With the cold winter days here it is always nice to start the morning off with a warm, healthy and hearty breakfast and it is even better if that breakfast is fully cooked and waiting for you when you get up! If you are a fan of oatmeal and if you have a slow cooker this is it is super easy to do where all you need to do is place all of the ingredients for your oatmeal into the slow cooker before going to bed at night. A bowl of oatmeal certainly does not need to be boring and since it is easy to add flavours you can keep things interesting and have a different bowl of oatmeal for breakfast every morning. I have done a lot of experimenting with different flavours of oatmeal and one of my favourites has to be this oatmeal themed after apple pie; and who doesn’t want a warm bowl of apple pie for breakfast? At its base, this apple pie oatmeal consists of the steel cut oats, apples, brown sugar and cinnamon and from there you can add what you like. I enjoy the addition of raisins and walnuts and of course a spoonful of caramel sauce works perfectly to sweeten things up a bit!
Tip: Place everything in your slow cooker before you go to bed at night and set it to cook for 4 hours. After it is done cooking, it will go into keep warm mode and keep your oatmeal perfectly cooked until you wake up in the morning.
Tip: If your slow cooker cannot be programmed you can place the ingredients in a bowl that will fit in your slow cooker and fill your slow cooker with water until it goes half way up the bowl. This way you can cook it all night without the oatmeal burning on the sides.
What a great way to start the day!
Slow Cooker Apple Pie Steel Cut Oatmeal
All of the flavours of apple pie in an over night slow cooker steal cut oatmeal for breakfast!
ingredients
- 1 cup steel cut oats
- 2 cups water or apple juice or apple cider
- 2 cups milk (or 2 more cups water)
- 2 apples, peeled, cored and cut into bite sized pieces
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 dash nutmeg, grated
- 1/4 cup raisins (optional)
- 1/4 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)
directions
- Place the steel cut oats, water, milk, apple, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and raisins in a slow cooker and set it to cook on low for 4 hours.
- Mix the oatmeal up, optionally adding milk to bring it to the desired consistency and sweetener to bring it to the desired sweetness and serve topped with any desired toppings.
Note: This works best overnight if you have a slow cooker that either has a timer for a delayed start or one that has a timer to switch from low to keep warm mode after the 4 hours. If you do not have these features on your slow cooker you can place the ingredients in a bowl that will fit in the slow cooker and place couple of inches of water around it so that it sits in a water bath in the slow cooker and then cook on low overnight.
How does this work for breakfast? Do i only sleep 4 hours or do i wake 3 am to start the cooker and return to bed?
The recipe sounds yummy. But 4 hours in a crackpot is a long time to wait for breakfast. Are there any overnight solutions?
Thanks!
Oh my good gosh – I LOVE slow cooker steel cut oats. It makes life so much easier to just wake up in the morning and breakfast is already done 🙂 it's so filling too! I adore the apple pie flavor in this. Just divine and so comforting 🙂
Anonymous & Rachel: Start the slow cooker before you go to bed and set it to cook for 4 hours. After it is done cooking it will go into keep warm mode and keep the oatmeal ready for when you wake up.
I wasn't a fan of oatmeal when I was a kid. I didn't like the consistency, but I think that was because of the grain my mom used to buy. I have been wanting to try oatmeal again, but with a better grain like steel cut. Do you have a favorite brand that you recommend?
Delicious and healthy! An interesting way of making porridge.
Cheers,
Rosa
Allison C: I generally get the Mccann's brand of steel cut oats.
Looks fabulous–just the sort of dish I want to wake up to!
Hi there! I love your recipes…just wanted to let you know, not all slow cookers are programmable. On some of the older models you cannot set the time to automatically go to "keep warm". You have to switch it yourself after the 4hours have elapsed, I guess that's why some of the readers were confused.
I use a timer to turn on the crock pot. The kind you plug a lamp into when you go away on vacation. Crock cooking is fuzzy, so the timer doesn't need to be super precise.
I wish I was eating a big bowl of this right now!
My sister has ben dying to make slow cooked oats – she's going to flip when I send this to her!! Thanks Kevin
I have 3 crock pots (3 sizes), and none of them have the ability to program modes unfortunately. However, like another commenter mentioned, you could easily use a lamp timer to turn it on around 3am (although one of them for sure automatically goes to "keep warm" when turned on, which wouldn't work). I'd like to try this 🙂 Thanks for posting it!
