6 Ways to Use That Container of Oats Sitting in Your Pantry

So, you bought a big container of oats thinking you’d eat oatmeal every morning, and now it’s been sitting in your pantry for 3 months. Or maybe you do eat oats all the time, but things are getting a little boring.

I get it. Plain oatmeal gets old fast.

But oats are basically the Swiss Army knife of your kitchen. In the next few minutes, I’m going to show you six completely different ways to use oats that’ll make you excited to open that container again.

We’re talking everything from grab-and-go breakfast solutions to desserts that don’t taste like health food punishment and energy-boosting snacks on the go.

1. Oat Flour Pancakes

First up, we’re making pancakes by turning oats into flour. These are fluffy, satisfying, and gluten-free.

Now, I’ll stop right here and say this: don’t bite into these pancakes picturing that fluffy buttermilk traditional wheat flour pancake.

This is gluten-free and oats do give it a different texture.

But my three children and I will choose these pancakes even if we do have our normal buttermilk pancake mix on the shelf because they are filling, a good bit healthier, and just a great option when we’re wanting to lower our gluten intake.

The best part? You probably have everything you need right now.

How to make oat flour:

Just throw your oats in a blender or food processor and pulse until they turn into a fine powder. That’s it. You now have oat flour—a single ingredient flour that’s cheaper than buying it pre-made and tastes fresher too.

Recipe:

• 2 cups oat flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• Splash of vanilla extract

These pancakes have a really nice nutty flavor that regular flour just can’t match. Plus, they’re more filling, so you’re not hungry again in an hour.

Because of all the syrups, fruit butters, and jams we make and can every year, everyone gets to choose their own topping without adding anything to my grocery bill.

That’s the beauty of stocking pantry staples like oats in bulk and working them into your regular rotation.

2. Overnight Oats (The Right Way)

I know some of you might be thinking, “I’ve tried overnight oats before, and they’re mushy and weird.”

I used to think the same thing until I figured out the right ratio. The key is not using too much liquid.

Most recipes call for a good bit of liquid like milk or yogurt, but you end up with what I felt was oat soup. I wanted something thicker and creamier and not so watery.

Recipe for a single serving:

• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/2 cup milk (any type—almond, coconut, regular)
• 1 tablespoon chia seeds
• 2 tablespoons of whatever flavor you’d like

For flavor ideas: 2 tablespoons of strawberry jam for strawberry-flavored oats. Quick tip here—homemade jam that doesn’t fully set works really great for flavoring overnight oats.

We also like to do chocolate peanut butter with 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder and 1 tablespoon of peanut butter, then sweeten it just a little with a few drops of liquid stevia.

If you don’t have stevia extract on hand, I highly recommend it. It gives you a sweet taste without any sugar.

The beauty of overnight oats is that you can meal prep a jar per person in your family on a Sunday and have breakfast sorted for the whole week.

Pro tip: If you want to top your oats with anything crunchy or crisp like nuts or fresh fruit, wait to add those toppings right before you eat them. This helps keep them from getting soggy or having a stale-like texture.

3. Homemade Granola

Store-bought granola can be expensive when you have several people to feed, and it’s loaded with sugar a lot of times or sugar alternatives like high fructose corn syrup. Making it yourself costs half as much, and you can control exactly what’s in it.

This is also one of those recipes that makes your house smell incredible while it’s baking.

Recipe:

• 3 and 1/2 cups rolled oats
• 3 and 1/2 cups rice krispies
• 1 and 1/2 cups chopped almonds (or whatever nut you’d like)
• 1/2 cup coconut sugar (use any sugar you like)
• 1/2 cup butter (one stick)
• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 1/2 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice (or cinnamon)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 250°F. Granola needs to cook low and slow to achieve that perfect crunch without burning.

Melt the fats in a small saucepan. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Once the fats are melted, pour over the dry ingredients equally and stir thoroughly to ensure everything is nice and coated.

Spread the granola onto a baking sheet or glass pan and bake for 2 hours. Set a timer to stir it every 20 minutes to ensure it cooks evenly without any burning spots. Burnt granola is not good.

Once the granola is nice and crispy, remove from the oven and let it cool completely before adding any mix-ins if you want to. By mix-ins, I mean dried fruit, more chopped nuts, chocolate chips—anything like that. Wait till it’s completely cooled so you don’t have any issues with melting.

Store in an airtight container in your fridge and it’ll keep for about 2 weeks. Any longer than that and you’ll start having issues because of the butter and coconut oil.

4. Homemade Oatmeal Packets

If you’ve been buying those little paper packets at the store, you’re paying about 50 cents per serving for something that would cost you 10 cents per serving to make at home.

