Steel Cut Oats

This past fall we had the opportunity to stay at a hotel with a pretty fancy room service breakfast. The oatmeal listed on the menu was $9 and it said it was steel cut oats. I had never heard of such a thing before, but oatmeal that expensive is begging to be tried. The first bite was a moment of "I'm not sure if I like this." The second bite was "This is the most incredible oatmeal I have ever had!" The texture is quite different. It is like a little ball of exploding grain. Once you go steel cut oats though, the old oatmeal will never taste as good again.

The product I used. I love Red Mill products.
Bob's Red Mill Website

When I got back home I decided to try and make steel cut oats. I bought a bag of organic steel cut oats and followed the recipe on the back. I followed it exactly and the cook time was about 20 minutes. The final product was ok, but not the texture I wanted. I did some research online and found out that the perfect texture takes hours to make. So I tried making it again, following the recipe on the back of the bag initially, and then leaving it on low heat and adding water every 15 minutes or so and stirring it. I will do this for three to four hours.

Now you may be wondering, who in their right mind would make oatmeal for three hours?

That would be me.

It's really not that much work. You can make a giant pot of this stuff and then warm it up in a saucepan and a little water for the next week and it will warm up perfectly.

I then came across a recipe for steel cut oats that are made in a slow cooker. After much trial and error, I have arrived at this recipe for a lesser work version of the perfect steel cut oat.

After much trial and error, I have also realized any recipe that calls for milk does not turn out correctly in my opinion. It ends up mushing the oats and they lose their pop factor. I like milk in regular oatmeal. Steel cut oats are not meant for milk.


The Slow Cooker Recipe

1 1/2 cups organic steel cut oats
6 cups water
1/2 tsp salt - I use Celtic Sea Salt

Cook in slow cooker for 6 hours. If you are setting this and then leaving, it will do fine. But I think it does better if you give it some attention and stir every once in a while.

After it is done, sweeten it up with some organic honey or coconut sugar (I use a little of both, more on the honey end though), add some cinnamon and some high quality vanilla. Add some fresh berries if you have them.

Take the leftovers, put them in a container and store in the fridge.

To Warm Up the Next Day

Put the already cooked oatmeal in a small saucepan. Add a little water and whisk. This will break up the oats.

NOTE

I think cooking them over a stove for several hours constantly stirring gives a better outcome, but if you do not want to commit to that, the slow cooker will work.