Instant Homemade Oatmeal Packets Hack ~ a cheaper and healthier recipe with less salt and sugar

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It’s really easy to make your own Homemade Oatmeal Packets. Our DIY instant oatmeal packets recipe is not just cheaper – it’s also healthier! Less salt and less sugar with all the taste.

by Robin

Breakfast is the one meal of the day that everyone here eats something different.  We can’t agree on a single best food to start our days. 

We can’t even agree on how many breakfasts is appropriate.  My daughter eats like a Lumberjack crossed with a Hobbit. 

We have even taken to using the Hobbit terms: she has “Breakfast” and then she has “Second Breakfast”.  (I am pretty sure she eats “Elevensies” later at school, too).

One of her breakfasts is always instant oatmeal.  She eats 2 packets for Second Breakfast alone! 

After figuring out the costs and the sodium content of all these Instant Oatmeal Packets, it became clear that a simple hack for homemade instant oatmeal packets was desperately needed.

This recipe is simple to make.  Ten minutes tops.  I get my daughter to help with the measuring and mixing and putting the mixture into the baggies.  When kids help with preparing food, they are more likely to feel ready to try it, if it’s new.  This worked for us when I introduced this recipe and many others.

Sodium…

We are careful about sodium in our house.  Obsessive? No.  Strict?  No.  Careful means we avoid eating too much, as best as we can.  

Each oatmeal packet from my NoName box has 340mg.  So the 2 packet meal my daughter was having: 780 mg of sodium!  The servings in our recipe are larger than the store-bought packets, so one is enough. 

 
This recipe has less than 100 mg of sodium.  You could also cut the salt out completely, which we may do in the future. 

As for cost… 
This recipe costs less than half of the NoName version.  At last check, a box of the NoName Instant Oatmeal costs $2.49 for 10 packets.  Roughly $0.25 per packet (or $.49 if you eat 2 at a time, like my little Lumberjack-girl).  Not everyone likes the NoName version, so you’re looking at more cost for the fancy-schmancy Quaker variety.  


I estimate our version costs about $0.15 for a larger serving. 

Enough talk.  Here’s the Homemade Instant Oatmeal Packets recipe:

Click here for the free Printable/Tablet Friendly recipe:

Hope you like it!  What are your family’s favourite breakfasts?

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