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Creamy Oatmeal: How to Transform Your Morning Oatmeal |
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Plus Three Secrets to Great Oatmeal
One Old, Two New
Hang onto your breakfast slippers, people, because there’s a great new way to cook oatmeal. It's a blend of 50:50 steel-cut oats and old-fashioned rolled oats and the texture is light and creamy but also – there's just no other way to put it – almost chewy, a real porridge. It's wonderful done "sweet" with fruit, glazed pecans and a splash of maple syrup but also "savory" with sautéed veggies and an egg on top.
Weekday Easy, Weekend Special. Great for Breakfast Meal Prep. Year-Round Breakfast Staple, Savory or Sweet. Weight Watchers Friendly.
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- "... really like your blended rolled and steel-cut oats!" ~ Charlie
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Don't Like Oatmeal? Maybe This Is Why.
A dear friend, spoken with regret: “I don’t really like oatmeal.”
Me, responding with confidence: “Then you’re not using enough salt.”
At lunch a few weeks ago, my friend Riffi recalled this long-ago conversation. I have no memory of it – still, it doesn’t surprise me: the first secret to good oatmeal is salt.
What does surprise me is that the Microwave Creamy Oatmeal with Peanut Butter that’s been my go-to breakfast three or four or even five mornings a week for the last fifteen or so years now – that’s three thousand bowls of oatmeal! – has new competition been displaced.
The second secret to good oatmeal? Milk! Even a small measure of milk yields oatmeal that’s light and creamy at the same time.
The third secret to great oatmeal? A mix of steel-cut oats and old-fashioned rolled oats. The combination makes for a heady texture, fulsome and satisfying.
And my friend Riffi? She now eats oatmeal – cooked with enough salt, mind you – a few times a week. Wait until she learns my new secrets!
Meal Prep Your Morning Oats
If I had a private chef, I'd request freshly cooked oatmeal every morning. But haha, that's not my life and I bet, yours either? Next best is having a big container of already-cooked Creamy Oatmeal in the fridge, ready for a fast warmup and a hot breakfast. It's almost as convenient as a bowl of cereal and way more flexible since the oatmeal can be warming up in the microwave while an egg cooks. Morning protein!
So this is a great oatmeal for meal prep. In fact, for our household use, I've scaled up the recipe to fit my largest pot, it lasts us about a week. When this oatmeal's ready and cooked and waiting in the fridge? We eat hardly any store-bought cereals! That's one for the win column!
Morning Oatmeal: Make It Savory!
Breakfast oatmeal doesn't have to be sweet, it really doesn't. Especially in the summer, we like to sautée a few vegetables and put an egg on top. Dreamy good, that soft yolk streaming into the creamy oatmeal.
But Morning Oatmeal + Seasonal Fruit? Heaven
Even just a touch of fresh fruit tastes like a real indulgence on Creamy Oatmeal.
CREAMY OATMEAL
Time to table: 30 minutes
Makes 8 cups
- 1-1/3 cups (130g) old-fashioned oats
- 2/3 cup (130g) steel-cut oats
- 1/3 cup red quinoa (nice for color, otherwise optional)
- 3 cups milk (whole, 2%, 1%, skim)
- 5 cups water
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt (don’t skip or skimp!)
In a heavy saucepan that’s big enough for stirring and for the volume to more than double, bring the oats, milk, water and salt to a boil on medium-high heat, stirring occasionally.
Once it comes to a boil – there will be big sloppy bubbles – reduce the heat to medium low to maintain a slow simmer; stir every so often (about every 5 minutes), scraping the sides and bottom of the saucepan. Keep an eye on the pot, if it boils too hard, the oats can scorch! Cook until the steel-cut oats are tender and the oatmeal has thickened, you'll need to stir more often toward the end.
SERVE IT PLAIN I l-o-v-e this oatmeal plain, all by itself, just tiny teaspoons at a time, really savoring the texture and creaminess, you can actually taste and touch the oats!
