Kefir Overnight Oats

Learn how to make overnight oats with kefir milk. All you need are oats, kefir milk and a bit of maple syrup or honey for oatmeal with the best texture.

I recently took a poll on Instagram, and almost everyone said that breakfast was the toughest meal of the day. Sure, lazy weekend breakfasts are great, but the weekdays are a different story. That’s where these kefir overnight oats sure come in hand.

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The best part about these overnight oats – they only need 3 ingredients to be delicious. Why is that? Kefir is thicker than milk but thinner than yogurt. Let me explain.

I’ve very picky about my overnight oats because I love oatmeal so much. Overnight oats with just milk or non-dairy milk are too thin and there isn’t enough liquid in yogurt to saturate the oats to soak them. Therefore, for good oats, you need a combination of both. Which, isn’t so bad it just takes a bit more stirring and more ingredients.

But if you want an easier and probiotic rich ingredient that makes whipping up overnight oats a breeze, opt for kefir.

Why is kefir best for overnight oats?

Like I said, kefir is thicker than milk and thinner than yogurt, giving it the perfect consistency to both saturate the oats so they can soak and thicken the mixture so it’s satisfying, not runny.

Before we go further, let me explain what milk kefir is.

Kefir milk is really just fermented milk. It sounds kind of funny if you haven’t tried it, but it’s really just very tangy, not rancid or rotten tasting at all. Honestly, it kind of tastes like tart, drinkable yogurt. Most kefir milk is fermented with kefir grains which are a certain type of culture. It’s very probiotic-rich so it’s great for your gut.

I like cows milk kefir but many people also drink goat or sheep’s milk kefir. As I said, it is thicker than milk, it gets that way during the fermentation process. It’s easy to make your own if you grab some milk kefir grains (it’s a VERY cheap thing to do) or pick some up at the store. You can use the plain kefir, or do a second ferment and add fruit/flavor for flavored kefir. You can buy plain or flavored, but the flavored, store-bought varieties usually have added sugar, like flavored yogurt. For this recipe, I like to use plain kefir and add my own sweetener and/or fruit.

How do you make this recipe?

By gosh by golly, this is the best part. You literally dump everything in a glass jar, screw on a lid (I use these nonreactive, plastic ones for anything fermented) and shake shake shake until everything is mixed.

You’ll see that in the recipe below I call for oats (old fashioned rolled are best), plain kefir milk, and maple syrup or honey. You can also add sea salt, vanilla, fruit, and/or some seeds of choice to take things to the next level. It’s customizable to you!

Love oats? Come and try my banana blueberry breakfast oatmeal or my carrot cake breakfast cookies!

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