Steel Cut Oatmeal

Steel Cut Oatmeal

1 cup steel cut oats
3 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup milk (any fat content, optional)
1/8 tsp salt

Suggested flavorings:
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbs brown sugar
1 tbs ground flax seed
dried fruits, nuts, maple syrup

Note: if you wanted savory oatmeal, you could cook the oatmeal with celery, eggs, or add soy sauce or sriracha. Options are endless.

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 40 minutes
Utensil/bowl use: minimal: large pot, spoon, measuring spoon/cup
Serve for: a week of breakfasts!

I am a breakfast person. I look forward to it every day. However, I am not a morning person in the slightest so you can often find me making breakfast for the week ahead on a Sunday night. Things like homemade waffles, homemade yogurt, granola, muffin veggie frittata, and as seen here, steel cut oatmeal. Each and every one of these meals have the added bonus of being easily split into breakfast serving sizes and stored for a few days until they are ready to be eaten. They only require a little bit of heating in the toaster or microwave at most. Absolutely perfect for me, since I hardly ever am in the right mind to cook in the morning.

I happen to prefer steel cut oatmeal to regular because it tends to be crunchier and less gooey than regular oatmeal. I also feel like the flavor of the oats comes through better when prepared this way thus requiring less extra flavoring. And making oatmeal from scratch tastes infinitely better than the individually packaged stuff. Plus, this recipe produces about 5-6 servings, easily holding me over until the next Sunday evening.

I forgot to include the ground flax in the picture. Another post, another ingredient left off. I could justify the omission because the flax is really an optional ingredient, but it also happens to be my favorite ingredient so I couldn’t do that in good conscience.

Boil 3 1/2 cups of water in a large sauce pot.

Add 1 cup of steel cut oats to the water.

Add a dash of salt to the oats.

Turn heat to medium low and let oats cook for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. The oats will stick to the pan if you don’t stir. (Also, make sure to rinse the pot immediately because oatmeal turns to concrete if it is allowed to dry. I learned this the hard way.)

Once the water has mostly cooked off, add 1/2 cup of milk, stir and cook for another 5 minutes. The milk is optional. It only adds a creaminess to the oatmeal.

The following additions are also optional, they are just my favorite flavorings for oatmeal.

Add 1 tsp of vanilla extract

and 1 tbs of brown sugar

and my favorite – 1 tbs of ground flax seed. Flax is a great way to get extra omega 3 fatty acid into your diet especially if you are like me and don’t eat the recommended amount of fish. Besides this health benefit, I like its flavor. Flax has a really nutty flavor that goes well with oatmeal.

It tastes much better than it looks. I promise.

Steel Cut Oatmeal

1 cup steel cut oats
3 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup milk (any fat content, optional)
1/8 tsp salt

Suggested flavorings:
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbs brown sugar
1 tbs ground flax seed
dried fruits, nuts, maple syrup

Bring 3 1/2 cups of water to a boil. Stir in steel cut oats and salt and reduce heat to medium low. Let oats cook for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally to keep the oats from sticking. Add milk and let cook for 5 minutes more. Steel cut oats will have the same wet look as regular oatmeal.

Flavor as desired.

I tend to store oatmeal in 5 -6 individual serving sized tupperware. It reheats in about a minute in the microwave. Make sure that whatever bowl you use to reheat the oatmeal is rather big to prevent it from bubbling over. I don’t know why oatmeal bubbles over. If I find an answer while I am futzing around on the internet, I will share it with you.