I’ve made this Gingerbread Oatmeal twice. Both times, Jim has texted me later in the morning to say it was an awesome breakfast. These really are fantastic.
In addition to the common cinnamon and brown sugar, they also have ginger, a bit of cloves and vanilla. The combination is full of fall flavor.
Even my daughter, who has never eaten (or been willing to try) oatmeal, liked these.
And they’re really easy to make too. Set them up at night before going to bed and they’ll be ready to eat in the morning. I do use a timer for my small crockpot so they don’t have to cook all night. You can read more about making your own programmable crockpot here.
Here’s what you’ll need:
I apologize for the lighting in this photo. It’s getting dark earlier in the evenings now and I’m going to have to start getting out my photography lights for photos.
Slow Cooker Gingerbread Oatmeal
Ingredients
- 1 cup steel cut oats
- 2 cups apple juice
- 2 cups water
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 Tbs. molasses
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp. ground cloves
- 1 tsp. ginger
- 1 tsp. vanilla
Instructions
- Spray slow cooker inside with cooking spray.
- Stir all ingredients together in a bowl.
- Pour into slow cooker.
- Cook on low 4-5 hours.
- Serve with milk.
Gingerbread Oatmeal!!! It’s like Christmas in a slowcooker!
Ha! I know that movie 🙂 Or at least in my house, with a quote like that we can only be referring to one thing – The Proposal.
hahaha! Yes! Slowcooker… cup… same thing haha
What size slow cooker is that? It looks smaller than a 4 qt. I only have a 6 qt, and I want to buy a smaller one for smaller recipes, since I often find that it gets too hot for what I make.
Katie, it’s a 2 quart cooker.
Sounds delicious…I’ve some apple cider, maybe I’ll water it down a bit. But six servings from only one cup of oats? Really? I’ve got three preteen boys – I don’t know that 1 cup of oats would feed 6 people in our house…especially steel cut which don’t seem to enlarge as much as other oats.
I agree that it seems strange to get so many servings. We do add milk, so that helps some. It just seems to go really far for us. If you try it, let me know how far it goes in your house. This is one reason I don’t like giving serving suggestions. It really just depends on who you’re feeding. With growing teenage boys, all bets are off!
Sounds amazing! I haven’t thought about cooking oats in apple juice!
hey! the recipe looks great, but 6 servings from only 1 cup of oats? I can eat 1 cup all by myself……….
I know it sounds strange, but we really do get that many servings from 1 cup of oats. Remember, you’re also using 4 cups of liquid. I think I may do a post on this soon, since I’ve gotten a few questions about it.
Can you use regular oatmeal if you don’t have the steel cut?
You can use rolled oats (not quick cooking). They don’t hold up as well as steel cut, but I’ve done it with rolled oats and it works.
Thank you for sharing this recipe:) I love oatmeal and have been eating it my whole life and this is by far one of the best tasting oatmeal I’ve tried. I bought a timer and tried it out this afternoon to be sure I set it correctly. 4 hours was perfect . Now I feel comfortable to try it during the night. I can’t wait to have it again tomorrow 🙂 thanks
This looks delicious… but I’m, well, not allergic to apple products, but they don’t agree with me, so I’m wondering if you have any suggestions for alternatives to using apple juice in this recipe. I could put maybe a half cup of apple juice in it, but what else could I use, besides water??
thanks!!
If you can find pear juice, that would be good. I know Trader Joe’s has a pear cider now that’s really good.
do you have nutritional info? Especially carbs. Sounds very high sugar. Thank you
I don’t, but there are websites where you can input the recipe and it will give you the nutrition info.
Can I have it set overnight as I would make this before going to bed and plan to eat it Christmas morning? So would it be ok if it was set on low for over 6 hours?
Amber, I use a timer (like the kind you use for lamps or a christmas tree) to set the slow cooker to come on later. That way it doesn’t have to cook as long. The timers can be found for about $4 or $5.
So is it 2 cups of water and 2 cups of apple juice?? Because it’s been in the slow cooker for 4 hours and it still has a lot of liquid in it.
I would stir it to see if it’s thicker on the bottom and work the liquid into the entire batch of oatmeal. You may also want to scoop out a bowl to see if it thickens up as it cools.