would love to eat a bowl of steel-cut oatmeal every day, but most mornings I don’t. Steel-cut oats are hardly a difficult breakfast to whip up, but with kids to feed and get dressed and out the door and work meetings to join shortly after that, I usually don’t have time. Of course, that assumes I’m cooking them the normal way, on the stovetop.
So here’s a handy tip that I recently realized could completely change my morning meal, and it can change yours too: Use a rice cooker. There are two distinct advantages here. The first is that a rice cooker is completely hands-off. Just put your oatmeal ingredients into the cooker pot, close the machine, set it, and forget it. When it’s done, all you have to do is open the lid, give it a stir, and scoop it into bowls.
The second advantage is even more compelling: If your rice cooker has a timer function, you can set it well in advance. That means you can load up the cooker before going to bed, program the machine to have it ready for you at a specified time the next morning, and when you wake up, there it is in all its energy-supplying, fiber-packed, creamy, hearty beauty. It’s basically the best overnight oats you could ever wish for (with not a trace of that raw, soaked-oat sludge of typical overnight oats).
If you don’t use the timer function, be aware that it can take a while for a rice cooker to cook the oatmeal once you hit “start”—anywhere from about 40 minutes up to more than an hour, so not ideal if you’re in a rush (exactly how long, though, will depend on the brand and model you use). Not all rice cookers have timer functions, but most except for the most rudimentary do. I recommend upgrading to a rice cooker with a timer function if you don’t have one; they don’t have to be that expensive, and it’s a great feature that you can use for anything from your breakfast oatmeal to having cooked rice hot and fresh for dinner as soon as you get home from work. (See our reviews of the best rice cookers for shopping advice.)
