Move over overnight oats, raw oatmeal has arrived! Never hear of it? Well then YOU have been missing out. Raw oatmeal will have you wondering why you’ve been eating oats soaked in almond milk, or even smoothie bowls, for these past 2 years. Your breakfast bowl is about to be blown away.
What is raw oatmeal, you ask? Raw oatmeal is silky and luscious puree of just 4 ingredients: Raw old fashioned oats, water, almonds, apples and bananas. It’s filling, comforting and a blank canvas for whatever delicious array of toppings you can think to put on. In my house, we enjoy fresh berries, chia seed jam, hemp seeds and/or a drizzle of raw honey or maple syrup on ours.
On mornings when we aren’t eating our usual warm and gooey OatMEAL cups for breakfast, we eat raw oatmeal. It’s part of my weekly meal prep plan. It only requires 4 ingredients that we always have in the house (oats, almonds, apples and bananas), and the only high maintenance thing about it is that you should soak the almonds in water for a while before adding them to the mix. Is this soaking step necessary? Without going into all the details on the benefits of soaking your nuts (it’s a thing, I swear), it does make the almonds both more nutritious (the nutrients become more bio-available) and it makes for a silkier raw oatmeal mix. When I’m crunched for time I sometimes only soak the almonds for about 30 minutes, but in an ideal world the almonds should be soaked for at least 8 hours.
I was concerned about mentioning the soaked almonds step because now I went and made this recipe sound complicated. But it’s not AT ALL complicated. It’s actually SUPER EASY. I promise. I had my friends who don’t cook (the reheat and eat crowd) make this recipe for raw oats and they all said it was easy and came out beautifully. You can even make it without soaking your almonds and the recipe will still taste good.
A couple things to note with this recipe for raw oatmeal:
- The ripeness of the bananas will effect the taste. Use overripe bananas if you like sweeter foods. If you’re going for lower sugar content, use bananas that are still slightly green.
- You can use frozen bananas in this recipe. Toss them in frozen if you have a good blender, like a Vitamix (that’s what I use). Or, defrost before adding to the mix if your blender has a hard time pureeing frozen fruits.
- This recipe has been tested in everything from Black and Deckers (quite inexpensive) to the holy grail of the blenders, THE Vitamix (quite expensive but #worthit). You can use any blender that does a decent job with a smoothie and the raw oatmeal will still come out well. The Vitamix and other high powered blenders will make the raw oats extra luscious, but any blender will get it done.
- The skin should be left on your apple if you like extra fiber in your diet (who doesn’t like extra fiber?!?).
- This recipe is best made ahead, as in the day or night before you eat the raw oatmeal. You can eat it right away, but it will be slightly warm from the blending.
- This raw oatmeal will get thicker as it sits in your fridge so if it looks too thin when you’re blending it, know that it will firm up a bit.
So, without further ado. I introduce you to the magic that is raw oatmeal. Please leave a comment and let us know how you like it. And please tag @stylishspoon #stylishspoon on Instagram so we can see how you like to top your raw oats.
Raw Oatmeal
Ingredients
- Gluten free old fashioned oats - 2 1/2 cups
- Filtered Water - 2 cups
- Raw almonds - 1/2 cup
- Green apple - 1 medium
- Bananas - 2 medium
Instructions
1. Place almonds in a jar or other container and cover with water. Soak almonds in water for at least 8 hours (preferably, or overnight) in the fridge. Drain and rinse almonds and set aside.
2. Add water to blender. Next add oats, bananas, apple and almonds. Cover and blend on high for about 1 minute, or until smooth and cream.
3. Refrigerate until ready to eat. Will keep for up to 5 day in the fridge. Top with your favorite toppings, such as no-sugar fruit spread, berries, sliced banana, raw honey, maple syrup, chia seeds, hemp hearts and/or slivered almonds.
This raw oatmeal is unreal! Honestly the best part next to how delicious it is is that it only took 5 minutes to whip up. Hello breakfast for the week! I didn’t have almonds so I substituted cashews and it came out perfectly.
Thank you!