Overnight oats are a simple breakfast dish that can be wonderfully delicious first thing in the morning. They take little time to make that meal prepping a few batches and keeping them in the freezer would be ideal. But is this feasible?
Can You Freeze Overnight Oats?
Yes, you can freeze overnight oats for up to 6 months. Freeze them in a rigid plastic container, squeezing out as much air as possible while allowing for a little headspace. Wrap the container if you’re concerned it’s not airtight.
Do Overnight Oats Freeze Well? Yes
Can You Refreeze Overnight Oats? Yes
How to Freeze Overnight Oats
Before freezing your overnight oats, you’ll need to knock together a large batch of the stuff.
Combine oats, milk, and whatever other ingredients you might prefer, mix everything and allow it to stand for a few moments to ensure that all of the ingredients are hydrated – this is important to ensure that no ingredients become more or less freezer burned than the others.
You can now get to freezing the oats:
- Portion: Portion the oats up into different containers. We recommend using rigid plastic containers that have enough headspace for the liquid component of the oats to expand a little. As milk is a water-based liquid, it will expand as it freezes, and you don’t want the containers to explode.
- Remove Air Where Possible: Ensure that you remove as much air as possible. This might be tricky with rigid plastic containers, but we would urge you to squeeze them where possible, ensuring that there’s little actual air in the container with the oats.
- Freeze: Set the overnight oats portions into your freezer, ensuring that the containers aren’t touching the sides or base of the freezer – a contact point will speed freezer burn up dramatically.
Once they’re frozen, the oats will store for six months before their quality has degraded to the point where they’re substantially less nice than they were when fresh.
3 Tips for Freezing Overnight Oats
Now you know how to freeze it, we’ve got our 3 top tips which we strongly recommend following when freezing overnight oats to have the best results:
Remove Excess Air
We made the point to remove excess air above, and we stand by that. Even if it is difficult, you can always use a straw to suck some air out. The air will sap flavour from the mixture of oats and other ingredients, condense into water, and lead to freezer burn over time.Â
Ensure a Tight Seal
Milk and other dairy ingredients can act like a sponge for freezer smells. If your freezer has an aroma (and most of them do), then you need to be aware that the liquid content of your oats will soak up that aroma, leading to oddly flavoured oats at the end of the freezing process.Â
Avoid Solid Mix Ins
Solid mix-ins will affect how well the oats can freeze. A mixture will only freeze as long as its shortest ingredient can freeze. For that reason, we recommend only adding spices, syrups, and other soluble flavourings to the oats before freezing, add solid ingredients before eating.Â
How Long Can You Freeze Overnight Oats?
You can freeze overnight oats for around six months.
They last for a little longer than other options because the texture of the dish is generally quite soft and smooth, thanks to the soaked oats. If you’re concerned about having a poor-quality breakfast, perhaps only freeze your oats for a maximum of one month.
When kept in an airtight container, overnight oats will last for 5 days in the fridge. Avoid adding any toppings to the oats until you’re serving them for breakfast.
How Do You Defrost Overnight Oats?
The best way to defrost overnight oats is to leave them in the fridge overnight.
This will allow them to thaw to room temperature, which is the ideal temperature to ensure that the dairy content will not spoil, while also ensuring that the mixture will totally thaw throughout.
To thaw the oats more rapidly, you could keep them on your counter for an hour or so, at which point they should be thawed enough to eat. Do not do this overnight, as it will allow the dairy content to spoil over time.
Can You Refreeze Overnight Oats?
Yes, you can refreeze overnight oats. As the texture is unaffected by freezing thanks to the fact that the oats are soft and smooth thanks to soaking, refreezing the food will have no ill effects in the long term.
Do Overnight Oats Freeze Well?
Yes, overnight oats do freeze well. When we ask this question, we’re asking if the oats degrade in quality between freezing and thawing – the oats certainly don’t, which means that they freeze very well.
Related FAQs
If you’ve still got questions about freezing overnight oats or oats in general, then these may help:
Bircher can be kept in the freezer for around 3 to 6 months in freezer bags or Tupperware containers.
You can freeze overnight Weetabix but you may find that the texture becomes a little sloppy and soft once thawed. You can safely freeze overnight Weetabix, however.
