Are you looking for a fail-proof way to have a piping hot breakfast ready and waiting for you in the morning when you wake up? This Creamy Crock Pot Oatmeal Recipe is the perfect Steel Cut Oatmeal Recipe and couldn’t be easier.
I LOVE steel-cut oatmeal in a slow cooker. Our Apple Cinnamon Crock Pot Steel Cut Oatmeal is one of my favorite crock pot meals of all time. (Here is a great video of that recipe…)
However, I don’t always have apples on hand, so this recipe for Creamy Crock Pot Oatmeal comes in very handy. I altered this recipe from one I found in Gooseberry Patch’s Slow Cooking All Year Round (Psst… enter to win a copy).
I find a lot of people tend to shy away from breakfast crock pot recipes and specifically oatmeal. Many say it is due to a really bad flop. After a little investigation, I have come to the conclusion that crock pot oatmeal recipes flop for two main reasons… Wrong ingredients and burning.
Using the Right Ingredients
Steel Cut Oats are not the same as Old Fashioned or Long Cooking Oats. The recipes I enjoy cRockin’ all use Steel Cut Oats. They look and cook very differently from other types and withstand the long cooking times in a slow cooker a lot better than other forms of oats. Steel Cut Oats also use a lot more water to cook than the other types.
My advice? Always look for a Slow Cooker recipe that calls for Steel Cut Oats and follow it closely. Recipes that simply call for oats or long cooking oats may turn out mushy, gluey or have too much water in them.
Safeguard Against Burning
As I share in my Tips for Avoiding Crock Pot Disasters (Part 1 & Part 2), all slow cookers are not created equal and you really need to know from experience how evenly and how hot yours cooks. In my opinion, most slow cookers from the last few decades cook WAY hotter than a lot of recipes allow. The newer models from the last few years are greatly improving this issue (here are some of my favorites), but it still means a lot of the slow cookers out there are throwing curve balls to your overnight recipes especially.
My advice? Use a glass bowl inside your slow cooker and fill water half way up the side (also known as a double boiler) to keep your contents from burning while you sleep. I use the largest bowl from this set found on Amazon for many breakfast recipes and also in lieu of a coffee can for breads and cakes. (Psst… I also use the medium bowl from the set quite a bit as well for smaller recipes.) I use this method with all my slow cookers for breakfast recipes.
Creamy Crock Pot Oatmeal- Steel Cut
Now back to this yummy recipe. You just place your glass bowl inside your slow cooker crock. Add just enough water outside of the bowl to fill to no more than half-way up the outside of the glass bowl. Do NOT overfill.
Inside the glass bowl combine all your ingredients and stir well.
Cover and cook on low for 8 hours.
- 1 Cup Steel Cut Oats-Uncooked
- 4 Cups Water (inside the bowl- additional water will be needed outside the bowl)
- ½ Cup Milk
- ½ Cup Brown Sugar- Packed
- 2 T Vanilla or Almond Extract
- Place glass bowl inside your slow cooker's crock.
- Fill water on the outside of the bowl just to half way up (DO NOT OVERFILL)
- Add all ingredients inside of bowl and mix well.
- Cover and cook on low for 8 hours.
- Stir and serve.
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