Overnight Slow-Cooker Steel-Cut Oats with Apple and Flax
Steel-cut oats, cooked overnight with apple and cinnamon into six portions, thick enough to slice cold and reheat all week long.
Why it works
Steel-cut oats are the least processed form of the grain and the slowest to digest, which is exactly why nobody makes them on a weekday. They take forty minutes on a hob. Overnight in a slow cooker removes that objection completely and produces six breakfasts for ten minutes of work. The beta-glucan is the whole point: around three grams a day lowers LDL by roughly five to seven percent, and a portion of this delivers it before you've even thought about breakfast. Cooking the apple in, rather than adding it fresh, breaks its pectin down into the porridge, thickening it so no sweetener is needed. Ground flax goes in after cooking, since its omega-3 fats don't survive long heat.
Oat beta-glucan has strong, consistent trial support for LDL reduction at around 3 g daily. It's one of the very few food claims regulators have signed off on.
Ingredients
- 300 g (1.5 cups) steel-cut oats
- 1.4 litres water
- 400 ml milk or unsweetened soy milk
- 2 apples, grated with skin on
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp fine salt
- 4 tbsp ground flaxseed, to stir in after cooking
- Chopped walnuts and berries to serve
Method
- Rub the inside of the slow cooker with a little oil or butter, which is the difference between washing it and scrubbing it.
- Add the oats, water, milk, grated apple, cinnamon, and salt, and stir once.
- Cook on low for seven hours, or overnight. Do not lift the lid.
- In the morning, stir hard. It will look separated and comes back together in about thirty seconds. Stir in the ground flax now rather than before, since long heat damages its omega-3 fats.
- Portion into six containers while warm. Top each with walnuts and berries at serving rather than in storage.
