Cooking Oatmeal in Microwave

[FrugalTexan75]

With the cooler weather (finally!) having arrived here in Texas, I am back to wanting to eat a warm bowl of oatmeal in the morning. I don't want to take the time to cook it in a pot, so I use a mircorwave. I find that sometimes I'm able to cook it, and not have it go over the sides of the bowl, but more often than not, it bubbles over the sides and creates a mess inside my microwave.

So, what I am looking for are ideas on what I can do to make sure that I don't have the "overflow" problem when cooking oatmeal in my microwave. BTW - I don't use the instant oatmeal, and I follow the package directions for cooking in the micro (though I use milk instead of water.)

Thanks for any ideas!

Keeping It Frugal in Texas,
Laura

[miclason]

Whenever I use non-instant otameal in the micro, I give it half the time the directions indicate, then take it out, stir it and put it back in for a second "twirl" for the other half of the time indicated...this seems to help with the overflowing (and ensures more even cooking- I feel)

[FrugalTexan75]

Thanks! That makes sense. I've tried decreasing the time, but then find that some of the oats aren't throughly cooked. But taking it out half-way through and stirring - that would probably work quite well!

Keeping It Frugal in Texas,
Laura

[retire@50]

Instead of cooking oatmeal in the microwave I cook a big batch on the stove on the weekends and just heat portions of it up in the microwave, works very well. Keeps several days in the rifrigerator. I'm not a fan of microwave cooking I always think things don't taste quite right, but heating them up tastes fine to me. Maybe it's just me

[happi_spirit]

Half the time, I just cook my noodles in the microwave.

[Kedi]

I mix Quaker oatmeal & Grape Nuts 1/2 and 1/2 equal amounts
I make a whole bunch of this mixture up way in advance
I reuse a Quaker oatmeal round container to store it in
then as needed I take 1 cup of this mixture
add 1 cup milk in a bowl
microwave on high 2 minutes
add a little raw sugar
add more milk to consistancy
sometimes I add a little cinnamon or fruit

believe it or not my 2 parrots get this for breakfast every day
a 1 cup batch last about a week for them -- unless I get into it for me!
to reheat for them - I put 2 spoonfuls in a ceramic dish
reheat in the microwave on high 20 seconds
then add milk or water to consistancy

[disneysteve]

I don't know why this old thread got dredged up but it is funny because I just had microwaved oatmeal for breakfast this morning. A couple of comments:

I've noticed that different brands of oatmeal have different microwave directions. The Wal-Mart brand says to microwave on high for 3 minutes. The Wegman's brand says to microwave on medium for 6 minutes. So that's something to consider.

What I do is the 3 minutes on high but after just over 2 minutes, I stay at the microwave. When it is about to bubble over, I pause the microwave for about 10 seconds and then restart it (don't open the door). I repeat that several times during that last minute cooking in 10 second bursts to complete the 3 minutes. That works just fine.

Of course, another option might be to use a deeper bowl and reduce the chance of it bubbling over.

[FrugalTexan75]

Steve,

It is funny that this got pulled back up. What I ended up doing is getting six deep bowls that I rotate through. Since getting these bowls, I've had only three or four instances of spillage.