The Simple Way To Serve Up Morning Oatmeal For A Crowd

There are so many ways to make oatmeal a tastier dish — our favorite is adding protein powder and Greek yogurt to your morning oats — and yet, there are seemingly few methods for making bigger portions of it. While some will accomplish this by using a larger pot and doubling or tripling their recipe on the stove, an even more effective way to make a lot of oatmeal at once is by using an Instant Pot to get the job done.

We touched on this strategy among the countless mistakes people make when cooking their oatmeal when we touted the Instant Pot method as one of the best. Making oatmeal in an Instant Pot is not only efficient — you can use it to make enough oatmeal to feed four people, if not more — but it also gives your oatmeal a unique texture that is way more appetizing than what you'll get by making the dish on the stove or in the microwave. Plus, beyond preparing and consolidating the ingredients into the Instant Pot, using the device to make oatmeal is a hands-free tactic that allows you to multitask much easier as you prepare a potentially large breakfast in the kitchen.

While cooking oatmeal in an Instant Pot has several advantages, it isn't without its fair share of faults. For starters, it takes a total of 20 minutes inside a pressure cooker for oatmeal to be ready; This includes the time it takes for the Instant Pot to pressurize (around eight minutes) and to subsequently depressurize through the device's natural-release method, which takes an additional 10 minutes. This means that Instant Pot oatmeal takes a fair bit longer to cook, compared to oatmeal made on the stove or in the microwave. Furthermore, oatmeal can sometimes foam up and clog an Instant Pot's vent or overflow and seep out of the device, resulting in a frustrating mess.

While these problems may turn you off from using an Instant Pot — despite its several benefits — there are plenty of other devices to use if you want to make oatmeal without using the stove or the microwave. To make a large quantity of oatmeal, using a slow cooker overnight is likely your best bet. Alternatively, just like you can make rice in an Instant Pot, you can also make oatmeal in a rice cooker if you're looking for a quick, hands-off method of making a slightly smaller quantity of the porridge. However you cook it, your next round of oatmeal is sure to be a satisfying crowd-pleaser.