This is almost the same non-recipe my Grandmother made over 75 years ago – long before there were slow cookers. Thanks for good memories!
This looks like the perfect start to a cold winter morning (it was 4 degrees here this am!)
Happy New Year,
RMW
@ Rachel. I make this often and being as I have an older style crock pot that cannot be timed, I just turn it on low before bed, and it's done perfectly when I get up 8 hours later.
kevin this is how oatmeal should be done.
this would make people eat more of it.
that looks so good, way better than my morning bowl of mush
I should do this, it's right up my street!
For those of us with older crocks … Kevin noted in this recipe that you can place the ingredients inside a bowl in the pot, and fill water into the pot, around the bowl, half-way up. This creates a simmering water bath, just like we use when baking custards in the oven. I find my old crock cooks efficiently on low. So I'll try this on low without the water bath and see what proves by sunrise! Anonymous suggests this can work. I never sleep more than 6 hours at a time anyway …
Agreed with Anonymous. Cooking on low in an older crock. I don't sleep longer than 6hrs.at a time anyway. Kevin's suggested an efficient water-bath system in his recipe to circumvent scorching in crocks without timing devices.
My kids would love this – and I would too!
I can practically smell the deliciousness from here Kevin! Yum!
This recipe sounds great, my two year old (as well as my wife & myself0 will probably love this. I do have a question though, I have no steel cut oats, just rolled oats, wouldn't the ratio of oats to liquid be different, if so any ideas on the difference?
I need to try slow cooker oatmeal – I think my family would really love this!
I wish I hadn't given away my slow cooker! What a great recipe.
Anonymous: I have not tried rolled oats in the slow cooker over night. You want a ration of 2 parts liquid to 1 part rolled oats rather than the 4 to one for the steel cut oats.
Wow! This is an ideal breakfast Kevin ~ love that you used the slow cooker for it too!
What size crock pot do you recommend?? Thaks!
I'm just curious about how much this actually makes? I see 1 cup of steel cut oatmeal but basically 4 cups of liquid.
I guess I can't imagine 1 cup puffing up that much.
poosh: This will give you 4 servings at 1 cup per serving. Once you add the milk at the end to get the oatmeal to the right consistency there will be a lot more than there was when you open up the slow cooker in the morning.
Well, I made this recipe with the rolled oats (this is anonymous that asked about rolled oats). I used two cups of rolled oats instead of 1 cup steel cut, leaving all the other ingredients in the same amounts. I did add 1/2 cup more brown sugar in the morning, and It turned out fantastic! This will be made here many more times. Thanks for the recipe!
mmmmmm beautiful =)
thank you so much
I tried the recipe for myself on Saturday morning: first time ever to use steel-cut oat and first time not-instant and in the crock pot! Love it so much that I did it again on Sunday morning for guests over for brunch! Thanks Kevin! Also, I used Almond milk and it was delicious. Next time I will add more cinnamon.
This is sooooo amazing. I just made this and the house smells amazing to boot! Thanks for the recipe, I'll be making this again and again for a looooong time!!
I love slow cooker recipes and this one looks especially delicious. The colour! Not what I'd expect from oatmeal… but better!
Anonymous: I have a 5 quart crock pot for cooking a decent sized pork roast but for this oatmeal smaller ones will work just fine. If you want to use the water bath method of cooking a larger one would be better.
Linking back to this beauty in my next post 🙂
Anonymous: I am glad to hear that it worked with the rolled oats and that you enjoyed it!
Just made this this morning. I threw in a handful of dried cranberries & some walnuts. it is GOOD! it took 5 1/2 hrs for mine to be done. This is definitely going to be a regular at the breakfast table. Thanks for sharing.
This looks good– and sounds super appley! I love all things apple, and oatmeal and apple pie sounds like a match made in heaven. Will definitely try this.
This was breakfast today….yum. My dad even liked it! It will be served often in my home
Would I be able to use old fashion oatmeal instead of steel cut? Because that's all I have! I would love to try this soon, I've been trying to find easy recipes to use my crockpot for!
Jennifer: I have not tried it with old fashion oatmeal but it should work.
I just now read the posts about setting timers and putting a crock in side the slow cooker with water. I made this recipe yesterday and then portioned out the servings when it was done. I re-heated one portion for 2 minutes in the microwave (High or 100% power), stirred in a bit of milk and topped it with toasted walnuts! Super delicious and reheats very well. I am excited to try other variations on this technique.