Steel Cut Oatmeal Made Fast & Easy: Rice Cooker Recipe

Steel Cut Oatmeal is a staple in our families breakfast routine.  But, let’s face it, making steel cut oatmeal can be a pain in the you know what.

Because I don’t have the patience for standing at a stove stirring a pot for 45 minutes.  I came up with a better solution.  The rice cooker.

4 Cups of Water
1 Cup of Steel Cut Oats
pinch of salt – omit if you are watching your sodium –  reasons to monitor sodium – click here!

Combine all ingredients in the rice cooker.  Press cook, when the water boils, remove the lid and stir.  Leave the lid off for the duration of cooking.  When the rice cooker switches to warm – presto oatmeal.

Time Saver: Prep the ingredients in the rice cooker the night before… in the morning press cook.

Note:  The “rice cooker oatmeal solution” is not perfect… I always place my rice cooker on top of a kitchen towel, because… well I have a tendency to get distracted… miss the boiling point and then you get overflowing oatmeal ooze.  By using the towel… the oozing mess  isn’t really a big deal.

I have a family of 4 – so I double the about recipe.  This gives us breakfast for two mornings.  Store the leftovers in a glass container for easy re-heating.

Serving suggestions:

People dress up their oatmeal in many ways.

Apples and Cinnamon can be added before cooking for an apple pie oatmeal.

Walnuts, Almonds, Dried Fruits (look for “un-sulphered”)- your taste will be your guide.

I serve  our oatmeal pretty simply with 1 teaspoon Maple Syrup, a small handful of raisins, 2% milk (normally I drink skim – but this is such a small amount that I go for the creaminess).  Done

I choose maple syrup over brown sugar, honey or agave because I try to select sweeteners that have the least amount of processing getting to me.  This makes maple syrup and honey excellent choice.  I also try to spread my sugar sources around so that I’m not getting it all from one source.  Not to mention, maple syrup is pretty scrumptious on oatmeal.