Five minutes the night before and breakfast is already made. That is the whole appeal. It does not taste better than something cooked, and I am not going to tell you it does. It tastes fine and it is sitting there at 6 a.m., which is the part that matters on a work morning.
The morning I skip breakfast is the morning I eat something out of a vending machine at eleven. This exists to remove that decision from a version of me who is not awake yet.
Ingredients
- 104 g sprouted rolled oats
- 1 scoop s’mores protein powder — mine is 140 calories and 28 g of protein
- 8 oz ultra filtered 2% milk (Kirkland Signature)
- 8 oz water
- 140 g blueberries (Kirkland)
Method
A jar with a lid. That is the equipment.
- Oats and protein powder into the jar dry, and stir them together before any liquid goes in. Powder dumped onto wet oats clumps, and those clumps do not open up overnight — you find them in the morning.
- Milk in, then the water. Stir until nothing dry is left sitting on the bottom.
- Blueberries on top. Stir them through or leave them where they are; by morning it makes no difference.
- Lid on, into the fridge, overnight. Eight hours is more than enough. It is probably ready well before that, but I am asleep either way.
Notes
Sixteen ounces of liquid for 104 g of oats looks like too much. It is not, and the protein powder is why — it drinks a surprising amount, and a scoop of it turns a normal ratio into something stiff enough to stand a spoon in. Cut the water and you get paste.
The water is doing a specific job. The second 8 oz has to be something, and filling it with milk instead would make this 850 calories and 69 g of protein. That is not a bad trade if you want it — it is just a different meal, and a bigger one. This is already the largest bowl of oats I eat, and I wanted the volume without paying for it twice.
Frozen blueberries bleed overnight and the whole jar comes out purple. Fresh ones stay whole and stay separate. Both taste right. I have stopped caring which one I happen to have.
Sprouted oats are what I buy, not a recommendation. The pitch on the bag is about digestion, and I cannot honestly tell you I noticed anything. Regular rolled oats behave the same way in this jar. Steel cut do not — they will still be crunchy in the morning.
The numbers come off four labels and the water is free:
| Calories | Protein | |
|---|---|---|
| Oats, 104 g | 400 | 14 g |
| Protein powder, 1 scoop | 140 | 28 g |
| Milk, 8 oz | 120 | 13 g |
| Blueberries, 140 g | 70 | 1 g |
| Total | 730 | 56 g |
That comes to 94 g of carbs and 14 g of fat, and the oats are most of both.
Sixteen grams of that carb number is fiber — 12 from the oats and 4 from the blueberries. I mention it because it is the part of this bowl I would point at first if you asked why it holds. The protein is the headline and the fiber is quietly doing the same job.
Two of those four are mine and not yours. A scoop of protein powder runs anywhere from about 100 to 150 calories, so a lighter one puts this closer to 710 and 52 g. Kirkland’s 0% instead of the 2% takes off roughly 40 calories and leaves the protein where it is. Swap both and the oats and the blueberries are the only part of this bowl that did not move — which is fine. Use what you already own and read your own tub. The recipe is the ratio, not my shopping list.