How to soak and cook oatmeal the traditional way, aka โovernight oatsโ for a digestible and nourishing breakfast that will keep you feeling full all the way to lunch!
How do you cook oatmeal the healthiest way possible? Is it acceptable toย cook it in the microwave, quickly poured out of convenient, ready to use packets? Do you think this is a healthy start to the day?
Reality Check: Ripping open a package of instant oatmeal, pouring it in a mug with some water and nuking it in the microwave for a couple of minutes is NOT a nourishing breakfast! And guess what โฆ you will feel hungry again about an hour later!
Donโt get me wrong here โ oatmeal can and should be a healthy breakfast!
How youย choose to cook oatmeal, however, is the critical step that most people completely miss and which determinesย how much nourishment and benefit you will actually derive from the experience. It is one of the most important cooking skillsย to learn yourself and teach children before they leave home.
Preparation determines how long the oatmeal will fill you up. ย What good is a bowl of oatmeal if you are hungry again and ready for a donut fix by 10 am?
Overnight Oats the Traditional Way
Learning to prepare overnight oats as practiced for centuries by ancestral societies will take a little planning on your part. But, you will be greatly rewarded with a much more nourishing, digestible breakfast that will stay with you all the way to lunchtime!
Traditional peoples knew through observation that grains were very hard to digest and caused health problems over time for those who consumed them without careful preparation.
Throwing out those boxed breakfast cereals that are at least twice as expensive per serving and toxic to boot and replacing with a simple, nutritious bowl of porridge will also help your food budget considerably with no loss in pleasure or enjoyment particularly on chilly winter mornings!
TIP:ย Iโve had people email me to complain that when you cook oatmeal by first soaking for at least 7 hours or overnight, it results in a sour tasting porridge. ย Iโve found that soaking in water plus lemon juice produces a delightful and slightly lemony porridge that is not sour at all and absolutely pops with flavor! If you still need help adjusting to the taste of soaked oatmeal, the linked article plus video will share an easy way to slowly adapt.
How to Cook Oatmeal (traditional method)
The traditional method for preparing overnight oats and cooking oatmeal the next morning that results in a bowl of porridge that is very digestible, filling and nourishing compared to modern convenience methods.
Ingredients
- 1 cup rolled oats preferably organic
- 2-3 cups filtered water
- 1-2 Tbl lemon juice optional
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
Instructions
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Mix the oats, 2 cups of water, and lemon juice in a pot. Cover and leave on the counter (NOT in the refrigerator) for at least 7 hours or overnight. If you have trouble digesting grains, feel free to soak for as long as 24 hours.
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When soaking is complete, add 1/2-1 cup additional filtered water to the pot. Bring to a boil with the salt. Cook oatmeal thoroughly for 5 minutes. You do not need to rinse the oats before cooking.
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Traditional oatmeal is best served with butter and/or cream for optimal assimilation of minerals. A natural sweetener, nuts, raisins or other fruit may be added as desired.
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Refrigerate leftovers.
Recipe Video
Recipe Notes
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Store bought or homemade apple cider vinegar, yogurt, or kefir may be substituted for the lemon juice.
If you are just starting to soak oatmeal for breakfast, feel free to just soak with water at first and gradually build up to the 4 tablespoons of recommended acidic medium (I prefer lemon juice).
Detailed Video Tutorial
In this longer video below, I show you exactly how I cook rolled oats into oatmeal.
It requires the initial step of soaking the night before. Then, it cooks up quickly the next morning! ย
Be sure to refrigerate any leftovers for a fast warm-up on the stove on subsequent mornings.
No Rinsing Required
You do not need to rinse the soaked oats before cooking. The antinutrients are deactivated, so no further effort is needed other than simmering for a few minutes on the stove!
I do not recommend soaking oat groats. The linked article explains why.
Soaked Oats vs Sprouted
If you donโt think you can manage the two minutes it takes before you go to bed to put on a pot of oatmeal to soak, this article shows you how to prepare traditional oatmeal without soakingย using sprouted rolled oats instead.
This article on sprouting vs soaking explains the differences nutritionally and digestively speaking.
More Soaked Porridges to Enjoy!
If you find overnight oats to be enjoyable and more digestible, try amaranth breakfast cereal, teff porridge and buckwheat hot cereal too.
I am using Santa Cruz organic Pure Lemon Juice (pasteurized) to soak my oats. Will this be the same (good) result as fresh squeezed lemon juice? Thanks!
Fresh squeezed would be best, but the organic lemon juice is fine too.
Thank you! The lemon juice didn’t go over well with my 4 and 1 year old. (I didn’t mind it). I know raw yogurt would be better, but will organic store bought yogurt work as well?
I am really trying to enjoy soaked oatmeal and tried this version using the lemon juice. I am guessing it is an acquired taste. It is very lemony sour and salty to me. I am having a hard time with the flavor. I may try it again, but rinsing the oats after soaking and then cooking them. I know I won’t be able to get my hubby to enjoy these so now I have a pot of oats I may have to feed to my chickens……I keep trying soaked oatmeal to get used to it but so far not too good to me.
