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Are overnight oats good for weight loss? They can be! Learn to make my healthy overnight oats recipe for weight loss; it’s filling and only about 300 calories! Learn how to prepare oats for weight loss, tips on how to eat oats for weight loss, and more! It’s easy to make gluten free, high protein, or vegan breakfast oats for weight loss!
Need a healthy breakfast idea that will help you in losing weight? Then consider adding my weight loss overnight oats recipe to your life!
I’ve noticed that I tend to do a lot of snacking mid-morning when I skip breakfast. Enjoying some heart-healthy overnight oats after I wake up helps keep me from overeating later in the day.
Of course, I don’t have to eat overnight oats to have a nutritious diet if I don’t want to. I could have a high protein frittata with eggs, veggies, and cheese. A fruit and yogurt bowl or some sweet potato toast would be other great ways to start the morning.
However, I think enjoying healthy overnight oats for weight loss is a great idea. It’s a grab-and-go no cook meal for busy weekdays mornings that offers portion control.
Plus, you can add lots of wholesome whole grain oats, fruit, and dairy while skipping the brown sugar, refined grains, and added oil. It’s far more nutrient-dense than your average breakfast muffin or pastry. You should find that it fills you up on far fewer calories than muffins and pastries too.
And that’s a major key to weight loss- you need to maintain a calorie deficit with (hopefully!) filling and nutritious meals. Some people do this with low carb and keto diets. Others (myself included) find ways to make grains like oatmeal low calorie and filling.
⭐ Overnight Oats Recipe for Weight Loss
Here are the ingredients you need to make overnight oats for weight loss:
- 1/3 cup dry oatmeal
- 5.3 oz plain Greek yogurt (nonfat, 150g)
- ¼ cup milk (2% milk, 1% milk, or skim milk)
- 1 tablespoon sugar-free maple syrup
- ½ teaspoon lemon zest
- ½ teaspoon poppy seeds (or chia seeds)
- 1 cup fresh blueberries
Get a printable recipe card at the end of the article!
Use old fashioned rolled oats or quick oats for this recipe. Using instant oats may lead to overly mushy overnight oatmeal and steel cut oats may not soften enough.
I use sugar-free syrup in this recipe to keep things added sugar free and lower in calories. Using real maple syrup instead adds 40-50 calories per serving.
If you don’t like the blueberry lemon poppy seed flavor I’ve got going on here, no worries. Check out the overnight oats toppings section below for lots of ways to flavor oatmeal.
Special diets: Make vegan overnight oats for weight loss with protein-packed soymilk and soy yogurt. You may also use almond milk, cashew milk, or oat milk. Use certified gluten-free oats for gluten free overnight oats for weight loss. It’s easy to tweak this recipe to fit a variety of dietary needs.
Kitchen equipment: To make weight loss overnight oatmeal, you need an overnight oats container. I like to use a pint-sized wide-mouth mason jar with lid. The lid helps keep dust and food crumbs out of the jar while it sits in the fridge.
You don’t have to use a glass jar however, about any food-safe container can work for overnight oats. Break out your Tupperware, other plastic containers, a bowl, or a large mug. Simply cover the container with plastic wrap if it doesn’t have a lid.
➕ How to Make Healthy Overnight Oats for Weight Loss
Here are the easy step-by-step instructions for how to make low cal overnight oats:
In a medium-sized bowl, stir together the oats, yogurt, milk, syrup, lemon zest, and poppy seeds. Put half of the mixture in your pint jar (or whatever food-safe container you’re using). Layer half the fresh blueberries on top.
Now put the rest of the oat mixture in the jar in an even layer. Finish with the rest of the fresh blueberries. Put the lid on the jar (or use plastic wrap) and refrigerate overnight to soak.
You can enjoy this low calorie breakfast straight from the fridge after at least 8 hours. You don’t have to cook overnight oats. (And you shouldn’t, as it may kill the beneficial bacteria, AKA probiotics, in the yogurt.)
How to Store Low Calorie Overnight Oats
Overnight oatmeal is made for storage! Keep this low calorie overnight oatmeal recipe in the refrigerator for up to 2-3 days. I usually make several jars at once for an easy weekday meal prep.
You can freeze some overnight oats recipes, but I don’t recommend it with this one. The fresh blueberries will get mushy on you with thawing and freezing.
📋 Overnight Oats Calories
One serving of this healthy overnight oatmeal for weight loss has 318 calories, 41.4 grams net carbs, and 24.6 grams protein. In general, I’d aim for a breakfast of 300-500 calories if you want to lose weight. (This is for folks who eat 3 meals of 300-500 calories each and 1-3 100-200 calorie snacks per day.)
