Doesn’t overnight oatmeal seem like the dream way to make breakfast?! Prepare it the night before and then it’s all ready to go in the morning. So when you’re pulling your super tired and exhausted butt out of bed to go get coffee, you can have some breakfast cooking. Then once the coffee kicks in and you’re actually awake, breakfast is ready! I have wanted to find a great overnight oatmeal recipe that not just I enjoy, but the kids enjoy too. This way I don’t feel guilty when I make this for breakfast 90% of the time. (LOL!) What can I say, the concept of overnight oatmeal is efficient and convenient!! I have tried so so many overnight oatmeal recipes and I have not liked a single one. I am also extremely picky when it comes to my oatmeal. I grew up on the Quaker Instant Oatmeal Maple & Brown Sugar, which I also found for an amazing price on Amazon (I’m not ashamed to put this affiliate link in here at all. The price is the best I’ve seen in a long time!) Anyway, this oatmeal cannot be compared to any regular oatmeal I have every had. I used to prepare my instant oatmeal with a lot of boiling water and ate it before it had a chance to actually cook. So maybe that is why I have had such a hard time with regular oatmeal of any kind. It all just tastes sooo bland! Even when I put fresh berries in it or brown sugar or anything, it was all bland! THEN! I found this recipe a few weeks ago and I have made it several times already! I did altar it from the original recipe and I think I found the perfect ratios that everyone loves! The original recipe is linked at the bottom of the post if you want to see how they made it, but this is absolutely, hands down, the best overnight oatmeal I have every had and is so easy to make!
The Night Before
The great thing about this overnight oatmeal is that the prep work happens the night before and literally takes about 5 minutes from the time you start to the time you are putting the pie plate in the fridge. I would suggest making the crumb topping the night before as well. I just left it on the counter in the bowl I mixed the ingredients in and put a plate over the bowl. This way everything is ready to go in the morning.
Add Dry Ingredients
No need to dirty too many dishes here. I add everything to one bowl. So, add your oats, your lemon zest, sugar, baking powder, and salt to a large bowl. Give it a little stir with a rubber spatula.
The lemon zest is the yellow rind from the lemon. You can use a cheese grater to grate the rind off the lemon with the small holed cheese grater as an option. I like using the square cheese graters. Lots of options for grating with those. Be sure to only take the yellow parts and not the white part underneath as it can be bitter tasting if you accidentally take too much of that.
Add the Liquid Ingredients
You will need to melt butter for this recipe and it says to cool it, but to be honest, you can add the hot butter to the dry ingredients first, mix that in, add your milk which will cool the mixture enough that when you add the egg, it will not scramble. I’m all about being quick with recipes. With 5 kids, you don’t have a lot of time to let things cool down! You can also start with melting the butter and then it should be cooled down enough when it comes time to adding it into the mixture.
Add the butter, lemon juice, milk, vanilla extract, and egg. Mix together until incorporated.
Add the Blueberries
I use frozen blueberries for this recipe and I am sure you can use fresh, but I have not tried. Once you have everything mixed together, add your blueberries and mix them into the mixture. Pour the mixture into a pie plate. Cover with plastic wrap and put that in the fridge.
Make the crumb topping
I suggest making the crumb topping the night before and leaving it on the counter. Then, in the morning while you are still sleepy, you can just throw it on top of the oatmeal and shove it in the oven so you can go and wake up some more! Then, when you’re fully awake thanks to that beautiful, hot cup of coffee, breakfast is ready!
The crumb topping is just butter, flour, and sugar. You can use a pastry blender to mix the ingredients together, or two knives, or your hands, Whatever is easier! Then just leave this covered on the counter until morning.
In the Morning
In the morning, preheat your oven to 350°F. Take your pie plate out of the oven, add the crumb topping and then put it in the oven to bake. If you have waited for the oven to heat up all the way, then bake for 30-35 minutes. I prefer to allow cold dishes to warm up in the oven while the oven is heating up so I will put the dish in the oven, then set the temperature and add an extra 5 minutes to the oven time. So, I will bake this for 35-40 minutes and then when the time is up, if the crumb topping is golden brown, then it is good to go. If not, then I will add 5 minutes and then take it out to cool. It tastes so delicious!
The BEST overnight Oatmeal
Serves: 4-6
Ingredients
For the Oatmeal
- 1¾ cups large flake oats (old-fashioned oats)
- ¼ cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 1½ cups milk
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons butter (melted and cooled)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- zest from 1 lemon (try not to get the white pilf)
- juice from 1 lemon (about 2-3 tablespoons)
- 1 cup blueberries
For the Crumb Topping
- ⅓ cup butter, cold
- ⅓ cup flour
- ⅓ sugar
Instructions
For the Oatmeal
- Melt the butter and let it cool while preparing the rest of the recipe.
- In a large bowl, add the dry ingredients: oats, lemon zest, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Give that a quick stir.
- Add the wet ingredients (milk, egg, lemon juice, and cooled butter) to the dry ingredients. Add the lemon zest and lemon juice. Stir until fully combined. Add the blueberries and fold them into the mixture.
- Dump the mixture into a pie plate, cover with plastic wrap, and put in the fridge overnight.
For the Crumb Topping
- Using a pastry knife, cut the ingredients together until the mixture looks crumbly and is the size of small peas. (I would suggest making this the night before as well so you can easily toss this on in the morning.
In the morning, preheat the oven to 350°F. Take your oatmeal out of the fridge and put your crumb topping on. Bake for 30-35 minutes. You can briefly broil the crumb topping if it does not brown the way you want it to. Let cool and enjoy!
Notes
- This recipe makes enough for 6 small portions or 4 big portions. So, be aware that if you want a good size portion and are feeding more than 4 mouths, I would consider making two of these.
- I think you would be able to freeze this recipe if you were okay without your pie plate for a while. I have not tried freezing it though. If you are using frozen blueberries, then make sure they aren’t out of the freezer for too long. Then the night before you want to bake it, put it in the fridge. Let the pie plate heat up with the oven in the morning and then bake for the 30-35 minutes. Or you can add an extra 5-10 minutes to the timer so that way you can set the oven temperature and timer and walk away.
The original recipe can be found on A Beautiful Mess.
Leave a Reply