Cherry Lime Overnight Oats

Cherry lime overnight oats is a simple and tasty make-ahead breakfast recipe with oats, yogurt, sweet cherries, and lime.

this recipe

Here's to cherry season, healthy breakfasts, and not melting. During those 95-degree summer heat waves, no-cook breakfasts are the name of the game! Lucky for us, smoothies and ice cream aren't the only way to keep you and your kitchen cool. Not that I've ever eaten ice cream for breakfast. Recently.

First, let's talk CHERRIES. Sweet (or tart!) little gems that come around once a year and are one of my favorite treat-myself items at the Saturday farmers market. Growing up, my family would go cherry picking every summer in Door County, and we'd bring home buckets of tart cherries to eat, make pies, and freeze for future pies.

But the awesome thing about cherry orchards? They have these massive cherry-pitting machines where you can get all of your cherries pitted right before leaving the orchard... and put down a cherry pastry or two from their gift shop while you watch. It's like a giant 10-hole punch for cherries!

If only I could have a giant machine pit my cherries today... because pitting cherries is kinda-sorta the pits. Are they worth it? 100% yes. I use this little cherry-pitting number, which makes pitting cherries manually a pretty simple task -- something mindless you can do while listening to a podcast or music. Cherry juice splatters are guaranteed, so don't be like me and dare them to splatter in the direction of your white shirt... because let me tell you, those cherries do not mess around.

Well? Let's get these cherry lime overnight oats chilling in the fridge for your breakfast tomorrow.

How to Make Cherry Lime Overnight Oats

So, this is sort of sweet cherry situation as opposed to a tart cherry situation, primarily because the lime complements the sweetness beautifully. And trust me -- this isn't like straight-up sour lime juice. I mean it totally is, until you combine it with all the other ingredients and it becomes more of a creamy key lime pie kinda thing. Here's what you need:

• Sweet cherries
• Oats
• Chia seeds
• Milk
• Greek yogurt
• Lime juice & zest
• Vanilla extract
• Honey

You'll want to start by pitting the cherries using a handheld pitter like we talked about. Set those aside until you're ready to use them, which will either be before the overnight oats go in the fridge, or after. I tend to switch off -- sometimes I prefer adding the fruit after because it stays fresher and keeps its shape. On the other hand, adding it prior allows time for all the fruit juices to meld with all the other flavors... and then you can add even more fresh fruit the next morning. It's a win-win if you ask me.

Okay, so pitted cherries. You've got them? Good. Combine all the other ingredients into a mason jar or a bowl. If you're using a mason jar, it helps to use something with a wide mouth and at least enough room for two cups of ingredients. For a bowl, a medium or large size will work well for this recipe. Either shake the mason jar (really shake it to incorporate that honey!) or stir the ingredients together in the bowl so that they're well-incorporated.

Then, just let that sit in the fridge overnight so it can magically transform into your breakfast the next morning. As we talked about, either cherries in before the fridge, or cherries in after. Or go crazy and do both 🙂

Moral of the story here is that if you're all about having very few obstacles between you and your breakfast, cherry lime overnight oats are for you! I mean, besides all the previous pitting that had to be done. But you accomplished a lot of Netflix during that, remember? Very productive.

Once you try this, don't stop at cherry lime! Overnight oats is an opportune moment for creativity. Blueberry lemon zest, anyone?

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