Cold oatmeal replacement for quick breakfast

Forget dry cereal; try the PROBAR Meal Bars.
Several flavors
3 ounces packs 360 calories
2 of these as you're packing up or walking out of camp = 720 calories. No cereal can match that.

http://theprobar.com/product/oatmeal-raisin/

For on-trail snacks, look at the PROBAR Fuel bars – blueberry, cherry, strawberry, and cran-raspberry.

Also available – PROBAR Core = 20 gm of protein each

Also available – PROBAR Bolt – organic energy chews

Not available in a WF bin, but Quaker Granola cereal is 'da bomb.

Lots of calories and tastes great.

I do well with a good granola, eaten with water. I used to add in powdered milk, but have since stopped.

I take two versions, one with lots of nuts, and one with lots of dried fruit. I can get about 400 calories into a Zipliock "Snack" bag. I eat out of the bag as I'm packing up.

The crunch is a welcome change from the texture of bars. The "variety" is minimal, but sufficient.

YMMV

Honestly? I've eaten many a bagel with nut or seed butter on them ;-)

I'm a fan of 'purely elizabeth' granola, add some extra nuts/fruits if needed, when eating dry.

Also a fan of Superfood oat-based cereal, but you'd have to repackage as they come in these paper cups, when eating wet.

I agree with Bob–I'm a big fan of the Probars.

Tasty, and nothing to clean up either, which wins big points in my book.

Before I get out of my quilt (well, technically, after I get out of my quilt, go get the bear can, then climb back in my quilt), I eat a protein bar, a Hammer Gel, and a Payday. Then I pack up and hit the trail, and stop in 3-5 miles for a bigger breakfast. This way, when I do take my breakfast break, it serves two purposes: to give me a break from hiking, and to eat.

I found the same thing that you are finding–when I start with a big breakfast, it takes me too long to get out of camp.

Dunno about straight cold oatmeal – maybe a bit boring, but look up 'muesli'. Oatmeal plus dried fruits plus nuts plus …
I am typing this while eating my breakfast muelsi with yoghurt and chopped fruit.

Cheers

Thanks. Should have been clearer about nutritionally taking the place of oatmeal (mostly the cardio bennies) … or some Frosted Flakes (they're grrrrrreat!) would suffice. Actually staying away from bagels as those were my lunch in 85 degree heat on my last backpack – the cinnamon raisin does work with a sweetish imperial stout though ( they're grrrrrreat!)

I have been, and will be using this summer for about 2/3 of my breakfasts. I never feel hungry in the morning and these will encourage me a bit where I need to get more energy into me:

https://bigsurbar.com/

They have a sweetened oatmeal base with nuts and depending on the version dates, or chocolate chips. They make a good no-cook breakfast of 600 cal. They are a bit expensive, about the same per cal as an energy bar, but much more tasty. They had them at my local whole foods type grocery, and I ordered a couple dozen directly. Fast delivery even though it is a small company. The original flavor, BTW, one has the all-important chocolate! :-) The date ones are also good.

Anyway, another mostly oatmeal idea you could try to break things up.

I eat rolled oats for breakfast at home. At home I soak them overnight then add a little milk in the morning and chuck it in the microwave for a minute. No sugar or other additives, just the milk.

Like Greg, out bush I have them cold with no milk. I also soak them overnight. When I fist did this I added powdered milk, but its a gluggy way to do it unless you are heating it up and/or using a fair bit of excess water. Makes cleaning up hard (this is the same adding it the night before or in the morning). So now I just have simple cold water oats.

After you eat them for a while at home, going to cold water oats in the field is not an issue whatsoever.

If you like oatmeal and don't want to cook, cold oatmeal is great, without the fuss of soaking overnight.

You can buy the individually sealed packets. They come in a variety of flavors and with instant dry milk added it's just like eating it cold at home if anyone's done that.

You can also use plain oatmeal (the instant type) and add whatever flavoring you want.

I grew up eating it cold like this in the summer months.

Try it at home. Just put whatever flavor oatmeal you want into a bowl, add milk and eat. It's not much different than eating Cheerois with fruit or whatever you'd like.

In camp, put some instant milk (not powdered milk) into your eating container, add water and stir. Add a little more instant milk powder until it tastes like milk and add your oatmeal contents from the package. Stir and eat. No soaking necessary. I do this sometimes for breakfasts on the trail.

I normally vacuum seal my food in bulk but occasionally use snap lock bags.

Breakfast consists of 1 cup of toasted muesli (something with heaps of energy) and 1/4 cup of full cream milk powder. I cut the top off the packet and add cold water, mix and eat while sitting upright but warm under my quilt in the tent.

Granola bars would be my first no-cook breakfast. But then you would find me with no coffee, which would add to the legends of evil transformation beasts.

+1 on bagels early in the trip. Add Laughing Cow cheese or peanut butter and jam. Pilot bread or hardtack too. Gorp works, which is really a loose granola bar, IMHO. Dried fruit, berries, nuts, etc.

You can get packaged cooked bacon too :)

We've always liked Alpen Muesli:

http://www.amazon.com/Alpen-Natural-Muesli-Cereal-Original/dp/B0046HJVMQ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1405010729&sr=8-3&keywords=muesli+alpen

Otherwise any of the better granola bars, or home-made versions thereof.

During the summer months I'm not in need of a hot breakfast, and I'm also not inclined to an extra cleanup chore after cold oatmeal. So I rely on the oft voted favorite: Bear Valley Pemmican bars (they're not really pemmican in the commonly understood sense, as they have no meat, but they are a complete protein and pack 400 – 440 calories depending on the bar, and one of the ingredients happens to be oats, if that's what you like. The flavors are carob-cocao (my favorite), fruit 'n nut, & coconut almond. These bars are very dense, leaving one with a quite full, satisfied feeling.

Quaker makes a version called Quick Oats. It's in the same type of container that their regular oatmeal comes in. You don't have to cook it or soak it. Just add milk. I like it cold.

If you don't have milk, add some Nido powdered milk and various flavorings to it. My 'go to' mix is cinnamon, chocolate chips and almond slivers. Just mix that up in a Ziplock bag, add a bit of water and it's ready to eat.

Put whatever you like in there. It's quick, easy, cheap, nutritious and tastes good (at least to me).

>"Granola bars would be my first no-cook breakfast"

+1

If you cook up oatmeal, add raisins or craisins, nuts, and some brown sugar or honey, AND THEN DRIED IT OUT (to save weight), you'd basically have an oatmeal cookie.

So bring oatmeal cookies for breakfast and bring that much less fuel (or go entirely no-cook). My many reason for doing that is because sitting around a stove for 4-10 minutes waiting for water to boil and then waiting longer for the oatmeal to cook/saturate makes me colder than if I just start hiking. Cookies, I can eat as a I hike.

And, if you can't even manage to bake cookies in advance, these are pretty tasty:

+1 on cookies for breakfast. I miss those heavy, delicious oatmeal cookies from Dudley's Bakery in Santa Ysabel.

I do cold cereal with powdered milk in a ziplock bag. have whatever variety you normally like. small flake or O's type hold up better than cornflake types. Granola would be good too.

poptarts for a walking breakfast is good too.. thru hike staple. 400cal per packet of 2. 3.3oz