Overnight Oats

Overnight oats are an excellent way to add more resistant starch into your diet. They are a breeze to make, and by doing less work not cooking them, you create oats that are even healthier, better for your gut microbiome, and lower in calories. And, they still retain all of their fabulous Avenanthramides. It’s a little breakfast miracle!

If you’d like a refresher on Avenanthramides and why oats are so incredibly healthy, have a look at this post: www.thewell-nourishedbrain.com/blog/oats-andnbspavenanthramides

As you can see from the chart below, uncooked rolled oats are packed with resistant starch. In 100 gram serving (approximately 1 cup of oats), uncooked oats have over 11 grams of resistant starch, whereas cooked oats have less than a gram of resistant starch.

In case you missed my post on resistant starch and its abundant health and weight loss benefits, you can find it here: www.thewell-nourishedbrain.com/blog/resistant-starch

I am an overnight oat novice, so on my first attempt to make them, I followed the formula recommended by The Simple Veganista.
www.simple-veganista.com/healthy-overnight-oats/

I mixed:

• 1/2 cup rolled oats

• 1/2 cup plant milk (I used unsweetened oat milk)

• 1 teaspoon ground flax seed

• 1 teaspoon flavor extract 

I made one tropical variety with mango and a teaspoon of coconut extract, and one variety that resembled my usual superfood oat bowl, with blueberries and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. For the blueberry variety, I added 1/2 cup of frozen blueberries to the mix at night before refrigerating. For the tropical variety, I added 1/2 cup of mango in the morning, after the oats had been refrigerated. Both methods worked well. The flavor combinations were delicious, and the oats had a nice chewy bite.

Because I don’t generally have plant milk in the house, on my second attempt, I simply combined:

• 1/2 cup of rolled oats

• 3/4 of a cup of water

• 1/2 a cup of blueberries

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

When I ate my oats in the morning, I added in the teaspoon of ground flax and some walnuts, as I typically do when topping my superfood oat bowl. From this tiny experiment, it looks like overnight oats work well when made with either milk or water. I’ve even heard of people making them with cold brew coffee. Add a little cocoa powder or cocoa nibs and you’d have tiramisu oats! Yum!

As it's important not to heat your overnight oats if you want to retain the resistant starch, it was a new experience having cold oats. But, when it's a choice between all the fabulous health and weight loss benefits of resistant starch or having warm oats, there is no contest for me. I'll definitely be adding overnight oats to my regular breakfast rotation. Plus, the overnight oats were much quicker to prepare than my usual stovetop oats, and clean-up was breeze with no pan to wash. Added health benefits and ease - fantastic!

What are your favorite overnight oat techniques and combinations? Ring in and tell us your preferred way to make them. As I am new to overnight oats, I’d love to learn from your experience.

Happy eating!
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