Better Than Overnight Oats

This ‘Better Than Overnight Oats’ recipe is really just a simple oatmeal cereal recipe that I’ve been making for breakfast every morning the last few months. I’m calling it better than overnight oats because it’s faster, less hassle, and in my opinion has better texture (I’ve never personally been a fan of old, cold, mushy oatmeal). In today’s video I also cover my perspective on using raw oats and sugar in my recipes, as I know there are some concerns about both phytates & antinutrients in raw oats (among other foods), and sugar generally being a non-whole foods plant based ingredient. If you try out this recipe, please share it with me by commenting here or on my YouTube channel, or even tagging me in a photo on Instagram @plantsnotplastic. I read every comment and love hearing from you. Enjoy!

Hey there welcome back to Plants Not Plastic. I’m Nikita and today we’re going to be making a breakfast that I’m calling better than overnight oats that is delicious inexpensive simple healthy whole foods plant-based low-fat and oil-free.

So I’m hoping to have this video be a little bit more casual because it is a very simple breakfast recipe. I don’t think that it requires kind of the typical voice over explanation like I normally do for my recipes and I also wanted to do some face to face explanation on my perspective on some of the ingredients that I do use in this recipe there are two specifically that I want to cover which are oats and raw oats, specifically, and then sugar. If you’re not concerned about either of those things you can go ahead and skip this intro or just stick around if you’re curious what I have to say.

So I’m going to start with oats because I think it’s a simpler conversation. Oats, specifically raw oats, there are some concerns about something that people call anti-nutrients. They get called anti-nutrients because there are some concerns about phytates reducing your ability to absorb certain vitamins and minerals. I am somebody who stands by what the science says, and there is evidence to say that phytates actually reduce the risk of osteoporosis and cancer, and generally I think that calling something anti-nutrients comes off as a lot more scary than it maybe should be. Phytates are an area of active research but the general consensus is that eating foods that have phytates in them typically outweighs any concerns that you might have over the phytates reducing your ability to be able to absorb vitamins and minerals.

So essentially, there’s going to be a lot more of the good things that you want to eat in those same foods that has phytates as opposed to avoiding them all together. I personally don’t think that it’s a big enough concern to worry about not eating oats, because oats are a wonderful whole food that you should be adding more up to your diet. Cooking oats or letting them soak overnight, like people do with overnight oats, can reduce the amount of phytates that are in oatmeal. If you do have a concern about phytates and raw oats, though, I would say use this recipe but just stick it in your fridge and let it sit there for three to four hours before you eat it. And I will just throw out there that rolled oats have already been cooked in processing, so if cooking oats reduces the amount of phytates in them rolled oats probably have a little bit less, though not 100 percent sure on that.

As for sugar, you may have noticed in my previous recipes that it is not something that I avoid 100 percent. Just to kind of throw some numbers at you, the daily recommended consumption for sugar in the United States is 24 grams for women and 32 grams for men. That is six and nine teaspoons respectively. If we look at where the average American stands right now in terms of sugar consumption, it is 10 percent of total calories, so looking at an average 2000 calorie diet that is 50 grams of sugar. If you’re adding a tablespoon of sugar to your oatmeal in the morning that’s going to be 48 calories, 12.5 grams, or just 3 percent of your total calories for the day, again, on a 2000 calorie diet.

I’m not saying that it’s something that is healthy or beneficial or good for you, but I do think that if it is going to get you to eat oatmeal and fruit in the morning, to add a little bit of sugar, that’s something you should absolutely do. It is going to reduce your desire to go out and eat processed food to eat a lot of other sugary foods or to eat things that are a lot worse for you. If you also go and look at the percent of calories from sugar, if you’re eating the recommended serving for any of my other recipes, you will find it is far below 10 percent. It’s between like the 1.5 to four percent of calories.

