Can you do a post about overnight oatmeal? This is the first time I'm hearing about this kind of thing. My wife and I are always looking for new and interesting ways to start our mornings and this sounds like a huge time saver.

Scratch that. Reading related links is a huge time-saver as well...

I mix raw oat bran with milk and honey every night and let it sit in the fridge overnight...it soaks up much of the milk that way and then I just nuke it for a minute in the a.m. I know that you are without a fridge though...maybe you could just set it out on your porch if you have one and it's cold outside?

I've made it for a week and left it on the counter top - and survived. I'm not sure if it's recommended, but as long as there's no dairy or sugar, I'd think it would be fine.

I've done overnight steel-cut oats (boil in water for five minutes, turn off the heat, put on the lid, leave out overnight) about a thousand times with no ill effects, but I re-boil in the morning to heat and add moisture and refrigerate it after. If you're just doing enough to eat for breakfast with no leftovers, I can't imagine it would hurt you at all. Especially if you're reheating it before you eat it. :>

I always thought the overnight cooking method for steel-cut oats was something my grandfather came up with, since I remember him doing just that, when I was a child, but then I read it right on the McCann's Oatmeal can...;-)

I do just that with Bob's Red Mill 5-grain. I bring it to a boil, shut it off, stir in dried fruit -and sometimes coconut- slap the lid on it and leave it overnight (or all day, if I do it Sunday morning). After it sits for eight hours or so, I break it up into 2 cup "buckets" and refrigerate it. That's my breakfast for the week, so apparently it's ok for at least five days afterward.

To the best of my knowledge, I'm not dead yet.

What are you doing with your other fridge contents? Salad dressings, condiments, etc....I would assume you are going to a ice chest/ice situation, why not just put the oatmeal in there?

I do that all the time. I usually add a bit of lemon juice to the oats and I've never had a problem. I should note that I don't use dairy products for soaking, though. I always use hemp milk or coconut kefir.

As long as you are heating it back up to eat it should be fine, I wouldn't leave it out linger than over night, so don't make more than you can eat in the morning.

I would think that as long as you don't use dairy products when you make it and you still have a microwave, or some other means, of reheating the oatmeal past 165 degrees, it should be okay. The main thing is you would need to reheat it so that you can kill any bacteria that may have started to grow.

I'm not sure about cooked oatmeal, but with cooked rice you could get Bacillus cereus contamination:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_cereus

Reheating food doesn't necessarily kill the endospores nor the toxins that may have been released in the food.

oatmeal are starch, yes? starch + water + room temperature = mold?

I usually make a batch of steel cut oats using the overnight method, making a few days worth at a time. I usually put them in the fridge the day after making, but last week I left the pot out for about three days (covered, at room temp). On about day 3, the oatmeal had, without a doubt, gone rancid. It was pretty gross. My lesson? Oatmeal should be refrigerated, for sure.

Dyee is correct. Leaving it at room temperature is a recipe for disaster. It's perfectly fine to soak the oats in the fridge, though- I've found that works quite well.

Instead of preparing it and leaving overnight, how about cooking them overnight? Check out this recipe from Good Eats where you cook the oatmeal in a slow cooker for 9 hours overnight and enjoy in the morning!

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/overnight-oatmeal-recipe/index.html

I have heard that the best way to prepare oats so the nutrients assimilate into the body is the overnight lacto-fermentation method described on The Healthy Home Economist blog: http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/video-how-to-cook-oatmeal-the-right-way/

Personally, we prepare 2 cups steel cut oats, 1 cup old-fashioned oats, 2 cups water, and a tablespoon of whey (the clear liquid drained from yogurt). I also like to add a teaspoon of cinnamon at this stage. Let sit covered overnight on the counter. In the morning, we add 2 cups raw milk, a dash of sea salt, and any dried fruit we desire (raisins, apples, peaches, strawberries, etc.). Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer, stirring constantly, until of desired consistency.

This keeps very well in the refrigerator for breakfasts later in the week. But, I wouldn't keep it longer than a week.

We like cream, butter, and sucanat in ours, but it's good just as is. Sometimes we add cottage cheese and pecans for added protein. Don't laugh. It's really good with cottage cheese. :)

Putting my microbiologist cap on, provided your kitchen isn't too warm, then most beasties won't multiply to dangerous levels overnight, especially if you soak in water. If you're boiling it the night before, and keep it tightly covered, then you should be fine. But I'd make a fresh batch for each day.

They'd be more likely to soak up liquid than in the fridge, since lower temperature usually slows down such processes.

From a food safety perspective, it's not ideal since the food will be in the "danger zone" temp range for a very long time.

Personally, i make my overnight oatmeal for the week on sunday night and leave it on the stove then bring it back to a boil before eating and packing the leftovers in the fridge the next morning.

If you're pregnant or making this oatmeal for children or people with weakened immune systems I'd just make it in a slow cooker which holds the product at a safe temp overnight. If you aren't in a high-risk group, i'd make a small batch each night and bring it to a boil in the morning.

And the microbiologist is probably right, I just wanted to apply restaurant health regs to the situation.

People kill me with this "danger zone" nonsense. Food safety is not so simple as that. Each food has different properties and different dangers.

Oats and water will not make you sick overnight. Think about other foods that are commonly stored at room temperature for days and days: pies, cakes, fruits, vegetables, breads. These foods do go bad and will develop harmful bacteria eventually, but not overnight

The real dangers come from things like e.coli, salmonella, Bacillus cereus as another poster mentioned, etc. The chances of your oatmeal containing harmful levels, if at all, of these things is extremely unlikely.

So, yes, overnight will be fine but you start taking chances when you leave it out for days.