Add Canned Fruit To Your Oats For A Sweeter Take On Breakfast

Although many people view oats as a bland and boring breakfast option, they are a very versatile grain that can be prepared in many delicious ways. Cook it into oatmeal, soak it overnight, blend it into a smoothie, or bake it into cereal bars. No matter your choice, this grain is full of nutritious value and can be sweetened and flavored to your liking. While fresh fruit is one of the tastiest oatmeal toppings to add, canned fruit is a fantastic alternative and will sweeten your oatmeal just like its fresh counterpart.

You have a ton of options when it comes to sweetening your oat breakfast with canned fruit. Most grocery stores have a variety of tinned peaches, pears, pineapples, and mandarin oranges. You can even find canned grapefruit and fried apples. On the other hand, you can use berry, cherry, apple, and peach pie fillings to sweeten your oats. All of these tinned options work particularly well in oatmeal, smoothies, and overnight oats recipes.

Many tinned fruit products come in water with no added sugar or in their natural fruit juices, so you want to either drain them well or reduce the amount of liquid in your recipe to compensate. If your fruit comes tinned in a syrup, you can either use the extra sweetness to your advantage, or drain and rinse it off before adding the fruit to your oat breakfast.

If you plan ahead, you can turn any tinned fruit into something different before adding it to your oat breakfast. Making a fruit compote is one option and an excellent canned fruit hack to know for many recipes: It only takes about an hour to make. If you prepare it the night before, refrigerate it overnight, and then add it straight to your overnight oats or smoothie. As an oatmeal topping, you can heat it a little before adding it.

Another option is to make jam with canned fruit to add to your oat breakfast. Just keep in mind that unsweetened varieties work best for jam and jelly products because the recipes call for sugar. If your preferred tinned fruit is only available sweetened, you'll need to reduce how much sugar you add for your jam recipe. And, don't forget to add pectin because commercially canned fruit is ripe and has a low pectin content, which is needed to form the gel factor in jam. You can stir the jam right into hot oatmeal, and you can use it in other breakfast dishes too.