How to Make 100 Calorie Overnight Oats
This low calorie overnight oats recipe contains about 100 calories of oats in it. However, it also contains other ingredients because 100 calories is not enough energy for a meal, even if your goal is weight loss.
Women shouldn’t maintain a diet under 1200 calories per day and men shouldn’t maintain a diet under 1500 calories without medical supervision (source). Though very low calorie diets can be an effective means of weight loss, they can increase the risk of vitamin and mineral deficiencies. A doctor or dietitian can help ensure you’re losing weight safely.
The average number of calories you can eat daily while losing weight varies by individual. A 300-calorie breakfast will not be enough food for some people. Active people in larger bodies may be able to lose weight while eating more calories than someone inactive who just wants to lose a few vanity pounds.
🥣️ What to Put in Oatmeal for Weight Loss
There are many ways to make low calorie overnight oats! Take our basic overnight oats recipe and make substitutions using the ideas below to make something that sounds good to you.
Fresh fruit and frozen fruits are my favorite low calorie mix-ins for overnight oats:
- Raspberries
- Strawberries
- Blackberries
- Bananas
- Apples
- Pears
- Cherries
- Peaches
- Plums
- Apricots
- Persimmons
- Pineapple
- Mango
- Mandarin oranges
- Papaya
- Kiwi
- Pomegranate
- Canned pumpkin (which is botanically a fruit!)
Dried fruits (raisins, etc.) have the water removed, which means you get more calories in a smaller volume. For this reason, they are not my top pick for low calorie overnight oatmeal.
To make overnight oats low calorie, you should use only small portions of high fat foods. Fat is a concentrated source of calories, with 9 calories per gram. Fats can turn a low calorie breakfast into a high calorie one quickly.
That said, it’s important to get some healthy fat in the diet. You get some fat from dairy and poppy seeds in this recipe.
Peanut butter, almond butter, walnuts, other nuts and nut butters, sunflower seeds, full-fat coconut milk, cream, Nutella, granola, and shredded coconut are other high fat foods. Flax seeds, chia seeds, and hemp seeds are good options for omega-3s (ALA).
Spices and extracts add lots of flavor to overnight oats for few calories. Vanilla extract, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, and pumpkin spice are some options. Cacao nibs or cocoa powder offer a much lower calorie chocolate flavor than chocolate chips.
Finally, here are a few options for low calorie overnight oats with added protein:
- Dry milk powder
- Peanut powder
- Cooked egg whites (for savory oats)
- Low fat cottage cheese
- Kefir (use this to make overnight oats for weight loss without yogurt)
- Skyr
- Protein powder (dairy-free plant-based protein or whey protein with no sugar added)
Watch How to Make It!
Healthy Overnight Oats Recipe for Weight Loss (Low Calorie!)
Ingredients
- ⅓ cup oatmeal, dry (rolled oats or old fashioned oats)
- 5.3 ounces Greek yogurt, non-fat (150 grams; plain, unsweetened)
- ¼ cup milk, 2%
- 1 tablespoon sugar-free maple syrup
- ½ teaspoon lemon zest
- ½ teaspoon poppy seeds (or chia seeds)
- 1 cup blueberries, fresh
Instructions
- In a medium-sized bowl, stir together the oats, yogurt, milk, syrup, lemon zest, and poppy seeds.
- In a wide-mouthed pint jar, layer half of the oat mixture, then half of the blueberries.
- Add the last half of the oat mixture to the jar, and top with the rest of the blueberries.
- Put the cover on the jar and refrigerate overnight before enjoying. Easy!
Equipment
Notes
💭 Expert Tips from Dietitian Summer Yule
This is a level 1 recipe (may help support fat loss). You can eat overnight oats for weight gain or for weight loss! It’s your overall calorie balance that leads to losing weight or gaining weight, not a specific food. In this recipe, we’re using low fat and nonfat dairy, fresh fruit, and sugar-free maple syrup. This gives us low calorie overnight oats with a big volume that fills the pint jar. We get fiber, protein, and fluid volume to help keep us full. What if I made overnight oats instead with whole milk or cream, whole milk yogurt, dried fruits, and real maple syrup? I could make a jar of overnight oats that is the exact same volume. However, this jar of oats will be at least 200-300 calories more than the low-calorie oats. Would I feel more full eating the higher calorie oats with the full fat dairy, sweetener, and dried fruit? I know I wouldn’t, so choosing the low cal oats won’t mean I’ll just snack more later. I’ll feel at least as satisfied (maybe more) choosing oats made with fresh fruit and low-fat dairy. This sort of thing can be a good thing to experiment with if you have weight loss goals. Do you find you feel satisfied for longer when you use fresh fruit versus dried? Does it make a difference to your feelings of fullness if you use reduced fat milk versus whole? Paying attention to how the food makes you feel can help you figure out things like what is the best sweetener for overnight oats for you. It can also be an early step in helping you to figure out the sort of diet pattern that may help you achieve permanent weight loss. Nutrition information is for one serving.
