Remember the Homemade Instant Oatmeal Packets recipe I shared a few weeks ago?
I wanted to suggest that in an effort to cut down on waste (that’s a lot of little plastic bags) and effort (it takes extra time to scoop each serving into bags) – you may want to simply store your Instant Oatmeal Mix in an airtight container.
I made a double batch recently, which filled almost three half-gallon jars. On the lids, I wrote,
“Shake well. Scoop 1/2 cup of mix into a bowl. Add 1/2-3/4 cup boiling water.” My boys can take it from there.
This is super easy – and I can’t tell you how nice it is to have this instant oatmeal on hand for busy mornings and for mid-afternoon snacks. The kids stir in any dried fruit or other add-ins they want with their oatmeal.
Here is the Homemade Instant Oatmeal Recipe. And you’ll find more great and fast breakfast recipes in this FREE Healthy Breakfast Made Simple eBook.
And a quick note to reinforce that you shake the jar before scooping out your 1/2 cup serving. One of our boys made a bowl without shaking first. All of the sucanat had sunk to the bottom, so his scoop tasted rather bland. Always shake the jar to make sure you get a more tasty bowl of oatmeal!
Have you tried making this Homemade Instant Oatmeal Recipe? I highly encourage it. What a time and money saver!
I am so glad you suggested this! The massive amount of plastic bags was what has kept me from making this!
You could also use the small pint size mason jars for individual servings and the jars can double as a bowl. I haven’t made this yet but plan to very soon. I have tons of small mason jars sitting around waiting on the next canning season to arrive.
Hmmmm…maybe I’ll just put a half scoop into pint jars, then we can eat it straight out of the jar….
Thanks so much for sharing this recipe a few weeks ago. Since then, we’ve been mixing a double batch and putting it into clean coconut oil containers. I just wrote the directions in sharpie on the container lid.
My whole family has been loving this for breakfast and it’s been fun to try different add-ins. Right now we have an abundance of apples so we’ve been adding in diced apple & a shake of cinnamon / nutmeg ~ delicious :)
Since finding a teapot on Freecycle, in less than 10 minutes we all have a hot tasty breakfast!
We just LOVE this! We recently traveled and so the bags came in very handy on our tip, however, yesterday I whipped up a big batch and put it in a large container and labeled the top with the directions. My kids love it and I love knowing what they are eating is healthy! Thanks for sharing this great idea!!!!
This looks great, but we always make our oatmeal with milk. Could I replace the water with hot milk?
Thanks!
Yep!
I often just put the quick oats out and whatever add-ins I have- nuts/seeds, dried fruit, cinnamon, brown sugar, with the hot water at the end of the line, and let the kids fix their own customized bowls. It may require a little more cleanup than having the mix made, but less prep for me. Although, my kids’ favorite is refrigerator oatmeal- I make it the night before in mason jars, and everyone grabs their flavor out of the fridge. Pinterest has some great flavor ideas for that, and it’s easy to customize!
This may be a dumb question, but is there anything less healthy about buying the quick oats instead of rolled oats?
Amy, I haven’t researched this but I think they steam the oats to start the cooking process. Could some of the nutritional value be changed? I’m going to look this up 8->.
I just read that they chop the oats finer.
I don’t think there is too much of a difference. I would say using either is probably fine.
This worked great! I even had some dried blueberries, so I made “blueberries and cream” by adding a little dry milk powder to each bag. We had a weeks worth of company and on the last morning I just couldn’t cook another thing, and these fit the bill. Our company that said they didn’t usually care for oatmeal said that they really enjoyed it! Thanks!
Has anyone found a batch that is bitter? At first I thought it was from too much cinnamon added to the whole batch, but even after adding more of everything else, I can’t eat it. Any ideas what happened? I’ve got a gallon ziploc of it! I did use honey powder and a vitamix to blend part of the oats.
Not sure what might have happened. A bad batch of oats??
I just clicked on the Free Healthy Breakfast Made Simple link and it came up with 101 Preschool Projects.
Looking forward to making the instant oatmeal!
Oops, thanks for letting me know. Got it fixed!
Laura!!! I’ve been meaning to come here and write about your genius for months, but life has gotten the better of me. I CANNOT tell you how much my boys LOVE, LOVE, LOVE your instant oatmeal packets and now that I, too, have switched to the big container they love scooping it out even MORE. (Which, btw, I wasn’t sure was possible!) My boys are 4 and 2, so as you know go through stages. Right now they’re eating oatmeal daily and would eat it for every meal if I let them. And I can’t tell you how much my hubby and I LOVE that we know what’s it in and how easy it is to make.
My boys even shake their own cinnamon in their bowls and feel very grown-up about it. :)
Thank you again for such a wonderful site and for being such a great role model!
Heather
Pittsburgh, PA
We stopped buying the packets a long time ago and I’ve been making an instant mix ever since. The original recipe I found called for non-dairy coffee creamer. I switched that or dry milk and mix that with powdered sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. I store It in a jar and scoop out 2 Tbsp for 2/3 quick oats. My husband loves it!