A watercolour of thick soaked oats topped with red jam and flaked almonds
Generated with OpenAI gpt-image-1
Adapted from Bircher muesli

Cold oats with jam and almonds

An established dish converted to shelf-stable ingredients. Every substitution is documented below.

How long it keeps

About 6 months, set by Jam.

Indicative, for planning a build before you buy. The answer for a pack you already own is the best before date printed on it, and that only holds if it has been stored as the label says.

Serves
2
Burners
0
Pans
0
Water
0.4 L
Active
5 min
Total
5 min

Ingredients

No burner at all, five minutes of work the night before, and breakfast is waiting. On a morning when you want to be moving before you are properly awake, this is the one.

  1. Mix the milk powder into 350 ml of cold water.
  2. Stir in the oats, a pinch of salt and the cinnamon. Cover.
  3. Leave to soak overnight, or at least four hours.
  4. In the morning, stir through the jam and scatter the almonds.

The almonds are worth toasting dry in a pan if you happen to have one on. Two minutes, and they stop being a garnish and start being the best part. Uncooked they are still fine.

A note on the soaking: this is oats, not pulses. The rehydration rules for dried beans exist because undercooked pulses are a genuine problem; rolled oats carry none of that and are safe to eat without cooking at all.

Serves 2.

What this was adapted from

Bircher muesli: the Swiss breakfast of oats soaked cold overnight rather than cooked

  • grated fresh apple and yoghurt → jam and reconstituted milk powder

    Bircher depends on apple for acidity and yoghurt for tang and body, and neither keeps. Jam supplies the fruit and enough acidity to stop it tasting flat; milk powder gives the liquid. It is sweeter and less fresh than the original, which is an honest trade rather than a hidden one.