Buttered Oats, One Pot
Rolled oats, water, salt, and enough fat to make it hold you until lunch.
- calories
- 480
- weight
- 3.2 oz
- cal / oz
- 150
- protein
- 10 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 1 min
- cook
- 8 min
- total time
- 9 min
- water
- 400 ml boiled
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Breakfast
- Canister stove
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Liquid fuel
- Backpacking
- Car camping
- Bikepacking
- Basecamp
- Winter / snow
- Vegetarian
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Rolled oats | 1 cup | old-fashioned, not steel cut and not instant |
|---|---|---|
| Water | 400 ml | |
| Ghee | 1 tbsp | butter that does not need a fridge |
| Salt | 1/4 tsp | |
| Brown sugar or maple sugar | 1 tbsp | optional |
Method
- Bring 400 ml of water to a boil with the salt in it.
- Dump in the oats, stir once, and pull the pot off the flame.
- Cover it and wait five minutes. The residual heat finishes the job and saves fuel.
- Stir in the ghee and the sugar. Add a splash more hot water if it went stiff.
The original is a pressure cooker recipe, which is not a thing you carry. Boiling water and a covered pot get you the same place: oats absorb water fine off the heat, and five minutes of steeping costs no fuel at all. Old-fashioned rolled oats are the only ones that work here. Instant turns to paste and steel cut never softens.
Butter is the point and it is also the problem, so it becomes ghee. The milk solids are already cooked out, which means it sits in a pack at 80 degrees without going rancid. The fat is what turns a cup of oats from a thin breakfast into something that carries you a few hours, and the salt is what keeps it from tasting like wallpaper paste.
Packing
Oats, salt, and sugar premeasured into one bag per morning. Ghee rides in a small screw-top jar, doubled inside a zip bag.
Variations
- A scoop of milk powder stirred in at the end gets you closer to the creamy version.
- Dried apples and cinnamon in the bag rehydrate while the pot sits covered.
- Cold-soak it overnight instead if you would rather not run the stove.
https://dontwastethecrumbs.com/instant-pot-oatmeal