My son is currently obsessed with porridge. He is the only one in the family with this unnatural obsession so it doesn’t make sense to cook up a whole pot for one serve. We had been buying the instant porridge packets but apart from the fact they are overpriced and overloaded with sugar the DIY frugal mother in me couldn’t carry on paying for them.
Solution: 1 bag of quick oats, some snack sized zip-lock bags and a 3 year old helper.
I used quick oats which is actually just normal oats that have been blitzed in a blender. But my quick oats were the same price of normal oats so blitzing them did not make sense for this time poor mom.
I followed the microwave instructions on the packet, which was 1/3 cup of porridge with 2/3 cups of milk. I measured out the milk into one bag and marked it with a permanent marker pen. I then used this fill line mark to mark all 20 of my bags. This allows me to pour the milk into the empty oats bag as a measuring tool, saving time.
I then proceeded to add 1/3 cup of oats to all of the bags, by me I mean my 3 year old helper.
That is it. When you want to use open up the individual serve, pour into a microwave safe bowl, fill the bag with milk until the marked line, mix and microwave for 90 seconds or per the instructions on your bag of oats.
Total time to make 20 bags around 10 mins. Plus an extra 90 seconds as my son then wanted porridge for lunch.
He wanted some fruit in some so we used some dried blueberries and cranberries which I had on hand but totally optional.
You can add fresh fruit or honey once cooked. I prefer mine with a little bit of sugar so you could easily add 1/2 teaspoon of sugar to the bags too.
