Overnight Breakfast Oats

By Lucia Ferrara

Everyone starts out the new year with a bunch of resolutions and diets and exercise and all these healthy habits. Well for me, I’m trying to do a lifestyle change. I don’t want to call it a diet and I don’t want to call it a New Year’s resolution. I want to take this year on as a lifestyle change. I was doing some research with my daughter and we found this recipe for overnight breakfast oats. We modified it to suit our tastes and our lives and we came up with what we call Overnight Breakfast Oats.

Here’s the recipe and read below for some more pointers and commentary.

Overnight Breakfast Oats

• 5 cup Mason jar
• ½ cup rolled oats (not quick oats)
• ¼ cup non-fat Greek yogurt, plain or vanilla
• ½ cup milk (cow, soy or your choice)
• ½ teaspoon chia seeds (optional, but recommended)
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• A good squeeze of honey
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 10 Almonds (optional, but recommended)
• ½ cup fresh fruit (your choice)

The Ingredients

You need to use rolled oats, the old-fashioned kind. Quick oats and steel-cut oats won’t work. If you like the texture of chia seeds in your mix, which I do, you can use those. We know chia seeds are really good for you too.

Almonds are optional. You can use sliced almonds or whole almonds or whatever kind of nuts you have. But if you can’t have nuts or don’t like nuts, you can leave them out. I kind of like the added benefit of the almonds,  because they say if you have at least 10 almonds a day, it’s good for the heart.

You can use any flavor of non-fat Greek yogurt that you like, but I think the plain or vanilla flavored works best. That being said, I have used plain non-fat Greek yogurt and I didn’t like it. It wasn’t enough flavor for me, even though I added the vanilla extract. So I’ve been going with the vanilla.

You can use any kind of milk: almond milk, soy milk, low-fat milk, vitamin D milk,  2% — whatever your like best.

To top it all off, you want to add your favorite kind of fruit. Today I’m using blueberries, but we’ve used strawberries, apples, blackberries and bananas. We’ve used strawberries and bananas and other combinations. You can also use frozen fruit. It’s all good.

The Convenience

This recipe is so convenient. Pop a jar of oats into the refrigerator overnight, and the next morning you have a rolled oats breakfast that is very, very simple, very nutritious and very yummy. These are wonderful because you can make jars a couple of days ahead, keep them in the fridge, and just grab one on your way out to work, to school or to run errands

Some people say, do I need to put it in a bowl? Does it need to be microwaved? The answer is “No.” You stick it in the refrigerator overnight and take it out when you’re ready to eat. These are great for an on-the-go meal.

We call them breakfast in a jar, but you can eat these any time you’re hungry. Eat them for an afternoon snack or at night before you go to bed.

These oats are also good for kids when you’re going to their games or after-school activities and they need a little extra pick me. You can prep some of these on a smaller scale for the kids’ between-meal snacks. They are a lot healthier than junk food and they’re very tasty.

Cooking as a spiritual practice

The video ends with a blessing taken from Fr. Ed Hay’s book of blessings, Prayers for the Domestic Church. Hays, who died in 2016, was a priest of the Kansas City, Kansas, archdiocese for more than 57 years. He was the founding director of Shantivanam House of Prayer (now Christ’s Peace House of Prayer) and wrote more than 35 books on prayer and spirituality.

Hays called Prayers for the Domestic Church a celebration of the “domestic church” — a family worshiping together at home. It is a collection of prayers and blessings for birthdays, family members, the home, pets, and more. This book makes it easy and fun to gather in prayer as a family.

Learn more about the book here.

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All the articles and videos in the Cooking and Spirituality Series can be found here.

Overnight Breakfast Oats Photo 87688411 © Bhofack2 | Dreamstime.com

[Lucia Ferrara, the Director of Hospitality at Precious Blood Renewal Center. Share your thoughts with Lucia or ask her questions using the form below or by sending an email to info@pbrenewalcenter.org.]

This article was originally published on: Jan 18, 2023.

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