I would say in general if you are trying to lose weight, if you are suffering from some kind of an ailment and you’ve switched to a whole food plant-based diet to be as healthy as possible, reducing sugar or using sugar alternatives is going to be the best option for you. But if you’re someone who is trying to transition over to being vegan or plant-based for the very first time, if you are used to eating the Standard American Diet, then the type of meals that I recommend are going to be such a step in the right direction, that adding a little bit of sugar to make your food taste good and appeal to you is not something that I think is a problem. And if you’re really concerned about it, you can leave sugar out altogether or use a sugar alternative. Date sugar is going to be the best option for being as close to whole food plant-based as possible. Date sugar is actually just dried pulverized dates so it still actually does have some fiber in it, as opposed to pretty much all other types of sugar which don’t have any fiber.

So I’d say in general, I want my food to appeal to as many people as possible. There are specific group of people who are interested in a whole food plant-based SOS diet. I think if you are one of those people who is really interested in being as healthy as possible, you don’t care as much about how food tastes, you’re not interested in adding salt or sugar to your food, that’s great and and you can take my recipes leave out the salt, leave out the sugar, use sugar alternatives, and they will be perfect for you. But for the vast majority of people who are coming from eating a Standard American Diet, eating meat and dairy, eating oil; those people are interested in food tasting good, being cheap and simple to make, and healthy being something that is more of a generally “how well can I do while still making things as easy as possible for myself?” And not having it feel like a chore; not having it feel like a sacrifice. Those are the kinds of people that I want to appeal to, so that it doesn’t come off like it’s really, really restrictive.

And then once those people have gotten over the threshold of it being overwhelming, they have recipes in their tool belt to be able to make that are really good for them. They’ll get to see the benefits of eating a whole food plant-based diet, or majority whole food plant-based diet. I also think that a lot of people who eat an SOS diet have experienced the fear of sickness or illness; you know, heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, the side effects of being overweight. Most people, you know, a big chunk of people are not in that what I would say is a more extreme group who is really really committed to doing the best they possibly can, and if you’re not committed to doing the best you possibly can, you want food that is going to be easy, accessible, tastes good, and, you know, pretty healthy. And getting people as far over on this side and understanding why eating whole food plant-based, no oil is really the best option, the other stuff can come through time, if people want to take it to the next level.

Okay, so all that said, let’s now dive into the better than overnight oats recipe. All right so this recipe, just setting the sugar aside for a second, is really just two ingredients: oats and your favorite plant milk. I always go for a plant milk that is unsweetened and doesn’t have oil in it. I’ve thought about getting into making my own plant milk at home, which is something I haven’t really explored yet, but my favorite options to choose between are the Oatly; the low-fat Oatly, unsweetened almond milk; depending on the brand you will have to check to make sure that there’s no oil, or unsweetened soy milk. Oatly is definitely my preferred. It’s the least labor intensive to produce, where almond milk and soy milk and take a lot more resources to be able to make. And like I said, I’m also curious to explore making my own plant milk at home.

Then for sugar you can leave sugar out, especially if you’re going with a fruit option for your morning oatmeal. You can use any kind of sugar you’d like. Like I mentioned, date sugar is going to be the best option or even a date paste which you can make yourself at home. But you could also just go with like a regular cane sugar. This is pure cane sugar. I try not to do just like the processed white sugar. That’s, you know, I’d say this or agave is probably the worst that I get. You could also go next step up with sugar in the raw. Like I mentioned, maple syrup or agave, or brown sugar, which is my preferred.

So what makes this recipe better than overnight oats? I have personally never been a fan of the texture of oatmeal. There’s two ways that I like to eat it. One is either a very liquidy oatmeal that is cooked, where it comes out more soupy. The way that I actually like to eat this best is a savory oatmeal that my husband makes, or I like to eat it this way, where there is no cooking, no waiting, no prep involved at all, it’s just raw oats and a liquid. It comes out like cereal this way. I’ve been eating it every morning for the last few months; it’s really easy to throw together, there’s no wait time, it tastes really good, so, again, better than overnight oats in terms of texture and how long it takes to prep it.

I’ve had overnight oats before. One of the things that I feel like is touted for their texture is that they get kind of a pudding like texture. That’s because a lot of the time when you make overnight oats, it’s recommended that you use chia seeds which will release their gluten as they sit and soak into the oats. I don’t really like the texture; I think it tastes like old, cold, mushy cooked oatmeal.

