Overnight Oats without Milk

These overnight oats without milk are absolutely delicious and a great easy, healthy, and customizable make ahead breakfast! For this recipe you can use dairy free milk or water depending on your preference.

Overnight oats are one of my favorite go to healthy breakfasts. I love that you can make it the night before and just grab it and go in the morning.

Personally, I like them even better than chia pudding without milk, which is also pretty darn good if you ask me – especially chocolate chia pudding… mmmm!

If you’ve never had overnight oats before, its basically a no cook method of making oatmeal.

Instead of cooking oatmeal, you soak the raw oats with milk. This allows the oats to absorb the liquid and soften them enough to eat uncooked.

You only need to let the oats soak and rest in the fridge for 2 hours but ideally you let them soak over night. Hence the name.

The next morning you have an easy convenient breakfast that has a creamier texture than regular oatmeal.

The creamy texture is in large part due to the chia seeds, which is probably why they are called for in every recipe I’ve ever seen.

However, the yogurt also adds a lot of creaminess to the overnight oats, so I wouldn’t skip it unless you don’t have it on hand – which has happened to me before and it was still delicious without it.

I do enjoy this basic recipe for overnight oats and adding some granola or muesli just before I eat it so there is a variety of texture and flavor.

However, you can mix in all kinds of things. Fresh fruit, dried fruits, nuts, chocolate, and more. Really, anything you want.

Overnight Oats without Milk

These overnight oats are made without milk and I replace it with dairy free milk or water.

If you want to leave out the milk because you’re dairy free, you can use any dairy free milk you want.

However, if you just don’t have milk on hand and aren’t dairy free so you don’t have a dairy free milk either, water will do.

Which dairy free milk should I use?

Honestly, it’s whatever you have on hand or prefer.

My go-to is a neutral flavored full fat oat milk because I find that they are the most similar to regular full fat milk.

Almond milk works well here, too. I personally like using an unsweetened barista almond milk because it is more similar to regular full fat milk, but whatever you have will work.

You can also use coconut milk, though it may have a subtle coconut flavor if you do. Coconut milk has more fat and is similar to using a light cream, but it won’t make a noticeable difference.

I’ve never used soy milk, so I don’t have any opinions on it, but you can use that as well.

What kind of dairy free yogurt should I use?

A regular or vanilla flavored yogurt works best here unless you want to add a mild fruit flavor to your overnight oats.

Yogurts made from almond milk, oat milk, coconut milk, and soy milk all work fine. The yogurt is to add creaminess to the overnight oats.

Do I have to use yogurt?

Nope. I leave it out when I’m out of yogurt but I still want overnight oats.

However, it is going to be less creamy.

Do I have to use chia seeds?

You don’t, but they add a pudding like texture.

This may be less noticeable if you have the yogurt, but it will be very noticeable if you don’t have yogurt or chia seeds.

Can I leave out the milk, yogurt, and chia seeds?

Only if you don’t mind the idea of oats sitting in dairy free milk or water. Personally it is not my cup of tea.

Make Ahead

I like making overnight oats a the night before as the name indicates. However, you can also make overnight oats up to a few days before you’re going to eat it. This is great for meal prep.

How to Store

Overnight oats will keep for up to 4 days in the fridge.

If you have fruit toppings or fruit mix-ins, eat within 3 days, as the fruit is likely to go bad first.

For Freezing

Yes, you can freeze overnight oats.

Place in a freezer safe contain. You can keep overnight oats for several months in the freezer.