Overnight Oats with Roasted Plums
Roasting the plums is the ten minutes of work that turns overnight oats from worthy into something you actually look forward to. Do both on Sunday and breakfast is handled until Wednesday.
- Prep 10 min
- Cook 25 min
- Total 35 min
- Serves 4
- Vegan
Method
Step 1. Heat the oven to 200°C fan. Put the plum halves cut side up in a small roasting tin — snug, so they hold each other upright and the juices do not spread out and burn.
Step 2. Spoon over the maple syrup and oil, tuck in the orange peel and star anise, and roast for 25 minutes until the plums have slumped and there is a thin, dark syrup in the bottom of the tin.
Step 3. While they roast, stir the oats, oat milk, chia seeds, maple syrup, vanilla and salt together in a bowl. Stir properly — chia seeds clump the moment they hit liquid and a clump never un-clumps.
Step 4. Divide between four jars, leaving a couple of centimetres at the top. Lid them and put them in the fridge.
Step 5. Let the plums cool in the tin. Lift out the peel and star anise, then spoon the fruit and every drop of syrup into a container. Chill.
Step 6. In the morning, top a jar of oats with two plum halves, a spoonful of syrup and a scatter of toasted almonds. Loosen with a splash more oat milk if it has set firmer than you like.
Notes from the kitchen
- Chia is doing the setting here, not the oats. Leave it out and you get breakfast soup.
- Out of plums, use apricots, greengages, or wedges of firm pear — anything that collapses but holds a shape. Roasting time is the same.
- The oats are best between 8 and 48 hours. After three days they go pasty.