If you like it that way, I have two different things I would recommend. One is to use the traditional chia seeds. These have been in the freezer. The thing about chia seeds I’m not a fan of is they are pretty high in fat, especially compared to the alternative which is the one that I would actually recommend, and that is ground flax seeds. These we buy a big container of whole flax seeds and grind them ourselves. Whole flax seeds actually don’t break down in your digestive system so you do need to grind them if you want to absorb the nutrients from them, where chia seeds are softer and you don’t need to break them down first, though flax seeds will produce some of that gummy texture, so if you didn’t want to absorb the nutrients from them you could use them whole in your oatmeal. These will gum up within 10 to 15 minutes of adding them to a liquid. If you haven’t heard of flax eggs before, flax is what gives you that kind of eggy texture that you can use in baking. So you don’t have to do overnight to be able to get the texture out of either of these.

In terms of toppings, I would recommend fresh or frozen fruit, my oil-free granola which you can easily make at home yourself and it’s a great crunchy addition to your morning oatmeal. You can also add chopped nuts and seeds or coconut flakes, though I would recommend using those sparingly because they are going to be pretty calorie dense. You could go just as simple as oats, plant milk, and some fresh fruit, or you could make it as complicated, as ‘complicated’ as oats, plant milk, some sugar, a few spices, some salt, and then fruit or other kind of toppings as you choose. I’ve tested out a lot of different variations of this recipe and I’ve got all of those detailed out on my site. If you wanted to take it to the next level, you also could do some kind of a berry compote; you could throw some kind of a fruit like strawberries or blueberries, or even sliced apple, into a pan with some water, corn starch, maybe a little bit of sugar, and cook it down to get a compote, and add that over top.

So there’s all different kind of variations with this, to change it up day to day and have oatmeal every morning that’s going to be good for you and tastes great. You can also change it up depending on the season; I’ve got recommendations for things like a pumpkin spice mix, carrot cake, mint chip, peanut butter chocolate, apple cinnamon, banana cream pie, gingerbread, almond joy, coffee if you add coffee or you like chocolate chips; green tea that you could throw in with the oatmeal; green tea, chai tea, so I’ve got a ton of ideas. I’ll probably list some of them here, but what I’m just going to show you for today is the way that I throw this together, my favorite way to eat it, and even though I’ve tried on a lot of different types, this is pretty much what I have every morning. And if you watch my homemade granola recipe, this is pretty much the exact same as what I made then.

So start off with my oats, add a little bit of sugar, probably doing about a teaspoon here. Sprinkle on my homemade granola, add a little bit of salt to bring out the flavor, and then I always buy fresh strawberries from the store. It’s definitely my favorite fruit to add to my morning oatmeal. I transfer them to a airtight container so that they don’t go bad throughout the week and then I leave them fully intact and then I’ll clean and de-stem them as I’m using them. Then I’m just going to add these to the top pour on my plant milk grab a spoon and it is ready to go.

So as you can see, this took me just a couple minutes to throw together. It’s obviously a little more complicated if you make a compote or you want to steep some tea or make some coffee to throw in beforehand, but it is a super easy breakfast to make in the morning, it takes basically no thought whatsoever, as long as you bought some ingredients that you enjoy in advance, it would travel really well; you could throw together the dry ingredients the night before bring a little container of plant out with you, add it and enjoy it if you had to eat breakfast at work, or take it with you. It’s crunchy like cereal but it’s healthier for you, less processed, and tastes great. Also for summer and it being warmer, it doesn’t require any cooking, so it’s just been so nice to be able to have a cold refreshing breakfast in the morning.

So that is it for today’s recipe, if you try it out, let me know in the comments. I would love to know the ideas that you come up with for how you make this recipe, what your favorite type is. If you like this style of video with my face on camera, give this video a thumbs up so that I know to do more like this, let me know that in the comments as well. If you prefer this and me talking on camera as opposed to the traditional torso voice over video, or if you like me covering kind of my perspective on diet and ingredients, if you’d like me to do more videos like that, let me know; just any feedback that you’ve got about how this video is compared to my normal would be greatly appreciated, so that I can make content for you that you love. And don’t forget to subscribe, click the bell, give this video a thumbs up, and come back next time. Bye!