Plus, making it yourself means you can customize the flavors however you want. No more being stuck with maple and brown sugar or apple cinnamon—which are great flavors, but there are a lot more flavors out there.

My favorite part about making it at home is that we can turn what is typically a breakfast that lacks protein and pack it with protein.

Base recipe:

• 5 cups whole rolled oats
• 1 cup coconut sugar (use whatever sugar you like)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup milk powder (we use whole milk powder for creaminess)

Place the whole rolled oats into a food processor and process until they’re a finer grain consistency like what you see in instant oats. Alternatively, you can just start with instant oats.

In a large bowl, combine the processed oats with all the other ingredients and mix thoroughly. That’s your base mixture, ready to be flavored and portioned however you want.

For single servings:

Add 1 cup of the base mixture to a pint jar. Now for the fun part—customizing.

We like to add 1/4 cup of vanilla protein powder to our oat jars. Really, you could do any kind of flavored protein powder here. The key is just to get the protein powder in there. We like vanilla because it compliments whatever other mix-ins we add.

For mix-ins, we like to flavor with a little pumpkin pie spice or cinnamon, then add some sort of dried fruit like cranberries or a freeze-dried fruit powder like acai berries.

I like to make a bunch of these at once and store them in mason jars in the pantry. When ready to cook, anyone can grab a jar off the shelf and dump it into a pot.

Add 1 and 1/2 cups of water and bring to a boil. Once boiling, turn off the heat, place the lid on top, and let it sit for 5 minutes. That’s typically ready to serve at that point.

5. Peanut Butter Energy Bites

These are amazing for when you need a snack that gives you sustained energy instead of a sugar crash 30 minutes later. In the same vein, they’re also a nice dessert you don’t have to feel too guilty about.

We make a batch of these maybe twice a month or so. We store them in the freezer, so there’s no rush to finish them off before they go bad, and they’re just there when the craving strikes.

Recipe:

• 3 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 cup flax seed
• 2/3 cup honey
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup chocolate chips (we often use Lily’s sugar-free, dairy-free chocolate chips)

Just mix it all together and roll into balls or flatten them out into a pan and cut into squares. The oats give these substance and really help everything hold together.

Without them, you just have sweet peanut butter balls—which actually doesn’t sound too terrible, but these are better.

I discovered these right before the birth of my second baby when I was preparing quick snacks for the postpartum season that would hopefully give me energy, satisfy cravings, but not leave me feeling worse.

That’s exactly what these accomplished, and they’ve been a treat in our house ever since.

It’s actually funny because that second baby is now the one who makes these for our family.

6. Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies

These are what I make when the kiddos ask for a sweet treat but don’t want the typical chocolate chip cookies. The oats make them chewy and give them a great texture.

Plus, they’re more filling than regular cookies, so you’re less likely to eat half a batch in one sitting. Not that I’m speaking from experience or anything.

Recipe:

• 1 and 1/4 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 1/2 cup quick oats
• 1 cup semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips
• 1 egg
• 2/3 cup softened butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Before I get into making these, I did want to mention that this is actually one of those meal-prepped jars we often keep on the shelf.

You just store all the dry ingredients in the jar, and then all you have to add is the butter, egg, and vanilla extract when you go to cook them.

It makes them whip together all the faster, and it’s just something I can have sitting on the shelf, which greatly decreases my chances of picking up something a lot less healthy from the grocery store.

To make the cookies:

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Beat the softened butter with one egg and one teaspoon of vanilla extract. Then pour all the other ingredients in. If you’ve meal prepped ahead of time, just grab that jar off your shelf and dump it in the bowl.

Mix it all together and form your cookies. Bake for 12 minutes, and whatever you do, do not overbake these. Trust me, you will be sad.

These cookies are great for meal prep in jars, but you could also make the dough in full and just freeze them in little balls. Then plop out a cookie on a sheet whenever the craving strikes.

Make the Most of Your Pantry Staples

Next time you’re staring at that container of oats wondering what in the world to do with them, remember you have pancake batter, granola, cookie dough, instant breakfast, and snacks all sitting right there waiting to happen.

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As you probably noticed, most of these recipes use basic pantry staples and no fancy equipment, so you likely have everything you need to make them.

If you want my recommendation of what to try first, go for those peanut butter energy bites. And if you can’t eat peanut butter, swap it out with almond butter or whatever your favorite alternative is.

Sun butter is another good one. For a very quick time in my life, I had to be completely free of nuts, and sun butter was a good alternative I was able to eat.