Homemade Oatmeal Packets with Chex Oatmeal

Homemade Oatmeal Packets with Chex’s new gluten free oatmeal is a fun, easy back-to-school project for you and your kids! You’ll save money and know you have a nutritious breakfast ready to go every morning. 

Disclaimer: this post is sponsored by Chex and their new Gluten Free Oats/Oatmeal. Although this is a sponsored post, all words and opinions are my own. Thank you for supporting the sponsored posts that allow Treats With a Twist to happen.

 

Back to school! Can you smell the new Lisa Frank folders and freshly sharpened pencils?! I can! But that’s probably also because I’m a child of the 90’s, when you still bought pencils that could be sharpened.

I always love/hate back to school time. I don’t want summer to be over (ever!), but I love buying new school supplies (I’m sure I’ll need the glitter crayons sometime soon!) and I love seeing kids actually excited about school and seeing their friends. This is all, of course, before being in school hits them and they start whining everyday about how they never want to go back.

I’m one of those super plan-ahead organized people, so when it comes to school, packing lunches isn’t the only important meal to plan for! It all starts with breakfast!

The kiddos I nanny for during the week are starting pre-school, and as much as it breaks my heart to part with them for the afternoons, I love having new projects to work on, like making sure they have easy, quick breakfasts. This is why I was SO excited to team up with Chex! They have new gluten-free oatmeal!

Not only do they have packets of oatmeal, just like you grew up eating (my husband loves the Maple Brown Sugar, and I honestly thought he hated oatmeal up until now!), but they’re gluten-free, only contain 5 ingredients at most, and aren’t any more expensive than other oatmeal packets in the grocery store, but they ALSO have giant bags of their plain gluten free oats too! So now you can either bake with or eat gluten free oatmeal without paying a fortune! Huge plus for me.

With their bags of gluten free oats, I love to let the kids make their own oatmeal packets!

When you have picky kids, this is the perfect solution for breakfasts. Kids who “make” their own food are more likely to eat it. And when kids feel like they have a choice and they chose what is in front of them, they’ll actually want it. So, you basically set up a “no wrong answers” array of choices, let them make their own oatmeal mix, and when you cook it for them in the mornings, you can remind them that they “made” their own breakfast!

Like, I said, there are no wrong answers here. So here are my tips and tricks to making your own customizable gluten free oatmeal packets with Chex Oatmeal:

• Set up a table with add-ins your kids love and some that they’ve never tried before or may say they don’t like (I’ve heard that it can take a kid trying something up to 20 times before they like it! So just keep making the options available). My kiddos love nuts and seeds, but some they haven’t had before, and I know they don’t usually like dried fruit, so I made some of each available.

• I label everything, just to add another learning experience into the mix. They love to ask me what things say and love to pretend like they’re reading, so this is a great chance for an educational experience.
• Have a large bowl ready with your base in it, which they’ll add their choice add-ins to. For each day, you’ll want 1/3 cup of dry oats per child. For a full school week (5 days), you’ll want 1 and 2/3 cup of oats per child. So, because I’m prepping breakfasts for 2 children, in my bowl there is 3 and 1/3 cup of oats.

• Also have plastic baggies or reusable Tupperware available, one for each day of the week, so you can divide out your oats. Label these too with the days of the week. (If you have picky kids that will each want a different flavor mix, then have extra baggies/containers. Because the kids I nanny eat pretty much the same things, I just made each portion a double-portion). 
• Encourage your kids to try each item! If they don’t want to touch something, that’s fine too, but encourage them to sample each of the available options.
• Let them choose as many nuts, seeds, and berries as they’d like! You’ll want 1-2 Tbs of add-ins per portion, so for a full school week you’ll want to aim for around 1/3-1/2 cup of add-ins. Don’t be too finicky here. It won’t make or break your bowl of oats if there is more or less. This is supposed to be fun, not fussy.
• Make sure nuts are chopped into small pieces before adding them to the bowl.

• Once your kids are done choosing (G man here chose cashews and pepitas!), you can add more of the choices they made if you want to, and put the other ones away so they know you didn’t add anything to their breakfast that they didn’t choose. If your kids love cinnamon, add a couple teaspoons of cinnamon to your mixing bowl. Mix it all together (this is a fun part for the kids too).

• Use your 1/3 cup measuring cup to add a heaping scoop of your mixture to each labeled baggie (I was prepping for 2 kids, so I put 2 scoops in each baggie). And you’re done! You just prepped breakfasts for the whole week that your kid is actually excited about! Go you!

In the mornings, you’ll want to add 2/3 cup of liquid per portion (I have to double that because I did 2 portions in each baggie) to your bowl with a baggie of your oat mixture. Heat in the microwave for 1 min 30 seconds until done (or cook on the stovetop). Add fresh fruit and honey or brown sugar if your kid loves those things!

 

Making your own oatmeal packets from Chex Gluten Free Oats allows you to be on top of things for the week, and know that your kids had a great breakfast to fuel their day! This is such a fun project to do on a Sunday to get your kids excited about the week…or at least get them excited for breakfast!

Have a good school year! 

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