I love this! I eat oatmeal every morning and always am fussing with tupperware to transport it to work. Thanks for the awesome idea!

I make and eat steel cut oats almost every day. With this method I only have to make it once but I can still eat it every day. Genius! Thanks.

@Scordo, no, they don't, actually. They tend to hold their texture quite well with this cooking method. But if you like very chewy oats then you might want to try the no-cook overnight option. Even easier! Simple Breakfast: No-Cook Overnight Steel-Cut Oats

You forgot maple syrup!

Vanilla

The commuter breakfast. Love it!

Does anyone have a recipe for steel cut oat muesli? Would be fun to make that in these little jars.

How do you get the right proportion of water and not-yet-expanded oats into each container? Is it just a matter of lining them up and eyeballing them?

I've been doing the overnight slowcooker thing, but may try this as I find that while the "fresh" ones are great, when I refrigerate and re-heat the leftovers, they're all.. jelly-like. I need to add a TON of milk/water to try to get them back to a somewhat reasonable consistency.

Hopefully that won't happen with this method?

I think it is tastier when the oats are toasted first. We toast, soak overnight in half the volume of water needed. In the morning, cook for half the time using whole milk for the rest of the liquid. They cook in about 15 minutes and much tastier.

I do this but with the no-cook overnight steel cut oats :) The flavours intensify as the week gets closer to Friday.

I do something like this, but with a little less equipment.

Sunday night: Place 1 & 1/2 cups of oat groats with 3x the water. Bring to boil, let it set overnight to "cook."

Monday morning: Put ALL the cooked oat groats in a quart-size mason jar. It should be packed to the gills. Pack my fresh fruit and toppings (shredded coconut, flaxseed meal, etc.) in their separate (smaller) containers. Bring to work and store the cooked oats in the work fridge. Put the other toppings in my desk drawer.

Every day of the week: Take out a serving of the oats, put some fresh milk in it to soften it up, microwave it, and top with the miscellany ingredients that I brought.

This is my breakfast for the entire week!

Love it! Steel cut oats in the morning are my fav. I usually toss in a little brown sugar, some banana or berries and some cinnamon. I buy the oats in bulk at Whole Foods and store them in a jar to cut down on packaging.

do people really enjoy eating oatmeal made in water? i find it fairly repulsive. i always make my oatmeal in milk.

Would this work with the 5 min variety?

My 19 month old daughter LOVES oatmeal, I will definitely try the steel cut variety, maybe I'll eat more of it too then;) I also make home made apple sauce with vanilla (and sometimes mix apples and pears.) It sounds time consuming, but it's super easy. Peel a ton of apples, cut into chunks, put in a 5-6 qt pot with a teeny bit of water, 1/2 cup tops. (if you add pears you can skip the water.) scrape out half a vanilla bean and add both scrapings and bean to pot. let it steam and simmer until the apples are soft, and whiz in a food processor (or eat them chunky). Would be fantastic with the steel cut oatmeal!

Mason jars sound like a much better alternative than the plastic containers I've been using to do this!

I cook mine in the slow cooker, but add more water to the crock than I would if cooking oats on the stove. I find that the extra liquid helps when reheating the oats.

Also, I like to eat my oatmeal with a spoonful of nut butter, a pinch of salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and whatever fruit I happen to have in the house. Mmmmm!

Clever idea. I like this.

Lewi Wedi: Earlier in the comments thread, Faith links to her no-cook steel cut oats, which is basically steel cut oats muesli. I make it all the time (ironically in the same kind of jars featured above) and I really love it. It's easy, filling and nutritious. What could be better?

I do this! At some point I weighed the 5 portions and then figured that if I just take the weight/5 I'd have enough for each day. Much easier than having lots of jars of oatmeal floating around.

Also, I add the following (per day, after reheating): 1 tbsp soy protein powder (not the flavored kind!), 1 tbsp wheat germ, 1 tbsp flax seed (ground or whole) and then a little bit of maple syrup or brown sugar to sweeten. Yum.

I have tried this and did find them to get too mushy after a day in the fridge. I'm sure we all have different takes on what's "too mushy," so I don't doubt that they're just fine for lots of people. Not for me, though!

Where did you get the information that there is no health risk in eating moist grains left at room temperature overnight? No food should stay in the danger zone (40-140 F) for more than 2 hours. Moist cooked grains especially grow bacteria quickly.

