Overnight Oatmeal

John and I often joke about our valet...which we don't have. But if we did, he would brew our morning coffee, and he would most certainly have breakfast on the table by the time we hurriedly arrive downstairs.

This morning I discovered a near valet-replacement: my slow cooker.

Thanks to Alton Brown's 4-ingredient Overnight Oatmeal recipe — which took me less time to assemble than it took to pull the crock pot out of the cabinet — breakfast was waiting for us this morning. Who needs a valet?!


Oatmeal made with steel-cut oats tastes worlds better than the flakey stuff, it's less processed, and the texture is much more pleasant. I had a hard time finding unsulfured and low/no-sugar dried cranberries and figs at Stop & Shop, but found these items at our co-op.

One very important thing to note: our slow cooker has three settings — warm, low, and high. At about 9pm, I set this oatmeal to cook on the low setting for 2 hours, which then automatically switches to warm at the end of the set time. The oatmeal was ready by 6am. There are many recipe reviews disparaging this oatmeal because of charred results from cooking it on the low setting all night. Enjoy!