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!
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. 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.
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!!).
- Full fat, semi-skimmed or skimmed dairy milk
- Soya Milk
- Oats Milk
- Rice Milk
- Dairy Milk (without lactose)
- Yoghurt
Optional ingredients, which work well with the oats and peanut butter include:
- Chia Seeds
- Banana
- Chocolate (milk or dark)
- Pineapple
- Blueberries
- Dried Fruit
- Nuts
Sweeteners
- Sugar (granulated or molasses sugar)
- Honey
- Maple syrup
- Date Syrup
- Coconut syrup
Spice or flavourings
- Cinnamon
- Mixed Spice
- Pumpkin Pie Spice
- Vanilla Extract
Here is how to make your overnight oats
- Measure and mix the oats, sugar, salt and spices in a small bowl or jam jar
- Add the milk and peanut butter & mix
- 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 ration 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 then not.
A few questions you might have about overnight oats
Is soaking oats necessary ?
No, it’s not necessary. I mean you can eat oats without soaking, but to be honest you are going to add 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.
Can I do overnight oats without refrigeration?
Yes, absolutely! We’ve been making overnight oats when we were camping and didn’t have any access to fridge. The oats are fine outside the fridge, but it depends what kind of milk you are going to use. If you use plan based milk (like oats, soya or rice milk) your oats will be fine overnight without the fridge. Saying that, we used just normal milk back then and it was fine too and the milk didn’t go sour.

Overnight Oats with Peanut Butter Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon peanut butter
- 3/4 cup milk dairy or plant based (rice, almond, soya, oat milk)
- 1 teaspoon maple syrup
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup oats rolled or steel cut
- tiny pinch of salt
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Optional Ingredients & Toppings
- 1 teaspoon chia seeds
- handful of blueberries for the topping
Instructions
- Measure out all the dry ingredients – rolled oats, cinnamon, tiny pinch of salt and mix in a small bowl or directly inside the jar or your container.
- Add the maple syrup, vanilla essence, milk and peanut butter and mix until smooth.
- Place in a suitable container (jam jar, plastic beaker or just a small bowl with a lid).
- Place in the fridge overnight.
- Serve topped up with a blueberries (or other fruit) or just on it's own.
- Enjoy!
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