I knew there was a reason why I bought that case of Ball jars last year (at a yardsale for $2.00 for the whole case!!) I have used a few of them for spices, and keep looking at the remainder thinking ... Hmmm ... now what? I am so going to do this tonight when I get home.

thanks fro this,.

@leilynne: my comprehension is that since dried grain is bacteria free, if you just add water (which should also be bacteria free) then leaving them together to rest overnight should create bacteria no? especially if you use a clean pot with a tight fitting lid.
In any case, I've tried it before and I've never been sick.

Must admit I was a little wary whether this would work...it seemed too easy. And while I love steel cut oats, I never remember it b/c I mentally connect "somewhat labor intensive" with it (crock pot, stovetop). This method worked GREAT. Ridiculously easy. Perfect consistency. Will be making this often. Thanks for the tip!

@leilynne you're right - I should amend that to say that there have been zero health problems for ME, in the many, many batches I've made (over a hundred, certainly). Also, the oatmeal is brought back to a full boil in the morning, presumably dealing with any bacteria that did indeed develop.

But, like I said, you can also just put the jars in the refrigerator, if you are uncomfortable with the original method.

I've been cooking 3 day's worth of steel cut oats per batch for about 2 years. I have a very small pyrex container that hold a perfect serving and fits nicely in my work bag. I have noticed if I make the oats and skip a day or sometimes two (eating with co-workers, perhaps), the oats can take on a rather unpleasant smell which I assume comes from bacteria. I always add fruit immediately prior to eating the oats, in part because I would suspect introducing berries and fruit could also introduce yeast that would cause its own problems. Maybe the bacteria and yeast are minimalized by using small individual containers from the start? Have you noticed a smell or any light fermentation on day 4 or day 5?

Just as an fyi, boiling something that's sat out all night may kill the bacteria, but it doesn't kill the toxins excreted by the bacteria that can cause you to get sick. Maybe if you put the grains in a sterilized jar and then boiled the jar, they'd grow no bacteria.

can i do this with old pb jars? is there a risk of the jar breaking as the oats cool and the pressure inside the jar rises? or will that just cause the jar to seal?

I have been wondering about "steel-cut oats" for quite some time, so I spent some time trying to figure out the German equivalent. To my surprise it's an old-fashioned staple called Hafergrütze, not even hard to find. The recipe works well, but unfortunately I don't like the taste at all...

I am totally doing this. I love steel cut oats but couldn't figure out how to do them with my busy mornings & hour-long commute. I'll never eat oats from an envelope again.

Actually, leaving the cooked oats out overnight is indeed dangerous. Dried grains are safe, but cooked grains become an excellent growth media for bacteria. Assuming you did reheat the oats long enough to kill the bacteria, which would require a reheated temperature of at least 165 degrees, you would still have the toxins the bacteria produced. Those cannot be cooked out. And if you add a sweetener, even right before refrigeration, that's just good old fashion bacteria superfood.

Here's more information: http://en.allexperts.com/q/Food-Safety-Issues-767/2009/4/Cooked-Oatmeal.htm.

Is it certain to make you sick? No. But is it worth the risk?

This can be done faster and safer by measuring uncooked oats directly into the mason jars, then
pouring the boiling water over the oats in the jars, sealing them off, and then putting them in the fridge.

There seems to be an awful lot of misunderstanding coming from the whole "leaving oats out" thing... Let me see if I can help clarify things.

1. If the dry grains are bacteria-free, then how do the boiled grains suddenly have "toxins from dead bacteria" in them? Boiling water is sanitized by the heat and the hot water vapor rising through it. Unless you're adding bacteria, bacteria will not be "created."

2. By ladling the still-hot oats and water into (presumably) clean mason jars and promptly screwing the lid on, you're greatly limiting the amount of airborne stuff that can get in the oats. As long as you put the oats in while they're still hot (above 140F, which gives you probably 30-45 minutes), they'll be bacteria-free, just like when you put them in the water.

3. The same goes for the mason jar, if you use freshly cleaned (or if you're OCD, sanitized) jars, then the heat from the water+oats will help kill anything that may have gotten in the jars since cleaning, since time+heat is an effective sterilization method. Putting the lid on tight as soon as the oats+water are in the jar will effectively create a bacteria-proof seal, being that the cooling of the hot air inside will create a vacuum effect on the lid, giving it an air-tight seal. Same principle in canning food.
Try this: load up your dishwasher with the jars, and run a load. Make sure your "heated dry cycle" is ON. Cook your oats, and time it such that as soon as the oats are done cooking, the jars are hot and dry. This is a fairly easy and fairly consistent way to make sure that your jars will be super-clean prior to putting the oats in them.

