How to make easy classic vegan overnight oats with just a handful of ingredients (with or without vegan yogurt and chia seeds) for a quick and easy make-ahead breakfast packed with nutrients, flavor, and endless customizations!
If you’re looking for a frugal, low-effort, high-nutrient, and ultimately delicious make-ahead breakfast – we’d love to introduce you to vegan overnight oats (a perfect addition to your frugal, plant-based meal plans)! This simple breakfast combines a handful of ingredients left to soak overnight in the fridge and become tender (with no need to cook them). Then, come the morning, give them a big stir, add any extra toppings, and tuck into your delicious, creamy vegan overnight oats jar!
Not only does the prep take just minutes, but you can carry out your overnight oats’ meal prep on a Sunday evening for a whole week of nutritious vegan breakfasts ready to grab-and-go! At most, you might need to chop up some fresh fruit in the morning; otherwise, it’s a fuss-free way to start the day for anyone with busy mornings (or as a lunchbox snack!).
Overnight oats combine oats with a liquid and other optional ingredients (like yogurt and chia seeds), plus the 'toppings' of your choice, then leave them to soak overnight (or for several days!). During that time, the oats will soak up the liquid and become tender, chewy, and slightly creamy, and ready to eat straight from the fridge - no cooking required! Meaning it’s even less effort than this simple stovetop oatmeal (and carrot cake oatmeal)!
Even better, this vegan overnight oats recipe contains the simplest base that you can find with a combination of just oats and your liquid of choice (water, juice, or vegan milk can be used for these easy dairy-free overnight oats). Then, if you have them available, we’ve also added options for overnight oats with yogurt, chia seeds, sweeteners, and other ‘base’ add-ins. Just note that you don’t NEED those extras for a super delicious breakfast – especially with your choice of add-ins.
Best of all, making homemade easy overnight oats will save you a TON on buying them from cafes, AND there are practically endless options to customize this make-ahead breakfast - meaning you can easily mix and match flavors so you’ll never get bored! Just to get the ball rolling, we’ve included a ton of topping and flavor combo options below!
And optionally:
We also already have recipes for pumpkin overnight oats, salted caramel overnight oats, and coconut, blueberry, and strawberry overnight oats!
The base vegan overnight oats (without yogurt) ratio:
1 cup rolled oats + 1 cup plant-based milk + OPTIONAL 1-2 tablespoon sugar/ maple syrup
Top tip: Though most of the other options below contain a ½ cup portion of oats, we’ve found a full cup to be the most filling when no yogurt or chia seeds are added. However, if you’d prefer a smaller portion, feel free to use ½ cup each of oats and milk!
First, choose what you’d like to prepare the vegan overnight oats in. We recommend either a glass, mason jar or small airtight container. Anything you can spoon the soaked oats from will work! We love using pint-sized mason jars that are inexpensive and travel-friendly!
You can optionally prepare a large batch of the ‘base’ overnight oatmeal and simply add the fruit and toppings to the overnight oats just before eating them – the choice is up to you!
Once prepared, the base overnight oatmeal mixture will easily last 5-6 days in an airtight container in the fridge. Unfortunately, when adding fresh fruit, the shelf life is usually reduced to 3-4 days. However, you can combat this by keeping some jars plain and chopping the fruit the night before/morning of!
And thank you Lively Days for doing this awesome video!
Photos by Alfonso Revilla
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