This bowl of oats embodies what whole plant-based eating is all about for me: getting to eat something scrumptious, filling and delightfully sweet, that’s also incredibly good for you! No compromise either on health or taste – it’s a beautiful win-win situation leaving you feeling satisfied (physically and emotionally) and almost a bit smug!

The recipe for this all came about while wondering what to prepare for breakfast when my boyfriend was over. As he’s vegetarian and sadly not (yet?) a fan of plant milk, he’ll usually go for muesli and dairy milk at my place. He’s always been very accommodating to my way of eating, e.g., making sure there is always rice milk at his place. So when we happened to be out of dairy milk, I started thinking about what we could enjoy together. Coconut milk (the thick kind, for cooking) popped into my head as a more creamy alternative to plant milk. Combined with oats, mashed banana, cacao and peanut butter it creates such a wonderful and naturally sweet breakfast bowl.

Creamy Chocolate Peanut Butter Overnight Oats

Makes: 1 serving

Ingredients

• 40g oats
• plant mylk
• 1 banana
• 2 tbsp coconut milk (the kind you use for cooking)*
• 1 heaped tsp cacao powder
• 1 generous tbsp peanut butter
• (optional: cacao nibs to decorate and honey or maple syrup for extra sweetness)

*You want to make sure that you get the thick part of the coconut milk, not any water that’s separated from it. Alternatively you can buy coconut cream.

Method

1. Place the oats in a small bowl and cover with just enough rice milk to make everything wet – the oats shouldn’t be swimming in it. Cover and leave in the fridge overnight.
2. In the morning, mash a banana and add it to the oats along with the coconut milk, cacao and peanut butter. The first time I made it I added some maple syrup, but that made it almost too sweet – it felt too much like dessert, according to my boyfriend. (Not that that was necessarily a bad thing, he added…) But we both found that it’s perfectly sweet enough without further sweetener. I’d suggest trying it like this and then adding sweetener if desired.

Variation: If you’re out of peanut butter (a misfortune I try to protect myself against and hope never happens to you!) or just want to switch things up, try this with tahini instead of peanut butter. My boyfriend actually prefers this version. Here I added a tiny bit of maple syrup though, to combat any potential bitterness from the tahin. (See the tahini version below – unfortunately I didn’t have time to decorate properly, as I had a flight to catch!)

Feel Good Fact #1: Oats protect against heart disease, thanks to their high fiber content and unique compounds, while also stabilizing blood sugar and reducing the risk for type 2 diabetes.

Feel Good Fact #2: Cacao is incredibly high in antioxidants, which neutralize free radical damage and it can also enhance our mood, making us feel good. What better way to start the day?