Overnight oats, scheduled

Breakfast as a cron job. Stir oats, milk, and yogurt in a jar at night, and the fridge does the cooking while you sleep. Make three at once and you are covered until Thursday.

yield: Serves 1
active: 5 min
total: 6 h 5 min
oven: not needed

Posted September 8, 2026

Ingredients

45 g (1/2 cup) rolled oats (not instant, not steel-cut)
120 ml (1/2 cup) milk, dairy or not
60 g (1/4 cup) plain yogurt
1 tsp maple syrup or honey
1 tsp chia seeds (optional, makes it thicker)
A small pinch of salt
Fruit for the top: berries, sliced banana, or grated apple

Method

In a jar or lidded container, stir together the oats, milk, yogurt, sweetener, chia seeds, and salt.
Cover and refrigerate at least 6 hours, or overnight.
In the morning, stir. Loosen with a splash of milk if it is thicker than you like.
Top with fruit and eat, cold, straight from the jar.

Notes

Keeps 3 days in the fridge, so you can make several jars at once. Add the fruit on the day you eat it.
Steel-cut oats stay chewy and raw-tasting with this method. Instant oats turn to paste. Rolled oats are the right input.

overnight-oats.sh22 lines, do not run

#!/usr/bin/env bash# overnight-oats.sh: breakfast, scheduled. serves 1.## install with: crontab -e#   m  h  dom mon dow   command#   0 22  *   *   0-4   ~/overnight-oats.sh## runs at 22:00 sunday through thursday. breakfast deploys itself.jar=$(mktemp --suffix=.jar)add oats:45g milk:120ml yogurt:60g >> "$jar"add maple-syrup:1tsp chia:1tsp salt:pinch >> "$jar"  # yes, salt. see salt(1).stir "$jar"lid "$jar" && fridge put "$jar"sleep 6h   # minimum. overnight is fine. the oats do not need you.# --- morning ---stir "$jar" --add milk:splash --if thicktop "$jar" --with berries || top "$jar" --with bananaeat --from "$jar"   # no bowl. one less thing to wash.

# The script is the joke. The ingredients and method are the recipe.