Easy Chocolate Overnight Oats Recipe

Creamy Chocolate Overnight Oats are for all lovers of chocolate cereals. These are full of oats, chia seeds, flavoured with nutella and combined with almond milk and yoghurt. Delicious. Overnight Oats are quick and easy to prepare in advance, making your mornings less stressful. Eat it there and then or take it with you. Want to find out more about this delicious, simple and nutritious breakfast Read on…

We love Overnight Oats, they’re easy to prepare ahead, great to have in the fridge for emergency snacks, there’s a lot to recommend them. In this post I’m going to share one of our favourite versions of this popular and healthy breakfast idea; Chocolate Overnight Oats and share how I meal-prep them for the week ahead.

How do mornings work for you? Do you sometimes find that you’re in a bit of a hurry and really don’t have time for breakfast… the day wears on and you find yourself reaching for enticing sugary snacks come mid-morning? Ring any bells? Well, maybe Overnight oats can provide part of the solution.

You still need to find a few minutes in the evening to prepare them. All you need to do then is store the oats in the fridge overnight and get up to a good breakfast or grab-it-and-go… you have a choice.

Overview of this recipe

Still not convinced why you want these overnight oats for breakfast… fair enough. Here are a few more reasons why.

• convenient – you can make a batch of these all at the same time and then they’ll sit in the fridge until you are ready to add some extra fruit, yoghurt, nut butter or nuts and seeds and eat them.
• healthy – Chocolate overnight oats contain some quite healthy ingredients. The oats, fruit, milk and any seeds or nuts you use all add a good deal of healthy fibre, proteins, minerals and fats. Consider the chia seeds, by including those you are adding Omega-3 to your breakfast and that’s pretty valuable especially if you’re on a vegetarian or vegan diet where the natural sources of this are fairly limited.
• flexible – if you’ve made a store of overnight oat bases… the mix of oats, milk or yoghurt and seeds then when you’re ready to eat it you can add whatever you fancy at the time. As a dish, they’re flexible as they can double as a pudding or as a healthy afternoon snack that will keep you full until your next meal. You don’t have to eat them cold either if you don’t want to – warm them in the microwave for a short time and always before adding the fruit and any nuts or seeds.
• delicious – creamy with lots of lovely flavour, the chocolate, hazelnut flavours of the nutella are wonderful. You can adjust the flavours to suit your own tastes. Plus it’s a satisfying breakfast or snack and will keep you full until lunch.
• portable – Overnight oats are a breakfast that you can take with you. Just pack it into a suitable container with all your additional toppings in there too or if you prefer, pack those separately and away you go.

Simple to make

Chocolate Overnight Oats are simplicity itself to prepare. Just measure the ingredients into a suitable jar or bowl, stir and leave in the fridge until morning. This will probably take you all of 5 minutes to do and guarantees to make breakfast times so much easier.

Ingredients in Chocolate Overnight Oats

This recipe contains;

• oats – these provide lovely amounts of useful fibre, vitamins and minerals. They help us to stay feeling full for longer.
• chia seeds – these amazing little seeds are full of protein, fibre and various vitamins and minerals. Importantly, they contain a plant source of omega-3 fatty acids. Chia seeds absorb moisture and help to make the oats more deliciously thick and creamy. They are also gluten-free.
• greek yogurt – this adds calcuim, protein and a wonderful creaminess and flavour. I tend to use a low fat version when I can find it.
• nutella – the famous hazelnut and chocolate spread. This gives a really delicious chocolatiness and hazelnut flavour to the oats. I often make my own spread using this Chocolate and Hazelnut Spread recipe.
• almond milk – I like almond milk for its fairly neutral flavour but any non-dairy milk will be absolutely fine. The oats and chia seeds soak up the milk and everything becomes silky smooth in the process. Yum!

Meal-prep ahead with Overnight Oats

Some mornings there just doesn’t seem the time to stop for breakfast, luckily with a bit of forward planning that can change. Overnight oats can be prepared for up 4-5 days in advance. You just have to decide how many portions you need, ensure that you’ve enough containers, ingredients, and space in the fridge and away you go.

You’ll be rewarded for finding the little bit of time to prepare ahead when in the morning the pots will be all lined up waiting in the fridge.

You may also wish to pre-prepare any additional toppings too. It doesn’t take long to slice up some fresh fruit or scatter some berries but it helps if they are within easy reach.

One thing though – you do need to ensure is that any fresh ingredients will remain within their expiry dates for the length of time they’re sitting in the fridge.

Making Chocolate Overnight oats

Whether or not you are making one portion or 4 days worth for each person in your family, you need to start with a bowl. Measure everything into it and stir. If you print out the recipe below it will allow you to scale the amounts for however many servings you need. Saves you the calulations.

Once you’ve done that, either portion out the overnight oats into separate bowls or containers or leave them in the bowl and dish-out individual bowls in the morning. I like to divide the mixture into separate jars and I quite often use jam jars for this. Store your containers in the fridge until morning.

Storing them in jars or sealed containers saves me time in the morning as I can just grab and go.

How to serve Chocolate Overnight oats

The following morning these will be super creamy and ready to eat. Check that they’re the right consistency for you and if they’re too thick ad a little more almond milk to thin it a little. Decorate with the banana and add any other toppings that will make your breakfast perfect.

Have you thought about sprinkling some toasted hazelnuts, or drizzling a little nut butter over the top?

If you are dashing out of the door with your oats then make sure that your container is leakproof and take any additional toppings safely wrapped up with you. Don’t forget a spoon.

Make these Chocolate Overnight oats dairy-free

These Chocolate Overnight oats can be made dairy free if you use a diary free milk. Branded Nutella isn’t dairy-free as it contains skimmed milk powder so why not make your own chocolate and hazelnut spread. You’ll be sure that it’s dairy-free and not miss out on this great overnight oats recipe. You will also need to use a non-dairy yogurt. There are lots to choose from these days. so seek them out.

Make these suitable for vegan plant-based diets

These are suitable for a plant-based diet if you use non-dairy milk and non-dairy Greek yoghurt in the recipe. There are lots of different kinds to choose from. Just check the label to be sure.

The Nutella contains dairy products (skimmed milk powder), so you may wish to make your own nutty spread so that you can enjoy this recipe too. Chocolate and Hazelnut spread is a great substitute.

Make these gluten-free

Chocolate Overnight oats are gluten-free providing you use certified gluten-free oats.

According to this gluten-free-foods website nutella is gluten-free. So that’s good news.

Check that the greek yoghurt doesn’t contain any additives which may contain gluten. Some contain thickeners which you may wish to avoid. Always check your labels for peace of mind.

If you like this recipe then you may like these….

• Simple Apple Pie Overnight Oats
• Peanut Butter and Jelly Overnight Oats
• Simple Berry and Chia Overnight Oats
• Double Chocolate Chip Overnight Oats
• Strawberry Overnight Oats

Why not try our other breakfast ideas…

• Toasted Oat and Quinoa muesli
• Cranberry and Apricot Granola

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