I wonder if it would be even better to soak some rolled rye flakes along with the oatmeal? According to Rami Nagel in the article “Living With Phytic Acid” on the WAPF website, soaking oats does not reduce phytic acid at all, which is the main reason we soak grains, right? However, he suggests that because rye is rich in phytase, which oatmeal is not, the rye can facilitate the soaking process of other low-phytase grains it is mixed with.
Like you, Sarah, we are long since done with boxed cereal and don’t believe that little packets of anything for the microwave barely qualify as ‘food.’ (Look around: most of what is available in the supermarket barely qualifies as food.)
And like you, we also prep oatmeal at night for a quick, nutritious breakfast in the morning. It only takes a moment and it’s well worth the moment spent. But I only buy organic rolled oats to grind and use in baking. We use organic steel cut oats for breakfast porridge.
I put a cup of the oats into a heavy pot with a tsp of salt, a heaping TB of cinnamon and four cups of water. I bring the water to a boil, stir, turn off the heat and cover. In the morning we stir the oatmeal and serve. Sometimes we add hot milk, sometimes not. Sometimes we add dried fruit, chopped fresh fruit, chopped nuts, whatever. Sometimes not.
Love your website and will return often. Thanks for the good work!
I made the soaked oatmeal with lemon juice last night and cooked it up. My boys found it too sour. We added butter and a sweetener. Now I have a pot of oatmeal that no one wants to eat. I was wondering if anyone has a recipe I can make this into. I like the baked oatmeal recipe above, but I already cooked ours with the water. Thanks.
Nancy, try adding 1 tbsp less of the lemon juice. I make sure I put fruit in too. I know, I have the same thing and that’s why I add the fruit. Maybe try the yogurt next time around or mix lemon juice and the yogurt. It’s worth a try.
I remember reading that Rami Nagiel advised against buying store-bought oats such as Bob’s Red Mill because they are subjected to high temperatures during processing resulting in a dead food that is hard to remove phytates from and is similar to pasteurized milk. Do you think that organic rolled oats bought in bulk at health foods stores such as say, Whole Foods are subject to the same treatment? I’m hoping this is only a process certain brans follow.
Trying not to panic! We received orders for California. I hope to find other sources of milk that will be less than $15 a gallon! I expected to pay more but not that much more. There is no way that we can swing that. I want to feed my family well but ouch!! I see a lot of soaked beans, soaked rice, and lots of cheese in the future!
Are you out of California? I didn’t know it was legal to order raw milk and ship it out of Cal. We are lucky here to having buying clubs, Organic Pastures drops off at locations, usually homes, and can be picked up and it’s dollars cheaper. If your family likes yogurt, buy a good quality pasteurized, non homogenized whole milk like from TJ’s, or here in Cal we have Straus’, which is grassfed, not sure about TJ’s and culture that into keifer or whey, then drink less of the raw milk with meals or snacks. Jenny from The Nourished Kitchen told me as long as you get some raw milk and raw cheeses, you get those benefits and then your homemade yogurt not from raw milk gives you the great probiotics and grassfed benefits. Just don’t drink the pasteurized uncultured! And don’t ever buy or drink ultrapasteurized!
I am sorry for being unclear. My husband is in the Coast Guard and we are moving to Humboldt County this summer. Thank you for the information. I am eyes and ears wide open for any tips or information for good food sources for where we are going. Thank you very much for the suggestions.
I soak my oats overnight, usually with whey added or yoghurt. I do find that it’s a bit sour, but that’s overtaken by the cream and maple syrup I add! Yum!
I am interested, though, in what others have said about the low level of phytase in oats, and that soaking may not be enough to neutralise it. I haven’t heard that before, but it makes me wonder if I should be adding something else.
I honestly don’t seem to get digestive problems from grains (at least not obvious ones, like stomach upset) but I am concerned about the damage from the anti-nutrients anyway, as I believe that issues can crop up years down the track if you’re not careful now!
Incidentally I was reading a new magazine yesterday with the butter vs margarine debate… there was a nutritionist who recommended margarine (BLECH) and stated that butter has much higher levels of dangerous trans fats than do margarines! Sounds ridiculous to me… and I wish the so-called experts would stop propagating the nonsense that “margarine made with Canola or safflower” is healthier than butter!! It’s no wonder so many well meaning people are led astray…
I’m in Australia and we have oats most mornings. In winter it’s cooked, however in summer which we have a lot more of, we have cold oats. I soak them overnight and then in the morning we just have yoghurt (homemade), fresh fruit salad and a mix of crushed Sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, almonds, linseed and chia. I have to admit I don’t soak the nuts and seeds first and I should be, but we just crush them and sprinkle them on top. It is a delicious breakfast and sticks pretty well so we don’t get hungry too soon!