Homemade Instant Oatmeal Packets {Better than Quaker}
Pretty much everything tastes better from scratch and homemade instant oatmeal packets are no exception! My kids love this recipe. Once I landed on the right Quaker copycat recipe they were literally eating it for breakfast, lunch, and dessert after dinner.
Move over Quaker, these homemade instant oatmeal packets are cheaper, more filling, and taste better than the original.
This post contains affiliate links. Here is the full disclosure.
Why Make Homemade Instant Oatmeal?
#1 Health
We created a homemade version for several reasons. First, I wanted to use organic rolled oats. Grains are commonly sprayed with glyphosate, an herbicide. Due to its harmful side effects to our bodies and to the environment, I choose to use oats grown with organic practices.
A long time ago, I searched and searched for organic oats. At the time, they were very difficult to find locally. I finally found a bulk source of organic rolled oats, it was the first time I ever bought from that company and I’ve been buying from them ever since.
#2 Using Homegrown Ingredients and No hidden Ingredients
I also wanted to utilize our home preserved fruits. We freeze dry locally sourced peaches and apples. If you haven’t heard about freeze drying before, I have an article covering how to use a freeze dryer. If you don’t have a freeze drier, no worries, you can also use dehydrated fruits.
Another thing that most consumers don’t realize is that harmful ingredients are hidden via certain words. On Quaker Oats, they add “natural flavors”. Big surprise from the food industry, natural flavors aren’t actually all that natural after all. Here’s an article where you can learn more about what’s lurking in the terminology natural flavors.
#3 Cheaper
Homemade instant oatmeal packets are significantly cheaper that purchasing them premade from the store. Even using organic oats, I calculated the cost to be a quarter of what the store bought version would be.
Ingredients and Substitutions
Oats Old fashioned rolled oats are not as processed as quick oats. Additionally, old fashioned oats have more texture and chewy goodness. They just taste better and that is why I use them for instant oatmeal packets.
If you want a more mushy texture, it can be easily achieved by putting the old fashioned oats in a food processor for 5 seconds.
Salt A little bit of salt makes all the difference in the flavor. We use sea salt which tends to be slightly less salty than a table salt.
Sugar My first choice of sugar is usually a more natural option like honey or maple syrup. However, the allure of this recipe is that it’s a premade mix and all you need to add is water. Therefore, you need to use some kind of granulated sugar.Â
More natural granulated sugar options include coconut sugar and maple sugar. Maple sugar tastes amazing in this recipe! I buy mine from Azure Standard. If you don’t have it, use a light or dark brown sugar instead.
I mention this in the notes, but sugar taste varies so much from person to person. We settled on the amount used in this recipe from lots of trial and error. It is my kids taste preference. If you don’t like a sweet oatmeal, or if it’s not sweet enough, you can adjust it!
Freeze Dried or Dried Fruits We like to preserve our own fruits using a freeze dryer or dehydrator. But if that’s not your thing, no worries, these are made with widely available fruits that can be purchased at a local grocery store.Â
Pumpkin Powder You can use homemade freeze dried pumpkin powder or dehydrated.
Powdered Fruit This one is optional, but it really adds extra fruity flavor instead of just the fruit chunks. We take our freeze dried fruits and blend them to powder. You can also do this with dehydrated fruit.
Powdered Milk Adding powdered milk makes the end results creamy and you don’t need to add milk when rehydrating. You can use dairy milk or a non-dairy powdered milk, like coconut milk powder.Â
Spices Adding spices to the flavor packets adds a little bit of yum to each one. Cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice are our personal favorites.
If you made Homemade Instant Oatmeal Packets or any other recipe on my blog please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. Thanks for visiting!
Homemade Instant Oatmeal packets
Ingredients
Base Mix
- 5 cups Rolled Old Fashioned Oats
- 2/3 cup Maple Sugar or Brown Sugar
- 1 teaspoon Salt
- ¼ c. Powdered Milk Dairy or Non-dairy
Flavor Possibilities!
Apples & Cinnamon
- 2 cups chopped dried or freeze dried apples
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 tablespoons powdered apples optional
Pumpkin Cookie – this one is sweet enough to be dessert!
- ¼ cup dehydrated or freeze dried pumpkin powder
- 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
- ½ cup chocolate chips
- ½ cup dried cranberries
Peaches & Cream
- 2 cups chopped dried or freeze dried peaches
- ¼ cup additional powdered milk or use milk instead of water for cooking
- 2 tablespoons powdered peaches optional
Blueberries & Cream
- 2 cups chopped dried or freeze dried blueberries
- ¼ cup additional powdered milk or use milk instead of water for cooking
- 2 tablespoons powdered blueberries optional
Strawberries & Cream
- 2 cups chopped dried or freeze dried strawberries
- ¼ cup additional powdered milk or use milk instead of water for cooking
- 2 tablespoons powdered strawberries optional
Cinnamon & Spice
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
Cinnamon & Raisin
- 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
- 2 cups raisins
Additional Add-on Options- If you like some texture to your oatmeal, choose some add-ons to put on after heating the oatmeal.
- Toasted pecans walnuts, or sliced almonds
- Dried raisins or cranberries
- Shaved Coconut
- Flax seeds
- Pumpkin seeds
- Chia Seeds You can add chia before heating, just add a little extra water since the chia soaks it up!
- Butter
- Maple Syrup
- Milk
Instructions
- Prepare the base by mixing oats, salt, sugar, and powdered milk in a bowl. Stir.
- Choose a flavor combination and add the ingredients to the base mix.
- Stir.
- Place in individual baggies or a container.
- Prepare oatmeal by measuring 1/3 cup of base/flavor mixture and adding it to a bowl. Then add 2/3 cup of water. Cook in the microwave for 90 seconds. It may look runny but let it sit for 5 minutes at room temperature, it will thicken to a perfect texture.
- Top with additional add-on options and enjoy!
Notes
- If you like oatmeal on the mushy side, put the oats in a food processor and chop for 5 seconds before adding to the base mix. This version is more store-bought but I’m not sure if that is a good thing.
- The sugar amount is based on my kids preferences. I personally like to add only a 1/2 cup of sugar instead of the full 2/3 cup. If you like more or less, definitely adjust it to taste!
- Instead of chopping the fruits to add to the oatmeal, an alternative option is to blend them to a powder instead. This distributes the flavor evenly throughout the oatmeal. But it does take away some of the texture.
