Name: Christmas pudding spiced cinnamon overnight oats
Prep time: 5 min
Yield: 2
Ingredients: 150 g oats; 30 g chopped almonds; 30 g mixed dried fruit; 30 g dried cranberries; 1 tsp mixed spice (use a bit less for a milder flavour or replace with ground cinnamon if preferred); 400 ml milk (I used almond)

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With these Christmas pudding spiced cinnamon overnight oats you can enjoy all the flavours of Christmas pudding – for breakfast.

What do you have for breakfast on Christmas Day?

I love the idea of a long leisurely breakfast on Christmas Day but the reality is that the kids are way too excited to make it possible. Maybe in the future.

In the meantime overnight oats are a great Christmas breakfast idea – you do all the work the night before (and the “work” only takes a few minutes) and you have breakfast all ready for you the next day.

Do you like the flavour of Christmas pudding?

I absolutely love it and I’ve been enjoying using it in my cooking over the last few weeks as we get ready for Christmas. It’s so easy to replicate by using mixed spice – a pre-ground combination of cinnamon, coriander, dill, ginger, cloves and nutmeg. The addition of the mixed dried fruit also makes this taste Christmassy, especially when you get a bite of lemon or orange peel. Mmmm.

Overnight oats are such a convenient breakfast

In the summer I got into the habit of making bircher muesli, or overnight oats almost every day. It’s so convenient to have a ready-made breakfast waiting for you in the fridge in the morning.

This is especially true on Christmas morning – because who wants to be cooking when there are presents to be opened, champagne to be opened and an enormous meal to prepare later in the day!

We’ve switched to porridge now that the mornings are colder, but sometimes I still like to have them cold for a change. However, if you wanted to use these ingredients in your hot porridge or oatmeal instead it would taste gorgeously festive.

How to make Christmas pudding spiced cinnamon overnight oats:

Overnight oats, or Bircher muesli, are so easy to make. You simply place oats with any other ingredients you’re using such as nuts, seeds and dried fruit in a bowl, cover it with milk and place in the fridge overnight.

In the morning the oats have soaked up enough of the milk to be soft enough to eat. I prefer the texture of overnight oats to that of hot porridge cooked on the stove.

My toddler doesn’t like this cold however so I heat it up for him.

Are overnight oats vegan?

This recipe is really easy to adapt for different dietary requirements. As it is it’s vegan but if you need it to be gluten free too just use gluten free oats. If you have a nut allergy in your family then replace the chopped almonds with seeds or use extra dried fruit.

Overnight oats are extremely forgiving to make and almost impossible to get wrong! As long as the oats are covered with milk they’ll be just fine.