4. If you leave the sealed oats out overnight to finish cooking, then place them in the refrigerator the next day, you really should be fine. If there were no bacteria in the oats to begin with, and you made sure to do everything quickly while everything was still hot, there's very little risk of any legitimate bacterial activity. And if there's not any legitimate bacterial activity, then there aren't any legitimate toxins from dead bacteria when you reheat the oats, are there?

Cheers!

I'm a new fan of steel-cut oats - thanks to Faith's awesome cookbook that showed me how to bake them like a casserole. Faith, this looks like another awesome idea. Thanks.

I don't cook steel cut oats. Can't stand the texture. Instead I combine 1 cup steel cut oats with 1 cup of milk, 1 grated apple, some chopped walnuts, raisins, chopped dried apricots, dried cranberries, dried coconut. This goes into a container with a lid and it is stored in the fridge overnight. The types of dried fruit and nuts can be varied to taste. In the A.M. the oats are softened but not rubbery. Yum.

What is the difference between normal oats and steel-cut oats? And does anyone know what they might be called in Spain? Gracias!

Another great oatmeal morning to-go or to-stay meal: Baked Oatmeal. Mix together: 2 c. old fashioned or steel cut oatmeal, 1/4 t. salt, 1/4 c. soft butter, 1 egg, 1/2 c. brown or white sugar, 3/4 c. milk, 1 t. baking powder, and 1 t. cinnamon. Spread in greased 8" square pan or pie plate, pour in mixture. Can store overnight or bake immediately at 350 or 375 for 30 minutes. I wrap it in waxed paper to grab and eat as is in the mornings, or you could serve it at home with hot milk. Either way it's delish! You could still use your mason jars if desired; grease first, fill no more than halfway before baking, watch your time, seal while still hot and YUM. Keeps well for up to a week. Enjoy!

I used to use rolled oats and mix them up with vanilla yogurt and proportion them into jars. They softened up with sitting there in the fridge but you can just grab one and go. We personally like it with the oats just mixed in vs. having sat there for a long time but that's just personal preference. I have never tried mixing in steel cut oats though and might try that some day.

The "Jars" reminded me of cooking in a Stainless Steel Thermos. I cook Oats and such overnight that way (back when I was young and went Camping).

Now, sometimes, I put Kashi or Split Peas or Lentils in, of a morning and they are ready that evening.

Wide Mouth is very important! I have a "half size" for breakfast things and smaller servings, and a tall one for a hearty meal.

Check here:
(there are some other links there also)

Thermos Cooking

or Google: Thermos Bottle Cooking. :o)

Brilliant. This sounds delicious and quick, my favorite combination! Thanks for writing the post.

I do this in a crockpot, bain mairie style. I got it somewhere else off the web. I think it's a little safer bacteria wise, cause the oatmeal is on constant heat. Search for crockpot oatmeal, it should come up.

Okay, I finally tried this and a few thoughts:
1) My oatmeal cooked really fast. I bought steel cut oats from the bulk bin at Whole Foods, and I'm pretty sure they were regular steel-cut oats, not instant or anything like that, but for anyone worried about food safety, there's no need to leave them out overnight. Boil them for 3 minutes, then put them in your jars w/ lids, and leave them out for only 20 minutes, then put them in the fridge and they're pretty much done at that point.
2) I followed the measurements in the recipe but found I needed a lot more water and it made more oatmeal than I need, so I'm going to try 1 C oats and 4 C water next time.
This really is a time saver though! I can make it on Sunday evening without having to leave it out all night, but without it being watery or not fully cooked.

I will definitely give this a try. We have porridge most days. Google "porridge drawer" if your worried about bacteria.

This is awesome! I've been looking for this kind of recipe for ages!
Thanks, hugs

What a great idea! I'm paranoid about the "glue" that oatmeal turns into, but I'll give this a try.

If any of you are interested, my husband is making a lid that fits mason jars. This may work for transporting breakfast in your drinking mug.
Here's the link if you want to see: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/66492671/sans-turn-mason-jars-into-pure-drinking-container?ref=live

Full disclosure: I'm a chef, and a certified food safety manager.

