A new craze: overnight oats with topping. Dear friend Eva (check her out here: evennaareva.com) served it last week when we had breakfast together.

The basics: soak oats overnight in water or some ‘milk’ (almond, rice, coconut). When using water, you may find that adding a bit of honey and salt or vanilla sugar may improve the taste. I like to add dried coconut and chia seeds as well and leave that in the fridge overnight.

Good to know: oats contain phytic acid (fytinezuur), which inhibits the uptake of nutrients in your body. So phytic acid is not something we want. Actually, the whole idea of overnight oats is to pre-digest them, making them more beneficial for the body. Adding acids such as fresh fruits, a squeeze of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar to your oats before soaking overnight will aid this pre-digestion and hence help you benefit more from the other foods you eat! Many overnight oat recipes skip this, but it is actually pretty essential to the whole thing ;).

Next morning, add toppings to your liking. My favorites from this recipe: apple, banana, blueberries, nuts, raisins, flaxseed and pumpkin seeds. Super nice bonus: thick coconut milk. But I keep that one for extra special mornings :).

Recipe for blueberry banana overnight oats:

In the evening, mix together:

  • Oats
  • Chia seeds
  • Coconut
  • Water or veggie ‘milk’
  • Optional: salt/honey/vanilla/sugar/some syrup/cinnamon
  • Something acidic (I use lemon juice)

Next morning, add:

  • Freshly cut fruits (apple, banana, blueberries)
  • Raisins
  • Seeds and nuts
  • Cinnamon
  • Cacao

There are no measurements here as I truly don’t measure often. Just play around and you’ll be fine!

When in doubt about the amount of fluid, here’s a hint: you can always add but it’s hard to discard (well and just a pity).

Hmmmm ?