You’ve heard of oats overnight. If they haven’t sponsored your favorite food influencer, then you’ve probably seen them through Instagram ads, or popping up in your local grocery store. They boast an easy and delicious breakfast that you can prep the night before. But as a vegan option, are they worth it?
Oats Overnight already has a Bestseller’s Bundle that we can use to discern the most popular flavors. In this review, I will be touching upon these flavors, as well as my personal favorites.
A Review of Oats Overnight
Oats Overnight does, actually, make breakfast significantly easier. They provide you with a container—either their signature shaker, if you are doing their subscription, or the bottle it comes in, if you purchase from the grocery store—so all you have to do is add your milk of choice to the fill line, add your pre-packaged oatmeal, shake, and then store in the fridge overnight. The next morning, take it out, shake it again, and you’re good to go.
The container they provide with the subscription is dishwasher safe and easy to clean. It’s very durable, and utilizing it this way through the subscription helps to cut down on costs and save plastic. Each packet is completely pre-prepared, so all you have to do is dump it into your “mylk” of choice and go. A subscription box can get you a month of daily breakfasts, or you can adjust the length to deliver less frequently if you do not enjoy them everyday.
The major downside to Oats Overnight does seem to be the texture. You are drinking oatmeal, so to some, it may be off-putting. It is not solid, and the consistency reminds me of a thick smoothie. Some people blend the oats to improve the texture, which works well, but adds an extra step.
How to Know When an Oats Overnight Flavor is Dairy Free
Oats Overnight has a wide selection of vegan flavors, the main difference from their dairy flavors being that they utilize pea protein instead of whey. Many of their top sellers are from their whey lineup, but the company continues to test and rollout new vegan flavors through their FID (Flavor in Development) program.
Other than reading the ingredient label, you can also tell when a flavor is vegan because the subtitle will say “Just add mylk” instead of milk. It will also be labeled and categorized accordingly on their website, if you are utilizing their subscription program. All of their flavors are either made with whey or fully plant-based, so you will not find any that are dairy-free but have other animal products in them.
Do the Vegan Oats Overnight Flavors Have Less Protein?
No, the vegan flavors do not have less protein than the whey flavors. They both carry 20g of protein per pack. Additionally, they all carry at least 6g of fiber from the flax and chia seeds.
20g of protein is high for such an easy breakfast, although anyone adding milk is going to get an extra 10g+ from that. If you are looking for extra protein in yours, I recommend an unflavored soy milk. It can be an easy, high protein option for anyone looking for breakfast on-the-go.
Reviewing Popular Oats Overnight Flavors
1. Cinnamon Roll
Cinnamon Roll is their most popular vegan protein flavor, according to their website. This is a flavor that they often advertise along with a marketing slogan, “Dessert for Breakfast?” While I liked this flavor, I think that calling it Cinnamon Roll is slightly inaccurate. It tastes like cinnamon, but since they use monk fruit and maple sugar as the sweetener, it isn’t as sweet as a cinnamon roll normally would be. This was a common theme I found among the dessert flavors—tasty, but not actually a replacement for the real thing like they advertise.
2. Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip
Their Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip flavor is their second bestselling vegan flavor. I felt as if the flavor was very mild, likely because it is flavored with peanut flour. The chocolate chips are nice for textural variety, but they are small and sparse. It has 7g of fiber—1g more than most packs.
I’m not sure who I would recommend this flavor to. Definitely not a peanut butter lover, since the flavor isn’t strong, but maybe someone who is searching for a mild flavor to get started.
3. Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough is another from their bestsellers box. It’s popular, even among consumers who normally enjoy the whey flavors. Of all the dessert flavors, I do think this is the one that tastes most like the flavor it is named after, although it’s still not a replacement, just because it’s not as sweet. If you are a regular cookie dough fan, I would say to give this one a try. It’s certainly the healthiest cookie dough you could have for breakfast.
4. Pecan Pie
As of the time of writing this review, Pecan Pie is one of their newest flavors. Similar to other flavors, it is sweetened with date powder and monk fruit, and contains pieces of pecans to provide textural variety, which is something that’s much needed when drinking oatmeal. While the date powder doesn’t work in all their flavors, I thought it worked great here. The flavor was well balanced, and is one of my favorites.
5. Maple Pancakes
I adore the Maple Pancakes flavor. It’s one of my favorite flavors from Oats Overnight. If you love maple, I would recommend giving this one a try. It is flavored with molasses powder and maple sugar, which makes it feel sweeter while only having 9g of sugar. Does it taste like pancakes? No, of course not, but if you have ever enjoyed maple oatmeal from a common brand such as Quaker, this is a great comparison.
6. Banana Bread
The Banana Bread flavor is divisive among subscribers. Some say that it is even mushier than normal, and some fans love it. I personally wasn’t the biggest fan, although I did not think it was bad. It had a maple flavor, which was unexpected. The banana flavor was mild. If you think you may like this one, I encourage you to try it.
My Personal Favorite Vegan Oats Overnight Flavors
Oats Overnight currently has 13 vegan flavors. And while their 6 most popular are listed above, there are thirteen total, with more consistently in development. Of these flavors, there are three more that I constantly reorder and would recommend to anyone.
1. Caramel Cold Brew
Caramel Cold Brew is my favorite flavor currently available from Oats Overnight. It’s delicious, sweetened with caramelized sugar, date powder, and monk fruit. Despite that, it’s not sweet. It tastes like cold brew coffee, and as a regular latte lover, I can’t get enough of it. If you love coffee, give this one a try. It has a mellow coffee flavor with 77mg of caffeine included (which is great, since Oats Overnight’s new protein coffee line currently has no vegan flavors).
2. Dark Chocolate Sea Salt
Oat Overnight’s Dark Chocolate Sea Salt is one of the highest rated flavors on their platform, with a 4.6/5 star review rating—and I agree. It’s decadent, rich, and the only one of these flavors that I would actually have for dessert. It’s wonderful, with mini chocolate chips to add that textural variety that works so well. The major downside to this flavor is that it only has 10g of protein, whereas most flavors have 20g. If I am preparing this for myself and need the extra protein, I add my own scoop of pea protein powder to increase the content, which never causes any issues. This is probably my most consumed flavor, and I never get sick of it.
3. Iced Lemon Loaf
As someone who doesn’t normally love citrusy flavors, Iced Lemon Loaf surprised me. It’s not tart like you may expect, nor is it overly sweet like icing. The lemon flavor doesn’t taste artificial—as I feel like many packaged products do. It feels lighter than other flavors, making it great for the summer. Overall, I feel like this is one of those catch-all flavors that I think everyone should try, regardless of if they eat a plant-based diet or not.
Would I Recommend Oats Overnight’s Vegan Flavors?
Without a doubt, yes! The lineup of flavors is very diverse, and the company is constantly testing new flavors to diversify their catalogue even further. They also have wonderful customer support, including a program where they will let you swap flavors you don’t like for packets you do.
My only caveat is that if you are strange about textures, this may not be the product for you. It does have a mushy texture, and is initially designed to be drunk rather than eaten (although there are instructions on how to prepare to eat it with a spoon). But if you do not foresee this being a problem—for example, if you regularly make overnight oats or smoothies at home—then definitely give it a try!
