There’s a new food trend that’s way hotter right now — as long as it’s prepared correctly. Oatmeal, the glue-hued classic breakfast dish, is an unlikely craze, but suddenly it’s everywhere. Starbucks has hawked its “Perfect Oatmeal” for a year and a half, and now McDonald’s and Caribou Coffee are going with the grain, too, so all three chains are hoping Washingtonians warm up to the idea.
“We can customize it, change and adapt its taste so easily with toppings. It’s like vanilla ice cream,” boasts Alfredo Martel, Caribou’s senior vice president of marketing. But unlike the dessert, oatmeal allows them to go after health-conscious customers looking for an easy way to start their day.
Sounds smart to Estela Schnelle (Weeklybite.com), a registered dietician and the director of clinical nutrition at D.C.’s Sibley Hospital, who is thrilled to see so many folks get bowled over. “When it comes to whole grains, you can’t get much better than oatmeal for cholesterol and heart benefits,” she says.
The fiber-packed fare is certainly a steel-cut above the usual breakfast-on-the-go menu of doughnuts, pastries and egg sandwiches. And most of these offerings allow customers to select what goes into a plain base (see box), so it’s easier to keep the calorie count and fat content down by watching those spoonfuls of sugar and skipping the whole milk.
As with virtually all foods, however, your best bet is making your own oatmeal. Schnelle’s standby recipe calls for old-fashioned oats — they’re less processed than the instant kind and have more fiber — skim milk, banana for creaminess and a few raisins. She’s also been inspired lately by the flood of food bloggers who’ve been dreaming up ways to make gruel gourmet. There’s no cooking required for overnight oats. Simply combine oats with Greek yogurt and some milk, and the mixture will thicken up while you sleep. Baked oats involve adding egg whites and sticking it in the oven. “You can mix cottage cheese in, put in pumpkin puree and pumpkin spice, or stir in pineapple and coconut to make tropical oats,” Schnelle rattles off. “Or, a spoonful of peanut butter and a few semi-sweet chocolate chips. The peanut butter just melts in.”
Want to get extra-creative without a stocked kitchen? Head to the Cereal Bowl, which will open its first D.C. location in Cleveland Park in about a month, where oatmeal cookers are built into the counters and the menu features six signature oatmeal offerings, including best-sellers “Dad Knows Best” (with strawberries, bananas and blueberries) and “Mom Knows More” (with apple pie filling, caramel and graham bites). Any of the shop’s countless toppings are fair game for people who want to experiment.
But chances are no one will concoct anything quite as unusual as the Cereal Bowl’s “Oaties” — frosty fruit drinks with a special kick. “Putting cereal in smoothies didn’t work, but raw oats thickened them up without powders,” raves CEO Kenneth Rader. “A lot of people who don’t think they like oatmeal still like them.”
If this trend keeps up, it won’t be long until everyone will be hauling oats.
BEST BITES: THE BREAKFAST CLUB
» Starbucks Perfect Oatmeal ($2.45) starts with a plain, 140-calorie bowl. Then, you get packets of brown sugar (50 calories), dried fruit (100 calories) and nuts (100 calories) to dump on top, ration out or skip completely. (Or, you’re supposed to. Our last order had no nuts.)
» Caribou Coffee Handcrafted Oatmeal ($2.75) is all about choices. It comes in two varieties: regular and seven-grain. Once you select your base, you choose classic, maple brown sugar crunch, apple cinnamon, very berry or cranberry orange. Then decide whether you want it made with 2 percent, skim or soy milk. Depending on what you go for, the end result ranges from 280 calories to 430 calories.
» McDonald’s Fruit & Maple Oatmeal ($1.99) comes just one way: maple flavored and sprinkled with fresh apple chunks, raisins and dried cranberries. But even with the works, a serving has only 280 calories.
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