I grew up on oatmeal so it’s a staple breakfast food around our house. My dad used to make huge pots of oatmeal and I’ve always loved the endless flavor options. We eat it several times a week and it’s wonderful because it’s cheap and fills everyone up.

With 8 people in our house though, the cost of instant oatmeal can really add up . . . especially since my boys each eat 2-3 packets of oatmeal in a sitting. I’m afraid for the teenage years.

I love using regular rolled oats to cut cost and so I have control over the ingredients. We’ll often just make a large pot of oatmeal but we definitely have mornings when we need to make something in a hurry. This nearly instant oatmeal method uses regular rolled oats but you can have a bowl made in 3 minutes.

The bananas cook with the oatmeal and develop a wonderful, sweet almost caramelized flavor so we’ll generally eat this oatmeal without any added sugar so it’s a great healthy breakfast option too!

Ingredients

1/2 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup milk

1 banana, sliced

dash of cinnamon

Preparation

Slice a banana and put the slices in the bottom of a bowl. You’ll want a nice, deep bowl for this so it doesn’t bubble over in the microwave.

Cover the banana with 1/2 cup of rolled oats and 1/2 cup of milk. I like using whole milk for this because it gives it such a creamy texture but use whatever you have on hand. My daughter is allergic to dairy so we’ll often make this with coconut milk for her.

Sprinkle the oatmeal with a bit of cinnamon. This adds some extra flavor so you don’t even notice that there’s no sugar added.

Put the bowl in the microwave for a minute and a half.

Stir.

Cook for another minute and a half in the microwave. Allow it to cool and you are ready to go. Yum!

I pour a little bit of extra milk over it at the end. Everyone in my family loves this and it checks all the boxes: healthy, cheap, delicious. What’s not to love?