Anyway. Enough feelings. Back to food. I don’t know about you guys, but breakfasts (and, let’s face it, dinner) these days are stressful. We’ve gone from lazy summer mornings where someone grabs a hotdog bun at 9:30 to trying to get out the door by 7:30. Don’t get me wrong. We have plenty of quick, non-hot (read: cold cereal) breakfasts around my house, but I love having something a little more hearty and healthy. I’m a huge fan of steel cut oats, but, unlike rolled oats, they take a long time to cook. Enter the Instant Pot (or other electric pressure cooker.) I try to get up at least 30 minutes before my kids, so if I throw this into the Instant Pot as soon as I get up, it’s done and on the warm setting by the time my kids are ready to eat, without all the swear words of making a pot of oatmeal on the stovetop when it boils over. Because it happens every. Damn. Time.
You’ll need some oil (I like coconut oil for lots of reasons–it’s solid, which is perfect for coating the pot, plus it tastes good), water, salt, and steel cut oats.
If you’ve never cooked with and/or seen steel cut oats, they aren’t like regular rolled oats that you’re probably more familiar with. They look kind of like rice or grains of wheat.
They’re a little chewier and heartier than traditional rolled oats, but they take much more time to cook.
This method will not work with rolled or instant oats. You’ll cook them much too long. Y’all know I love you, but if you send an angry email or comment about how you ruined your super expensive Instant Pot because you followed the recipe exactly except that you used instant oats instead of steel cut oats, I might steel cut my eyeballs. I’m not saying this to be mean. I’m not saying this to incite riots among the keyboard warriors. I’m saying it because sometimes, someone needs to say, “Not today. Not those oats.” This is one of those times. Using a paper towel, grab some coconut oil and rub it around the inside of the pot of the pressure cooker, all the way to the top.
Add the oats,
water,
and salt.
Cook 12-14 minutes (use the manual setting; if you have the option of high or low, choose high.) When it’s done cooking, use the natural release (don’t manually release the pressure) for 10 minutes, then release the remaining pressure (if any) and open the pot. Stir the liquid into the oats until combined and serve immediately with desired toppings or mix-ins–for this bowl, I used fresh raspberries, orange zest, a sprinkle of ground ginger, some toasted, sliced almonds, and brown sugar. And a splash of milk.
