The Easiest Overnight Oats
Overnight oats are one of our go-to breakfasts for busy weekdays. Imagine walking down the stairs and seeing that (voila) breakfast is ready! We’re sharing our most basic overnight oats recipe (with the easiest ratio of oats to milk ever! It’s 1:1 oats : milk) as well as two of our favorite overnight oats mix-ins. A lot of recipes include chia seeds, but we’ve kept it simple with just oats and coconut milk as our base. From here, you can really add anything to make these oats your own. If you have a little more time in the morning, try making our equally healthy and delicious Six Ingredient Breakfast Quinoa.
2 Key Ingredients
Scroll down for the full recipe with exact measurements.
- Oats: You don’t realize how many types of oats there are until you’re at the store staring at the wall of oats wondering if the recipe you want to make calls for steel-cut oats or instant oats. For our overnight oats, we use classic, old-fashioned rolled oats. They’re the most common and easy-to-find type.
- Milk: The type of milk you use is really up to you. Most people make overnight oats as a quick and healthy breakfast, so a lot of folks prefer to use vegan milk to keep the cholesterol-lowering power of oats intact. However, if you want to make this recipe with whole milk, that would also be delicious. We’ve tried it with oat milk (double oats!), hemp milk, coconut milk, and almond milk and they’re all delicious.
How to Make Overnight Oats
- Grab a 12 ounce airtight lidded jar or really any 12 ounce container with a good lid you love. A tupperware container with a tight-fitting lid would work, too.
- Combine the milk and oats in the container. Remember that ratio: 1:1.
- Shake it up! You want to just really get every last oat piece wet.
- Pop them in the fridge overnight.
- Open the jar, add any toppings you desire, and eat your super-healthy breakfast!
Add-Ins + Variations (The Fun Part!)
- Peaches + Protein Powder: Fresh peaches and vanilla protein powder make for a delicious combo!
- Coconut + Berries: Add shredded coconut, a little jam, and top it all with fresh berries.
- PB&J: Stir in some salty peanut butter and your favorite jelly for a very kid-friendly version of overnight oats.
- Banana-Nut: Top the oats with banana slices and a handful of chopped nuts — maybe walnuts or almonds or even pecans! Really any nut you like would be good.
How to Store Overnight Oats
You can make this recipe the night before, or do it WAY ahead of time! Overnight oats can be stored in the refrigerator for 4-5 days. In other words, a little Sunday night prep can get you through most of the week of breakfasts. They don’t freeze well, but when a recipe is this easy to put together, that’s probably OK, right?
Overnight Oats + Health
Yes! Overnight oats are basically just a no-cook way to make oatmeal. They’re extremely nutritious, full of cholesterol-lowering soluble fiber, so they can help control blood sugar, and they’re great for digestion, too. They have lots of vitamins and minerals, too, including magnesium, copper, thiamine and zinc.
Tips + FAQs
- Our basic formula for overnight oats is 1 part oats to 1 part liquid. However, we play around with this a bit depending on what add-ins we’re using, and we encourage you to do the same! Some mix-ins, like peaches, will make your oats a little more liquidy. Others, like protein powder, will make them a bit more dry so you’d want to stir in a little more milk. Overnight oats are very forgiving, so don’t stress too much about getting it perfect. You can always stir in a little milk the next day.
- Do you eat overnight oats cold? We do eat ours cold, because we’re usually in a rush in the mornings. But if you prefer yours warm, just pop the oats in the microwave before eating to warm them up.
- How soon can I eat overnight oats? Overnight is best, they really need at least eight hours in the fridge.
- Are overnight oats vegan? Our overnight oats recipes are vegan, yes! As long as you make them with non-dairy milk, they’re a great vegan breakfast.
More Of Our Favorite Oat Recipes
Breakfast Genius
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