I'm sure that leaving the cooked oats to sit overnight results in a better texture than chilling them, but those who have raised concerns about bacterial growth are correct.

Cooked grains which are stored at improper temperatures (between 40 degrees and 140 degrees) carry MAJOR risk of foodborne illness.

Dried grains are not bacteria-free. They haven't been treated in any way to prevent bacterial growth. Water is not bacteria-free, either.

Boiling water can kill bacteria, as can heating the jars in a dishwasher as someone suggested.

One of the problems, though, is that there are all kinds of ways to re-introduce bacteria to the mixture after it's been cooked. Your spoon could harbor bacteria, or the side of your pot, or the finger you use to absentmindedly wipe the side of the jar, or if you sneeze or even breathe on the cooked mixture before leaving it overnight.

Keep in mind, also, that bacteria enter into a dormant "spore" phase in which they are resistant to boiling, freezing, or drying; in the right conditions (like leaving cooked oatmeal at room temperature for longer than four hours), the bacteria will begin multiplying again. So even if you sterilized all of your equpiment properly, boiled your mixture properly, and didn't re-contaminate anything, your chances of STILL ending up with foodborne illness are, unfortunately, pretty good. Not only do bacteria themselves cause illness, but so do the toxins they release; these toxins cannot be destroyed by any means (freezing, reheating, etc) and render the food inedible.

With respect, it's one thing to follow this method as an individual, but it's irresponsible and dangerous to recommend it to a wide audience.

May I suggest another option, which cooks the oats, but at a temperature which is optimal for grains, and keeps them at a temperature which is food safe until you are ready to either eat them or refrigerate them? We purchased a Zojirushi rice cooker, specifically in order to cook our oats (a wonderful side benefit is the wonderful job this little marvel does on rice) - we set them up the night before - depending on what I have on hand, I add some or all of the following: cinnamon, ground cloves, nutmeg, raisins or currants, walnuts, ground flax seed, wheat germ, oat or wheat bran, and tvp granules. I set the cooker for the time I want the oats to be ready, and it keeps them warm until I reset it. I am intrigued by the idea of portioning them into jars for a weeks worth of oats, and think I will use the squatty little wide mouth canning jars I have used for custard or tapioca, as they are easier to stack in the refrigerator. (We are so sold on the rice cooker for our oats and for rice, that if we had a wedding gift to buy, I believe that is what we would get a newly married couple.) Thank you for the idea!

FABULOUS NO-STIR EASY WAY TO MAKE STEEL-CUT OATS FOR A WEEK

I make a lot, enough for about a week. I eat it warm the first day and cold the other days. If I'm home and have the easy ability to warm it up, I don't. I pack a container when going to work or out for the day. It's so good as is.

4 cups water
1.5 cups of steel-cut oats (+ optional ¼ cup of NF dry milk powder mixed in with the oats to give a calcium boost)

1. Bring the water to rolling boil
2. throw in oats, 1T cinnamon, and stir good. Stand there until it comes to boil again.
3. cover pot, turn off flame, and walk away.

I don't know how long it takes (because I always get back there when it's done so who knows; probably ½ hour) but you'll have the most perfectly cooked steel-cut oats.

If it seems too liquidy, bring it to a boil again, cover the pot, turn off flame, and again walk away. (Note: this never happens to me probably because I don’t jump the gun. I just let the pot sit there until I know enough time has elapsed that all the water has been absorbed and it’s always perfect.)

If you like chewier, then add more oats. 4C water/1.5C oats is perfect for me.

I put the whole thing in a very large round take-out container (the type you get at a restaurant with a lot of leftovers. I cover the whole "pie" with a layer of flax seeds (I buy them whole and grind them) or chia seeds (right out of the bag), then with a layer of sliced almonds or slivered almonds (cheaper at Trader Joe than at Whole Foods bulk aisle), then a layer of chopped walnuts, then with a layer of large yellow or mixed raisins. Filling & fabulous & so healthy. I eat it warm the first day and then eat cold. Even when at home, it never occurs to me to heat it up. It’s so good cold. This is a great meal any time of the day and GREAT to have sitting in the refrigerator.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Buy steel-cut oats at Whole Foods in the bulk aisle. They’re $1.29/pound compared to a 28-ounce tin of McCann’s steel-cut oats is $5 at Trader Joe, the cheapest price I’ve ever seen it.

