoy the next day for breakfast.

Tasty and simple breakfast

Overnight oats make for a simple and tasty breakfast that can be personalised with a whole range of fruit, nuts, seeds and other ingredients.  Pick a favourite, try something new or go for a simple option – whatever you want to get a healthy, nutrient-packed breakfast!

Have you tried overnight oats recipes before?  What was your favourite?