nutrition info disclaimer
All recipes on this website may or may not be appropriate for you, depending on your medical needs and personal preferences. Consult with a registered dietitian or your physician if you need help determining the dietary pattern that may be best for you.
The nutrition information is an estimate provided as a courtesy. It will differ depending on the specific brands and ingredients that you use. Calorie information on food labels may be inaccurate, so please don’t sweat the numbers too much.
“To taste” means to your preferences, which may have to be visual to follow food safety rules. Please don’t eat undercooked food x
Nutrition
Low Calorie Overnight Oats FAQs
Which oats are best to lose weight?
Your portion size, what’s added to the oats, and your overall diet is more important to weight loss than the type of oats. That said, overnight oats contain more of the prebiotic fiber resistant starch than cooked oats. Resistant starch may help increase feelings of fullness during meals.
Can I lose weight by eating only oats?
As long as you are in a calorie deficit you can lose weight with just about any food. However, I don’t recommend adopting a single food diet (such as only oatmeal) to lose weight. Though it may work temporarily, you’re setting yourself up for nutrient deficiencies, and the diet isn’t likely to be sustainable long-term.
Can oats reduce belly fat?
Unfortunately, “flat stomach oats recipes for weight loss” aren’t guaranteed because you can’t spot reduce belly fat by eating a certain food. You don’t get to decide what parts of the body the fat loss comes from as you lose weight. But, if you have excess belly fat, it will eventually decrease as you continue to lose weight.
Can we add sugar in oats for weight loss?
Added sugars are calorie dense, so while you may not have to give them up during weight loss, the portion size is small. One tablespoon of white sugar has 45 calories, maple syrup has 50 calories, and honey has 60 calories.
Can I eat overnight oats every day?
Yes, it’s generally fine to eat oats daily as part of a varied and overall balanced diet. Heart-healthy oats contain beta glucan, which may help improve your cholesterol levels (source). Additionally, oats may be replacing breakfast foods in your diet that are high in saturated fat.
What is the best time to eat oats for weight loss?
The answer to this question will vary by individual. I find eating oats in the morning helps to prevent late morning snacking. You might find having oats for dinner is helpful to your weight loss plan.
👩🏻🍳 More Overnight Oats Recipes for Weight Loss
Want more recipes for weight loss overnight oats? Here are a few more low calorie overnight oatmeal recipes to try:
- Overnight Oats with Protein Powder Recipe: This recipe has 25 grams of protein and is an easy and healthy way to make a high protein breakfast with natural sweeteners.
- Applesauce Overnight Oats: Learn how to make overnight oats with applesauce with this high protein and no sugar added recipe.
- Overnight Oats with Frozen Fruit: This recipe for overnight oats with frozen berries and yogurt is an inexpensive way to make overnight oats when berries aren’t in season.
- Pineapple Overnight Oats: This overnight oats recipe with fresh pineapple and macadamia nuts will show you how to sweeten overnight oats without sugar. It’s easy to make gluten free as well.
- Blended Overnight Oats Recipe (Biscoff Overnight Oats): This delicious recipe lives at the intersection of breakfast and dessert. It’s a yummy place to be!
🍳 Other Low Calorie Breakfast Recipes
Need other ideas for low calorie breakfast foods for weight gain? I got you! Take a look at these:
- Low Calorie Baked Oatmeal Recipe (learn how to cook oats for weight loss)
- Slow Cooker Steel Cut Oats
- Crustless Keto Mini Quiche
- Baked Oats with Egg White
- Baked Protein Oatmeal with Meat
- Blackberry Strawberry Banana Smoothie Recipe
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Hello! I’m Summer, a registered dietitian and home chef who loves to cook, eat, and create recipes for you! Every recipe on this site has been tested by me to help ensure your success in the kitchen. All eaters are welcome here 🙂
Looks healthy and delicious. Can’t wait to try it.
Hi Angie! I’d love to hear how it goes when you do 🙂