DRESS IT UP Top with seasonal fruits, a few Maple-Glazed Pecans and a tiny splash of maple syrup.
MAKE IT SAVORY Top with a few sautéed vegetables and an egg or two, fried, poached, soft-boiled or however you like 'em!
MAKE-AHEAD TIPS Creamy Oatmeal is really special served straight from the stove but also reheats beautifully. Before reheating either in the microwave or on the stovetop, stir in a little extra milk or water to loosen the oats. Believe it or not, I like this oatmeal cold too! Again, it's that great texture!
- RANGE OF MILKS Before, I was most insistent about using whole milk, I just found it more special. Since then, friends raved about it cooked with 2% milk and hmmm, I really like that too! It's now our standard. I think you're good, whatever kind of milk you keep on hand, from skim to whole.
- MORE LIQUID Before, I called for far less liquid. That made the oatmeal super-thick which was great but it also meant it was too easy to burn the oatmeal and oh my, the pot could be hard to clean up afterward. More liquid fixes those issues!
- GOOD FOR MEAL PREP Before, I also thought it best made in small batches for eating on the spot. Now? It's a meal prep standard, something I make week in and week out in large batches (and some times double large batches) for quick and wholesome breakfasts during the week.
STUFF THAT WORKS All old-fashioned oats is excellent but the 2:1 mix of old-fashioned oats:steel cut oats has amazing texture, it’s almost chewy.
No quick oatmeal here, no instant oatmeal here, just old-fashioned oats and steel-cut oats. In the beginning, I cooked this oatmeal only with whole milk. Then I switched to 2% milk, our usual drinking milk; at first I found it quite creamy and quite good – just not as special as whole milk. But now? We only use 2% milk and I a-d-o-r-e this oatmeal! Short on milk? Don't worry. Even a single cup of milk makes a big difference, even when it's low in fat. Just be sure to use a total of eight cups of liquid. Salt? Don’t even think about leaving it out. I’ve also added a tablespoon or two of chia seeds (before cooking) and protein powder (after cooking) to the Creamy Oatmeal: both work great. Most often, I throw in a handful of red quinoa, it adds a little color and still more texture to the oatmeal, especially nice with savory bowls with eggs on top. For a natural sweetener, I like to throw a ripe banana into the pot to cook right along with the oats. This works especially well for the "sweeter" bowls of oatmeal, ones topped with fresh fruit and nuts, say. STUFF THAT DOESN’T WORK For vegan and dairy-free “creamy” oatmeal, I tried both almond milk (homemade and commercial) and coconut milk: “fine” but to my taste, these are nothing special.
I had high hopes that Creamy Oatmeal would turn out well in the slow cooker – but sorry, no-no-no. It was edible but lost all the amazing texture that happens on the stovetop. Since I have such good luck “slow cooking” in the oven at low temperature overnight, it was worth a shot to cook oatmeal this way. But yuck, what a disaster! The oats were like glue and went straight into the garbage. especially for topping the oatmeal with fruit and nuts, One batch, I added chai-style spices; somehow the oatmeal tasted “sweet” even without added sugar. Some will like this but we didn’t.
WEIGHT WATCHERS POINTS Old Points 2 & PointsPlus 3 & SmartPoints 3 & Freestyle 3 & myWW green 3 & blue 3 & purple 1 CALORIE COUNTERS 100 calories = generous half cup (4g protein). More Favorite Ways to Cook Oatmeal
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Jan and I really like your blended rolled and steel-cut oats! I just sent your blog to my oatmeal-loving cousin.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to let my spouse know--he's been stirring PB into his microwaved oatmeal, year round, for years. Has a whole efficient engineer system going with the spoon that spreads the PB on his sandwich which becomes the spoon that adds the PB to his oatmeal which then becomes the spoon he eats his oatmeal with. I just smile and alternate my breakfasts.
ReplyDeleteThanks!