Crock Pot Oatmeal ~Breakfast In Bed!~
I’m not sure if it is popular or “in” anymore (I’m not sure if anything I do is popular or in anymore…) but I love and adore oatmeal. In fact, the only thing I’d rather have for breakfast than a creamy bowl of oatmeal is one of Mama’s ham and cheese omelets like she used to make me. Well, its been about fifteen years since I woke to Mama making me a ham and cheese omelet, so it only makes sense that I’d lean more towards the oatmeal concept at this point.
You know how you wake up first thing and its like your feet barely hit the floor before the day begins without you, with you rushing behind trying to catch up to it? That is precisely why this oatmeal is such a wonderful treat. We pop it in the crock pot overnight, fill a few lidded bowls with various stir ins and toppings, go to bed and when we wake its like the breakfast fairy has paid us a visit!
Now, before you start thinking that you could never possibly get your kids to eat oatmeal, hang on and wait until I get to the toppings part!
This is not the time to pop out those quick oats!
I admit, I am an oatmeal snob. What you see in this picture is what I bake with for cakes and cookies and such. I prefer to eat steel cut oats. Silver Palate is my favorite brand. I was out of those for this tutorial though and found out that not a single grocery store in my town sells them! Feel free to leave the raisins out if you are not a raisin fan. I prefer to bake mine in the oatmeal because I love how the plump up!
This is my crock pot. Its one of those deals with three different sized bowls in it. I LOVE MY CROCK POT. I got this baby for Mother’s Day. I asked for it over and over. I wrote the name down. I took my family to visit it at Wal Mart. Then, I saw on yahoo.com where kitchen appliances were in the top ten “dont’s” for Mother’s Day gifts! I closed out that web page and guarded my family’s internet usage until I knew they had bought it! Clearly, the folks at yahoo.com are not busy stay at home moms!
There are two ways you can bake your oatmeal in your crock pot. You can simply put it in and turn it on low and cook it overnight, or you can prepare a water bath. Each way works fine but you will have slight browning around the edges if you just put it straight in the crock pot.
A water bath is the solution to this. In my crock pot, I just use the largest bowl to hold the water and place my oatmeal in the smallest bowl, as pictured. If you have a traditional crock pot, simply place your oatmeal ingredients into an oven safe bowl that will fit inside your pot and fill the main pot with water enough to reach about halfway up the sides of your bowl.
In the morning, have a set of toppings ready. I use lidded bowls so that I can just put the lids on and pull them out the next time I make this. For my toppings, I chose:
Chopped Pecans
Chocolate Chips
Brown Sugar mixed with Cinnamon
Here’s the trick to get your kids to eat it: Let them put their own toppings in. My son went ga-ga over this and let me tell you, chocolate chips stirred into hot oatmeal…..YUM!
Here are some other topping suggestions but the options are really limitless:
Colorful sprinkles or jimmies
Marshmallows
Any type of chopped nut
Dried fruit (raisins, apricots, apples)
Fresh fruit (berries, bananas either sliced or mashed, peaches, etc)
Honey
Chocolate Syrup
Caramel Sauce
M&M’s
Peanut Butter
Jelly or Jam
Ingredients
- 2 Cups old fashioned or steel cut oats
- 4 Cups milk you can substitute water for this
- 1 Cup water
- dash of salt
- Raisins optional
Instructions
- Add all ingredients to crock pot or oven safe bowl if using water bath crock pot method.
- Prepare toppings in individual bowls. Cover and cook on low overnight.
- Wake up, dish out into bowls, and let your family prepare their own while you enjoy your breakfast!
I am so envious of your crock pot. Mine died recently and I would LOVE to buy one like yours. I originally saw it at WalMart a couple years ago and thought it looked awesome, but couldn’t justify buying it since mine still worked. WalMart no longer sells it though and Amazon.com only has ones with really ugly black bowls with free shipping. I hate black. It’s so dreary. They have the ones with white bowls and the ones with multi colored bowls (which is the one I would choose), but the shipping to Alaska is well over $100. No way! I’m trying to decide if I should just buy the black one while it’s still available- better to have an ugly one than none at all, right?!
Oh and the crock pot that died on me was Hamilton Beach and black just like the one I’m considering buying. I always thought the thing was so ugly and was waiting to be able to buy a nicer looking one!
You sound like me,I’ve always been opposed to anything black. I tell my husband “it is the color of death”. Lol
But,I have relented and have mostly black and stainless appliances now and even use a black crock pot!
Surprisingly,I now like my black one better. The food in it shows up better for photos.
I’d go for it 😉
Well, I managed to get my crock pot and I got a white one! Hooray! The black one on Amazon.com didn’t have free shipping anymore. I know this sounds crazy, but we had it shipped to my mother in Washington, then she took it out of the box and inspected it and plugged it in to make sure it worked before repacking it with extra padding and shipping it to me up here in Alaska. It took over a month, but my lovely crock pot is here now and steel cut oats are on the grocery list for tomorrow :oD Oatmeal will be the first thing I get to make with it! Then I’m going to make your tomatoless beef stew… and later this week I’m going to use the jumbo crock to make spiced apple cider. Can’t wait to use this thing. I have BIG plans.
Yay Annarose!! So glad you finally got it. You will wonder hoe you ever lived without it!
I hope you get around to making Christy’s chicken and dressing- I think it’s got to be one of the best crock pot recipes of all time.
Hmmm. I wonder if the water bath would work in mine. I have a Rival crock pot with 2 bowls – one is divided for making 2 different things at once and fits only about half way down in the other bowl… Mostly just for storage purposes I think, though. Hmmm…
LOL here it is 10:30 at night & you’ve got me wanting to experiment in the kitchen!!
Crockpot oatmeal is a great idea, anybody know how to do Crockpot grits (or cheese grits)? My kids won’t do oatmeal everyday, but if I could alternate between that and grits, that would work.
Thanks for the great ideas.
I have one of those Hamilton Beach slow cookers (mine has the different colored bowls as opposed to all white) with the 3 different sized bowls and I would have never thought of using the two different sizes to form the water bath. I’m going to try it ’cause I gave up on crock pot oatmeal a few years ago after all my efforts turned out dried up or burnt.
Yum! I love oatmeal. Now to track down steel-cut oats (not easy in my small town).
GREAT idea on the water-bath! I have been experimenting with crock pot oatmeal, and it always ends up burned around the edges overnight, even on low. Do you think a stainless steel bowl would be ok inside the crock pot? All of my glass bowls are too wide… they don’t fit inside my crock pot. Thanks!!
I think a stainless bowl would work just fine!!! Let me know how it turns out! Have a great weekend!
Christy 🙂
Christy a spoonful of peanut butter and some sugar mixed with cocoa powder is great in oatmeal too. Just mix 1/3 c of sugar with a tablespoon of baking cocoa and store in an clean empty spice jar and sprinkle a bit on your oatmeal and wow! That is the only way I will eat it now. 😀
I just love oatmeal…never even thought about preparing it in the good ole crockpot. I’m so glad I came across this site & this recipe.
I can hardly wait to try it with the dried apples & a dash of cinnamon.