Quick and Easy Gluten-Free Overnight Oats Recipe

I almost feel a bit cheeky calling this post a recipe. It’s a handful of ingredients and a method you can complete in under a few minutes, so really I’m pushing the definition, but let’s go with it. My ‘recipe’ for Gluten-Free Overnight Oats takes about thirty seconds of prep the night before, and two minutes in the microwave the next morning. Which coincidentally is the perfect amount of time you need to chop your choice of fruit and fetch your favourite nut butter out of the pantry.

So if like me, you like creamy and soft oats in the morning, but can’t be bothered stirring porridge for ten minutes straight first thing in the morning, or the idea of scrubbing a pot straight after breakfast sounds like a punishment, then this Overnight Oats recipe is for you…

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Ingredients:

• 1 quantity of oats
• 1½ quantity of liquid (I use almond milk, but you can use real milk, any nut milk, or even water if you wanted)
• Pinch of spice; I usually use Cardamom and Nutmeg, but sometimes I use Cinnamon, Vanilla, Cloves, Ground Ginger, whatever I feel like.
• Toppings: chopped fresh fruit (like Kiwis, Mandarins and Bananas), cut-up nuts (Almonds are my fave) and a scoop of nut butter. If I haven’t got anything suitable in the fruit crisper, I love dried apricots/cranberries which last in the pantry for ages so they’re always on hand.
• Sweeteners: Maple Syrup, Honey, Date Syrup or Golden Syrup all work well, but my favourite is a pinch of raw sugar.

Recipe:

1. Measure out one quantity of rolled oats into an empty jar. I use the Gluten-Free variety, but if Gluten doesn’t cause you any grief you can most definitely just use the regular kind.
2. Using the same measuring vessel, add 1½ times the oats of liquid to the jar.
   This just means whatever you used to measure out your oats, use the same measure for your liquid, and then do half again.
3. Add a pinch of your preferred spices.
4. You can also add some sweetener here if you’d like, but I add it when I add the topping if I’m going to use any.
5. Close the lid, and give it a really good shake for a few seconds and then pop the jar in the fridge until the morning.
6. In the morning, just pour the contents of the jar into a bowl and microwave on High for two minutes.
7. While it’s cooking away, chop up any fruit or nuts and give your nut butter a good stir.
8. Top the cooked oats with your toppings and enjoy!

Despite the name, ‘Overnight Oats’, you can actually make a couple of these up of an evening and have breakfast prepped for the next two days, it still works perfectly, I’d just add an extra splash of milk. And just a quick note on the ‘Gluten-Free’ descriptor, technically oats are naturally free from Gluten, however, almost all of them are processed at cereal factories that manufacture heaps of wheat products so almost all of them a disclaimer on the pack stating that they contain Gluten. Not a drama unless you’re Coeliac, but if that’s the case, it’s worth knowing.