Easy Overnight Oats With Chia: 3 Ways

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I’m now a overnight oats fan!!

So I have to confess, I’ve only made overnight oats a handful of times in my life! I’m not sure why because I love oatmeal!

But then I started testing recipes for this post and WOW! Overnight oats are awesome!

What makes overnight oats so great??

Well, there are a few reasons!

For starters, they are so easy to make. It literally takes just a few minutes to throw one together and just like that, breakfast is ready for you the next day!

They also last very well in the fridge. I had made up a few varieties and on day three they were still fine. So this is a great option for easy grab-and-go breakfasts! Just spend ten minutes or so mixing some up on the weekend or the beginning of the week and breakfast prep is done for a few days!

And since I’m giving you three options here, no need to get bored. Just make one or two of each of them and mix it up!

Since I usually need to pack breakfast and lunch when I’m working, it’s been totally awesome to have these in the fridge. That’s one less meal to worry about and they don’t take up a lot of space!

The options are endless

It is so easy to take the basic recipe and add in all your favorite flavors! Now that I’ve jumped on the overnight oatmeal bandwagon, my mind is busy with all the possibilities….

It’s no secret that I LOVE the combination of peanut butter and caramel. I mean, peanut butter alone is something pretty awesome [why does it have to be so calorie dense lol. Imagine if nut butters could be fuel pull….] but combine it with caramel and that’s a whole new level!

So I was totally expecting the peanut butter caramel version to be my favorite, but surprise! Even though it is definitely totally delicious, I think the banana cream pie flavor took first place for me. Which is funny because I would never eat banana cream pie. I always go for apple, pumpkin or pecan when it comes to pie.

Oh boy, would those ever make some good overnight oatmeal flavors!! Maybe I’m going to have to do a fall edition of this post!

Where is your protein?

If you follow the Trim Healthy Mama plan, you know that “where is your protein” is one of the questions we are told to ask ourselves at every meal.

Since these recipes have half a cup each of oats and Greek yogurt, there is a fairly good dose of protein. One of them can easily get me through the morning, but you could totally add in some collagen or whey to the mix to boost up the protein a bit.

Superfood goodness

Eating healthy doesn’t have to be expensive at all! Forget the superfood powders and potions that cost a fortune. How about just not eating sugar and buying cheap, good-for-you foods like humble, old fashioned oats?

Oats are naturally gluten free. If you are sensitive to wheat, you will want to double check that the brand you are buying says certified gluten free. Since oats are often processed in facilities that also process wheat there can be cross contamination. This sometimes leads people to believe that oats contain gluten. But that’s not the case! So long as they are certified gluten free you are good to go.

Of course if gluten isn’t problem for you, this isn’t something you even need to worry about!

Even though oats are a carbohydrate, they are extremely gentle on blood sugar, especially if you are making sure to include enough protein in your meal.

If you struggle to maintain an even blood sugar, and are avoiding carbs, give oats a try. This would be a good time to also include the whey or collagen for some extra protein, which is also very helpful to control blood sugar levels.

Another tiny but powerful little superfood in these recipes is chia, a common ingredient in overnight oats to help them thicken up properly. I googled the amount of fat in a tablespoon of chia seeds to make sure I stayed within the 5g fat limit for a Trim Healthy Mama E meal. There is 3.7g of fat in one tablespoon, and since I’m only using two teaspoons of chia, this is definitely well within the limits.

These recipes are all a Trim Healthy Mama E

Trim Healthy Mama E meals are the ones where we keep the fats low and are more generous with healthy carbs.

The concept with THM is that we don’t want to be combining large amounts of fats and carbs in the same meal. Since our bodies use both of these for fuel, if we include them both, it can be too much for us to burn through before it is time to eat again, making it much harder to loose weight, or causing weight gain.

Separating fats from carbs ensures our bodies can efficiently burn through the fuel we give it and then go on to burning any extra fat we have stored. It is a good thing if we are just getting hungry as our next meal approaches!

Combining fats and carbs is still healthy, it’s just not conductive to weight loss, if that is our goal. People with high metabolisms, pregnant or nursing moms, or those who are at goal weight can double fuel more frequently. The rest of us might need to be more careful with how often we are doing these crossover meals.

So Trim Healthy Mama followers generally stick to separating fuels. Meals that are higher in fats but keep the carbs low are called S [Satisfying], and meals that are higher in healthy carbs but low fat, like these overnight oats, are called E [Energizing].

It can be a bit confusing if you are new to all this, but it doesn’t take too long to catch on, and once it all clicks, the concept of separating fuels all becomes second nature. Read more about it here!

For those of you who are interested in numbers, in S meals we can have unlimited fats but keep the carbs under 10g. In E meals our carb limit is 45g and we keep fats under 5g. To put this into perspective, 5g of fat is roughly a teaspoon.

What three flavors of overnight oats am I giving you?

So these are the three flavors I have for you: Orange Creamsicle, Banana Cream Pie, and PB Salted Caramel.

They are definitely all delicious. I started out with the orange one and it was amazing. Then I moved on to the banana cream pie version and was blown away with how good that was.

By this time I had so many overnight oatmeal ideas running through my mind I didn’t know which to try next, but opted for something with peanut butter.

I’m sure there will be more overnight oats in the future because now I want to experiment with some of my other favorite flavor combos. Think chocolate orange maca or raspberry cappuccino!

A few notes:

So for the Orange Creamsicle recipe, while it is very good, with a delicate orange flavor, if you want to REALLY take it up a notch, add a drop of orange essential oil. If you are into essential oils. The flavor will be the bomb!

The banana one is just perfect. I use half a banana since there are already carbs from the oats. You can eat the other half in a different meal or throw it in the freezer to add to smoothies. Or, what would probably make more sense, is to just do a double batch so you can include the whole banana, lol.

For the peanut butter caramel one I use peanut flour to keep the fats low. If you were wanting to do a crossover you could replace one of the tablespoons of peanut flour with natural peanut butter for even more peanutty flavor!

And lastly, these single serve recipes fit perfectly into a pint jar, which is so handy!

Ingredients you need for the oatmeal base:

Old fashioned oats

Chia seeds

Sea salt

Nut milk of choice

Sweetener of choice, I use a sweetener that is one third as sweet as sugar which is the same as Truvia and similar to Gentle Sweet.

Here is the printable recipe:

You might also enjoy this recipe!

Coconut Cream Chia Oatmeal Bowl

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