Overnight oats with peanut butter

Great breakfast on the go prepared the night before with oats, milk, peanut butter & cinnamon. Perfect with a handful of fresh fruit, such as blueberries, apples or banana.

Overnight oats are a great way to start the day, so today I wanted to share with you my favourite way of making overnight oats. I like how filling oats are and together with peanut butter makes me pretty much unstoppable!

My favourite reason for making this recipe

Did you know that peanut butter has the same amount of protein as a salmon? How cool is that? Ever since I realised that I need to eat more protein to make me less hungry (I know you are shaking your head, thinking how doesn't she know this?) and stop me from eating cakes all day, I started to add peanut butter to just about everything. Well, it's so much cheaper than salmon!

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Overnight Oats with Peanut Butter - the basic recipe

There are so many different variations, but if you want to make a very basic recipe you will need:

• Oats
• Peanut Butter
• Milk

Oats

I usually use basic rolled oats and sometimes I even buy gluten-free oats or any other types of oats that I already have at home. What you don't want to use is those kind of instant hot oat sachets, because the oats are already mixed with other ingredients and they are far too small.

I don't tend to buy anything fancy, just ordinary oats from non-branded supermarket choice. If you want to keep things healthy, choose simple oats with no additional sugar, salt or any other ingredients.

Peanut Butter

It's your choice whether you want to use crunchy or smooth, for some reason I prefer smooth peanut butter. What you do want to make sure though, is to choose a peanut butter with the highest peanut's content and no sugar.

Over the years, I've tried both the cheaper versions and the more expensive ones and they are so very different! Really it comes down to personal preference.

You can also use other types of nut butters such as almond butter or almond butter substitutions, that are all great to use, depending on the flavour you want to achieve.

Milk

You can use any kind of milk you have or like. I've also made overnight oats with half yoghurt and half water mix (which was delicious, by the way) or even just water (which was a bit basic, to say the least, but it still worked!).

• Full fat, semi-skimmed or skimmed dairy milk
• Soya Milk
• Oats Milk
• Rice Milk
• Dairy Milk (without lactose)
• Yoghurt + water
• Water

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My favourite variations on the basic recipe

Optional ingredients, which work well with the oats and peanut butter include:

• Chia Seeds - mix them in if you prefer them to be soft
• Banana
• Chocolate (milk or dark)
• Pineapple
• Blueberries
• Dried Fruit
• Nuts

Sweeteners

• Sugar (granulated, molasses sugar or pomegranate molasses sugar substitutes )
• Honey
• Maple syrup or maple syrup substitutes
• Date Syrup
• Golden Syrup or Golden syrup substitutes
• Coconut syrup or coconut sugar substitutes

Spice or flavourings

• Cinnamon
• Mixed Spice
• Pumpkin Pie Spice
• Vanilla Extract
• Gingerbread Spice
• Homemade Stollen Spice

A quick guide to how to make your overnight oats

1. Measure and mix the oats, sugar, salt and spices in a small bowl or jam jar
2. Add the milk and peanut butter & mix
3. Close the lid & put in the fridge overnight

Looks easy, doesn't it?

The only tricky bit is to make sure that you have enough liquid to let the oats soak up and expand.

I find that it slightly depends on the type of milk and oats you are using, but usually, 1/2 cup of oats is fine in a 3/4 cup of milk.

Sometimes I keep the ratio of 1/2 oats to 1 cup of milk and then it's slightly watery, but I don't really mind. I prefer if the oats are fully soaked than not.

My top tip - don't skip the soaking time

Sometimes, when I'm too busy to make my oats the night before I've also made them on the same day. I found that, whilst it's not necessary to soak them, they are a lot harder when you don't.

I mean you can eat oats without soaking, but to be honest you are going to give your digestive system extra work. The soaking makes the oats easier to digest and easier for our digestive system to extract all the nutrition from the oats.

Making overnight oats without fridge

I've been often asked if you can make overnight oats without a fridge and the answer is: yes, absolutely! We've been making overnight oats when we were camping and didn't have any access to the fridge.

The oats are fine outside the fridge, but to be on the safe side, I'd change the type of milk you are going to use. If you use plan based milk (like oats, soya or rice milk) your oats will be absolutely fine overnight without the fridge even in the summer.

Saying that, I sometimes use normal milk and the milk doesn't go sour, especially if it's a little colder. My Victorian kitchen is quite cold, even in the summer, so I sometimes leave out the oats overnight out of the fridge, because I don't like when they are too cold.

Overnight oats shelf life

When I make overnight oats, I usually keep them in the fridge for up to about 3 days. It's super convenient because I can prepare a big batch on Sunday night and have breakfast ready for part of my week. The oats will continue to soften the longer they sit, but they still taste good.

I always store them in an airtight container to keep them fresh and don't add my fruit or any toppings until I serve them (that way the fruit won't become mushy).

This recipe blog post was originally written on 5 October 2020 and last tested and updated on 25 February 2025