If you have those cans, DO NOT THROW THEM OUT. Refill the cans with steel-cut oats you buy in bulk.

trader joes unsalted dry toasted slivered almonds 8z = 2.49 = $4.98/lb
unsalted dry toasted slivered almonds 8z $2.49 = $5/lb
unsalted dry toasted sliced almonds $2.49 8z = $5/lb
ANOTHER IMPORTANT NOTE: Steel-cut oats are MUCH healthier and tastier than rolled oats or instant oatmeal. http://eatingcleanworks.com/steel-cut-oats-vs-rolled-oats.html

I think people are too obsessed with bacteria. I can't imagine what your immune systems are like. You're not going to die by eating a little bit of mold, seriously. Chill out.

Anyway... this sounds amazing. I'm definitely going to try it.

This worked great, but the jars were seriously hot when I cooked them at work. Bring ovenmits to your office if you must.

this worked great! I added 2 tsps real maple syrup stirred and nuked in the morning, jar does get hot, the oatmeal is delicious and filling! LOVE IT

Hello,

A question, I'm an exchange student studying in Mexico right now. I have all of the tools and almost all the ingredients to make this recipe (bought the Mason Jars online) except for one thing, steel cut oats do not exist in Mexico or it is Very hard to find them and I swore that I would stop buying food from the US online because of the expense... Anyways, I do have just some plain old Quakers rolled Oats, and I wondered if I could just use that instead of the steel cut oats but I'm not sure how much of the oats I should use. Also, I would undoubtedly use my soy milk as the liquid to cook the oats in since I can't stand the taste of any oat with just water. Thanks!!

@shangrilyla

Botulism can kill you. This is why I'd refrigerate cooked grains. Immune systems do not work in the same way against toxins as they do viruses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botulism

Although I agree with the whole don't be too clean and not all germs are bad philosophy. Some are deadly. Including the spores that can make their way onto grains. They exist in the soil, plants grow in said soil, etc etc.

Just watch that you re-heat the jar slowly. I've had jars crack on me before when they get too hot too quickly.

As for the bacteria issue, yes, it exists. In canning, contents need to reach a certain acidity level to be considered shelf stable. Grains aren't shelf stable once they're no longer dry.

When using Mason jars with the two part lid for this purpose, do you wash/reuse the lid (non screw part) or always use new lids?

Would this work if using Kamut flakes?

I made some of these last night and they turned out wonderfully. No more excuses about not having time for a healthy breakfast. I highly suggest going with pint-size jars. I opted for the half-pint size, and there was little room to add mix-ins.

Thank you @LAGNE ON 09.29.11 AT 02:02AM. What people don't realize is that these toxins build up in your system over time. It's not immediate. These toxins are precursors to cancers and other issues non-conscious folks attribute to "old age".

Oh... forgot to add that I find this idea fabulous! Will be making up some of these for work pronto.

Toxins CAN affect us long-term, but there are also immediate effects. Botulism, as someone mentioned previously, is a prime example of this: its effects aren't actually caused by bacteria, but by the toxin (botulinium) produced by the bacteria (clostridium botulinium). Heating may kill the bacteria, but the toxins released by the bacteria render the food completely inedible.

Unless you're much neater than I've ever been, using a canning funnel to fill the jars makes it much less messy. I freeze a lot of cooked food in canning jars, & always use the funnel. As long as you're not expecting a seal, it's fine to wash & reuse the lids. Just don't do it when you're canning for real!!
Also, my jars are going straight into the fridge. Botulism is very rare. It's also very fatal, even with the best medical care. Respiratory paralysis is not the way I want to go.

All the stuff in those wonderful stinky French cheeses can kill us. Too bad the US bans them [because they can kill us]. Makes me wonder how the French cope.

I just made myself some jars of oatmeal earlier this week. So far, my mornings have been much less hectic!

http://diningoutcookingin.wordpress.com/2012/09/10/crockpot-steel-cut-oats-with-apples-brown-sugar-and-cinnamon/

@foodlovah: I'd trust a professional cheesemaker in France working with unpasteurized product more than I'd trust a posting on an internet forum encouraging a wide audience to dabble in potential foodborne illness. Apples/oranges.

Does this have to be in the frig? I'm new with canning and I wounder a lot about how to store something like oatmeal. Meaning does this have self life?

Do you think you could 'cook' quinoa this way? I find oatmeal in the morning quite gassy!?!