With the discovery of instant oats, the popularity of overnight oats has not seen the slightest fall. People love to eat overnight oats, but there is a lucrative thought of ditching the overnight rule and feasting on the bowl two or three hours later.
This lucrative thought can make you suffer from mild diarrhea, gas, or constipation. Oats are loaded with numerous benefits, from weight loss agents to minerals and vitamins. But you need to cook them or soak them overnight to make them free of hazards.
Read along to know why do overnight oats have to be overnight? What are their benefits? And what mistakes do people make while soaking the oats?
Table of contents
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
What Happens When You Soak Oats Overnight?
Raw oats are difficult to chew and swallow because of their rough texture. When you soak oats overnight, you start the digestion process in the jar or the bowl.
This process makes oats palatable and easy to swallow. You cannot eat raw oats because there will be an increased number of unhealthy bacteria and gut flora imbalances.
According to food experts, you need to soak oats in water, milk, or yogurt to break down the starch. It will help them release all the nutrients in your stomach, and you will get a healthy punch of nutritious food.
Why Do Overnight Oats Have To Be Overnight?
Coarse texture and digestive issues are not the only things that make experts recommend oats overnight soaking. Oats are seeds, and they are loaded with phytic acid or phytate. This phytate has phosphorus, the first food for the plant to grow right after germination.
When you do not soak oats, the phytic acid remains intact, and oats secrete it in your stomach. The high dose of phytic acid impairs the ability to absorb iron, minerals, and vitamins. It can result in reduced immunity, weight loss, and other medical conditions because of vitamin deficiency.
How To Soak Overnight Oats?
Once you have understood why do overnight oats have to be overnight, the next thing is to find the best way and ingredients to soak the oats overnight. There are two different methods for people with different conditions.
1. Dairy-free method to soak overnight oats
If you suffer from lactose intolerance or don’t want to use milk or dairy, you can choose filtered water. Take two cups of water and one cup of oats and put them into a glass jar or bowl. You can use the 2:1 formula as per your desired quantity.
When you have soaked the oats, you need a pinch of acid like apple cider vinegar or lemon juice to start the fermentation process. Leave the oats overnight and enjoy the goodness of health and taste in the morning.
2. Dairy filled method to soak overnight oats
The same ratio of 2:1 means 2 cups milk or yogurt and 1 cup oats go for the dairy loaded overnight oats. You must use a glass jar with a sealed lid to make overnight oats in the dairy. When you have loaded the ingredients, give the jar a solid stir a couple of times.
If you live in a temperate zone with a high temperature, never leave milk or yogurt-loaded oats in the room. You must place the oats in the fridge to keep them fresh and able to eat.
Can You Immediately Eat Overnight Oats?
The answer to this question is a YES because you have let them sit for over 12 hours, and now they are ready to consume as a perfect breakfast. If you have placed the soaked oats in the fridge, you can eat and enjoy the cold texture in the morning without any worry.
People love to add dry fruits or fresh fruit to increase the taste and goodness of the food. Many overnight oat recipes include different variations of fruits and nuts. You can go as creative as you want with the recipe.
But if you don’t like the chilly texture of this food, you can microwave it and enjoy the whole goodness on a winter morning. The hot meal will give you the energy and power to solve every problem with full energy.
Mistakes People Make While Preparing Overnight Oats
Overnight oats are easy to make thrifty food, providing great health benefits by offering a diverse nutritious profile. You need to place oats in the jar, add water or milk, stir it, and go to sleep. You have a hearty meal that you can eat to your heart’s content in the morning.
But this simple process is not that simple, and people make serious mistakes that can ruin this food’s texture and nutritional profile. Read carefully and avoid these mistakes while making your perfect breakfast.
a. Never guess the ratio
The key to making a perfect overnight oats breakfast is to master the liquid and oats ratio. If you add more liquid, the oats will dissolve, and you will have a sloppy liquid that will be extremely difficult to swallow.
Always follow the 2:1 formula to help you get a perfect consistency of oats and liquid. The palatable oats will give you a solid punch of taste, and you will love to chew them and swallow them to get taste and nutrition.
b. Always add salt
If you haven’t tasted cardboard yet, you can taste it with the help of overnight oats without adding salt to it. No matter how much sugar, maple syrup, or honey you add to the food, the oats will taste like cardboard and cheap porridge without salt.
When you are soaking oats in any liquid, always add a pinch of salt and stir it with the spoon in the bowl. Or you can shake the jar by securing it with the lid, and vigorous shaking will make every oat soak salt to enhance its taste.
c. Do not use instant oats
As the name suggests, Instant oats are the smaller version of rolled oats. These pallets are easy to eat and chew by soaking them in liquid and placing them for a few minutes. The use of instant oats gives nutritional benefits but not those you get from eating overnight oats.
When you soak instant oats in a liquid and place them overnight, you will have a smelly portion that will have fully dissolved oat. The use of instant oats for overnight oats is not a good move. The best option is the old-fashioned version of oats made by rolling them over.
You can also go for steel-cut oats that can be used as overnight oats, but you must eat this version before 10 to 12 hours because later will make them sloppy and dissolved. If you don’t want to compromise the taste and texture of your morning food, never go for instant or steel-cut oats.
d. Never add fruits at night
Fruits and maple syrup are a necessary part of the overnight oats for people in many countries. These two things add taste to the meal, and you love the nutrition and benefit from the combo.
Many people get tempted to add these two things the night you are soaking your oats. This notion is extremely wrong.
According to food experts, when you put fresh fruit in the oats and put them in the room overnight, the fruit can get stale and will start to rot.
The rotting fruit will destroy the whole purpose of goodness and nutrition. Eating this rotten meal will make you sick and hospitalized because of food poisoning in rare cases.
You cannot add fresh fruits and syrup to the overnight oats at night. But if you want to add chia seeds or dry fruit, you are warmly welcomed by the oats.
The dry fruit will absorb the liquid and will get easy to chew without getting rotten. The chia seed also gets fully loaded with the taste and texture after having an overnight bath in the oat and liquid mixture.
e. Never forget to stir before eating
Stirring is at the root of the overnight oats process. When you are soaking the oats at night, you must stir the liquid and oats to get a uniform consistency.
Without stirring, salt will not reach every grain, and you will have a strange taste while eating the meal in the morning.
But when you have stirred the oats at night, you have completed half of the process. The next essential stirring which you must do is in the morning.
When you are about to eat the oats, stir them with the spoon. This move will take the crunchy oats at the bottom and bring the fully ripe ones to the top.
When you have given it a final stir, the whole meal will have a uniform crunchy and mushy texture in every bite. Add maple syrup, fresh fruit, or any additive of your choice and enjoy the goodness of natural food.
Over To You
If you do not ask why do overnight oats have to be overnight and eat them without soaking, you are hurting your GI tract and immunity.
You must soak oats overnight to remove phytic acid from the seeds and get the palatable food filled with nutrients and vitamins. Be as much creative as you want with the recipe and get weight-reducing thrifty food without any effort.
Get Tupperware Container Now Prep Your Overnight Oats!
Read More:
