Easy Overnight Oats (That Taste Like Dessert for Breakfast)

I love a sweet breakfast. I kick off most mornings with toast slathered in nut butter and jam, a bowl of yogurt and fruit, or, if I’m organized enough, oats I’ve combined with chia seeds, oat milk, vanilla, and maple syrup and soaked overnight. Topped with fruit, such as blueberries and bananas, it's a simple but tasty breakfast. 

I started making overnight oats in college, when I needed something quick and nutritious to fuel long days in the library. Over the years, I’ve experimented with different combinations of ingredients, ratios, and toppings. Plenty of trial and error means I’ve had my fair share of bland, watery soaked oats. But I’ve also had spectacularly creamy oats—the recipe for which I’m sharing below—that I’d be thrilled to eat day after day. The recipe below makes two servings, but it's easily doubled or tripled if you want to make more servings for meal-prep or for multiple people. After mixing everything up, you can leave the mixture in one large container, or transfer it to individual jars.

Here’s how to make great overnight oats.

6 Tips for Making the Best Overnight Oats

Use rolled oats. There are many kinds of oats: quick-cooking, rolled, extra-thick, and steel-cut. For overnight oats that you don't plan on cooking (vs. oats you soak overnight before turning into oatmeal the next day), I recommend reaching for rolled oats, which are tender when soaked and just thick enough to lend the uncooked porridge a bit of heft and chew after soaking. I recommend steering clear of quick-cooking oats, which are thinner than regular rolled oats and make for watery or mushy overnight oats. On the opposite spectrum, steel-cut oats, which are hardier than rolled oats, remain quite firm even after a night of soaking. (Steel-cut oats are great for making Scottish-style oatmeal, and soaking them reduces the cooking time.)

Use a liquid sweetener. Unless you plan on heating up milk to dissolve granulated, raw, or brown sugar—or whisking sugar vigorously into cold milk in an attempt to dissolve it—I recommend using a liquid sweetener such as maple syrup, honey, or agave syrup. My preferred sweetener is dark amber maple syrup, as it lends a robust flavor with caramel notes.

Add a little vanilla. I prefer vanilla paste, as it gives the oats a more stronger vanilla flavor. Feel free to substitute with vanilla extract or to skip the vanilla entirely.

Don’t forget the salt. Seasoning the overnight oats highlights the natural nuttiness of the grains, while also bringing out vanilla’s floral sweetness and the maple syrup’s notes of brown sugar.

Add a tablespoon of chia seeds. As chia seeds hydrate, they set up and become gelatinous, giving the overnight oats a pudding-like texture that’s more satisfying to eat. It’s not as seedy as chia pudding, but creates thicker overnight oats that feel more substantial than plain oats soaked in milk.

For the creamiest dairy-free oats, use oat milk. You’re more than welcome to use your milk of choice, including cow's milk or a nut milk, but oat milk has consistently produced the creamiest overnight oats for me. As a wise person once said: What grows together goes together, and in this case, it’s oats…and more oats.