Choosing a good breakfast each day is a challenge that most people fail to overcome. Whether you don’t have enough time, aren’t used to eating breakfast, or simply don’t know where to start, there are plenty of reasons that people will end up living with poor morning meals. In reality, though, it doesn’t have to be hard to eat things that you like. To help you out with this, this post will be exploring all of the options you have available when you are using an ingredient like oats to fuel your mornings. Let’s dive right in.
Why Oats?
Oats are by far one of the healthiest grains for humans. Being gluten-free and packed with nutrients, vitamins, and minerals, this type of food can provide a lot of different benefits. To start, eating oats in the morning will leave you feeling energized throughout the day, giving you all of the power you need to get through work and your other commitments with ease. Alongside this, it can also improve the health of your gut and other digestive systems. Oats are an excellent food source, but this doesn’t stop with nutrition.
As well as being very good for you, oats are also incredibly versatile. You can use oats to make a wide variety of different treats, ranging from the super healthy to things that are more like cakes. Other healthy ingredients can be used alongside oats, with things like fruit and yogurt both adding flavor to your grains without having to rely on unhealthy options like sugar.
Eating oats on a regular basis has been shown to improve weight loss, lower blood sugar levels, and even lower the risk of heart disease. This gives them plenty of benefits for most people to sink their teeth into, though it’s always worth thinking about the benefits you could personally get from this. If you don’t normally eat three meals a day, adding an oat-based food break could be a great way to handle this. Of course, though, you have to do this for yourself, as no one is going to take the time to make delicious oat meals for you.
Oatmeal/Porridge
Before looking at the more varied uses of oats, it makes sense to look at oatmeal and porridge. These meals consist of oats that have been warmed with either water or milk, creating a stodgy stew-like substance that can be mixed with things like fruit to add some flavor. Some people also mix yogurt with their oatmeal, while others will choose to use savory options to bolster their breakfast. You can find loads of savory oatmeal ideas around the web to get you started. While it is typically eaten in the morning, you can enjoy oatmeal at any time, with many cultures using oatmeal for lunch, too.
Oat Cookies
Thanks to their tendency to harden under heat, oats can provide a great tool for bakers. Oat cookies have become a popular alternative to regular ones in recent years, offering more texture and improved nutrition over their flour-based counterparts. There are loads of ways to prepare cookies like this, making it well worth spending some time to learn what your cookies will need to be delicious. Of course, you need to make sure that you are limiting the amount of sugar you use for this if you are trying to eat a healthy diet.
Flapjacks
Flapjacks are similar to oat cookies, though they aren’t made with dough. Instead, you will mix oats, golden syrup (or agave nectar), and sugar together with whatever other ingredients you want, cooking them all for a short time to create a solid block. You can choose to cook your flapjack for longer if you would like it to be crunchy, though you can also lower its time in the oven if you’d like them to be softer. Flapjacks are quick and easy to make, with very little effort going into the bulk of the recipe.
Overnight Oats
Similar to porridge and oatmeal, overnight oats have been surging in popularity over the last couple of years. The idea of this type of meal is that you leave your oats to soak in and absorb other ingredients throughout the night. You don’t need heat to do this, making it easy to make something up in the evening for the next day when you have a lot of work on your plate. People often use yogurt, fruit, and even chocolate with recipes like this, and you can find loads of interesting ideas around the web to get you started.
Oatcakes
Pancakes have long been a popular breakfast option in many countries across the world, though this type of breakfast is usually far less healthy than you would expect. Oatcakes offer a great alternative, being just as easy to make as the real thing. You can prepare oatcakes in much the same way that you’d prepare something like pancakes, though there is a lot more room for savory choices when you go down a route like this. It’s well worth trying multiple oatcake recipes before settling on the one you’ll be using.
With all of this in mind, you should be feeling ready to take on the challenge of making oats into a major component of your diet. This can be well worth it, with these simple grains providing loads of health benefits. Of course, though, you still have to work hard and be creative to take full advantage of oats, and it will always help to spend the time to make your own food with them, rather than buying it in packets.
Hi I'm glad your here! I love to cook, bake and try new recipes. I enjoy food photography and reviewing products. Hope you enjoy my recipes, thanks for visiting! Sheila