This Crock Pot Oatmeal with crispy bacon will make you jump out of bed! A savory spin on traditional oatmeal that’s a total crowd pleaser and is perfect for busy mornings! Made with gluten-free rolled oats, butternut squash, garlic, herbs, parmesan cheese, and topped with crispy bacon and avocado, it’s a well-rounded healthy meal for any time of day.
Crock Pot Magic
Slow cooker recipes are my jam! I love a good crock pot recipe like my white bean mashed potatoes, BBQ chicken thighs, or beanless beef chili! There’s nothing better than throwing everything into a crock pot that does all the cooking for you! So how have I gone so long without slow cooker oatmeal?
This is the perfect dish for breakfast, meal prep dinner, the holidays, a balanced post workout recovery meal, or weekend brunch. Seriously, it will feed a very happy crowd.
Ingredients You’ll Love
Below is an overview of the ingredients and recipe. Please be sure to scroll down to the recipe card below for the complete details and nutrition information.
- You can pack in more veggies, savory sweet starches. Like sweet potatoes or squash give it a little sweetness without any added sugar, not to mention it adds more texture.
- Adding Aged Cheese or Nutritional Yeast makes these slow cooker oats taste like grits.
- Avocado creaminess. Watch out avocado toast, avocado oatmeal just one upped you.
- Bacon. Okay here’s my secret to these savory oats. Bake the bacon with onion either first or half way through cooking the slow cooker oatmeal. It’s easy and baking the bacon makes it more flavorful and crispy.
- If you’re not into the crispy bacon, that’s totally fine, adding an egg or vegan mushroom bacon on top is delicious and nutritious.
How to Make Savory Slow Cooker Oats
- Mix together gluten-free oats, diced peeled squash, tomato, butter or oil, flaxseed, garlic, seasoning, milk, broth, and parmesan in the crock pot and set on high 3 hours or low for 5 hours.
- Stir and scrape the sides of the every hour. Add a ¼ cup more milk or water if you want to thin out the oats for a more porridge-like consistency the last hour of cooking.
- When the slow cooker oats are about ready, preheat oven to 350°F and line a baking tray with foil or parchment paper. Place bacon strips and sliced onion on the tray on top of foil. Bake until crispy and reserve some bacon grease.
- Stir the extra bacon grease into the oats before serving.
- Spoon savory oatmeal into bowls. Add your toppings of choice and crispy bacon with onions to garnish.
More of Our Favorite
Crowd-Pleasing Breakfast Recipes
Savory Slow Cooker Oatmeal with Crispy Bacon
- Total Time: 185 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
Description
savory oatmeal made in a slow cooker with the addition butternut squash, garlic, herbs, parmesan cheese, crispy bacon and avocado. An easy to make well-rounded healthy meal for any time of day. Gluten free with a dairy free option
Ingredients
For the Slow Cooker Oatmeal:
- 1.25 cups gluten free rolled oats
- 1 cup diced peeled squash or sweet potato
- 1 tbsp Butter or olive oil
- Optional flaxseed 2 tbsp
- 1 tsp minced garlic
- 1 tsp Sea Salt
- Pinch of black pepper
- ½ c sliced cherry tomatoes
- ¼c Parmesan or nutritional yeast
- 1 tsp red pepper flakes
- ¾ c broth
- 2 cup plain almond milk or coconut milk unsweetened
- ½ c to 1 c water (if oatmeal gets too thick, use as needed)
For the Crispy Bacon:
- 1.5 ounces uncured nitrate free bacon strips
- ¼ c sliced red onion
For the Savory Oatmeal Bowl Toppings:
- Sliced Avocado
- Steamed spinach
- Microgreens
- Red pepper flakes
- Parmesan shavings
- cooked crispy bacon and onion
- pinch of Pepper
- Optional fried or poached egg
Instructions
- Place the gluten free oats, diced peeled squash, tomato, butter or oil, flaxseed, garlic, seasoning, milk, broth, and parmesan in the crock pot or slow cooker. Mix all together and set on high 3 hrs or low for 5. Could be more or less depending on your slow cooker.
- Stir and scrape the sides of the slow cooker every hour if you are using real cheese. The flaxseed with help bind everything together and thicken it up like steel cut oats.
- Add a ¼ c more milk or water if you want to thin out the oats (to create more of a porridge) the last hour of cooking.
- When the slow cooker oats are about ready, preheat oven to 350F and Line a baking tray with foil.
Place bacon strips and sliced onion on the tray on top of foil. Bake for 15 minutes or until crispy.
Reserve ½ to 1 tablespoon of the bacon grease. - Stir the extra bacon grease into the oats before serving.
- Spoon savory oatmeal into bowls. Add your toppings of choice (listed) and crispy bacon with onions to garnish.
Notes
You can cook this overnight if you have an automatic slow cooker that shifts to warm after 5 hrs. If so, I recommend adding the the cheese in morning. Or use a slow cooker liner so the cheese doesn’t burn the sides.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 180 minutes
- Category: breakfast
- Method: Slow Cooker
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1
- Calories: 250
- Sugar: 2.4 g
- Fat: 13 g
- Saturated Fat: 3 g
- Carbohydrates: 25 g
- Fiber: 6 g
- Protein: 9.5 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
I am Crazy For Oatmeal I will Try With Crispy Bacon.
Fantastic, Viva. I hope you enjoy it!
Easy & delicious! I’m a fan of Oatmeal! Thanks for sharing this with us! 🙂
I tried making this dish once but it seems I have failed, maybe I should try again with a more accurate way.
Oh now! What happened?
This sounds amazing! Any thoughts on using steel cut oats vs rolled oats? (We have a lot of steel cut oats in our pantry!). And on using an Instapot pressure cooker? We do our oatmeal (steel cut) in the pressure cooker several mornings a week with almond milk, plus apples, etc., but have never tried a savoury version.
Yes, you could try using steel cut oats. Maybe try similar IP settings that I do for my superfood instant pot oatmeal recipe. Here’s the link to that recipe: https://www.cottercrunch.com/superfood-instant-pot-oatmeal/ – see the notes at the bottom for instant pot version. Keep me posted with how it goes for you.
I am glad to see this brilliant post, all the details are very helpful and useful for us, keep up to good work.
Thank you so much! Enjoy:)
This looks amazing! Have you ever tried making it in an instant pot for faster cooking? I’m trying to figure out how that might impact ingredient ratios and cooking time.
I think you could! maybe try similar settings that I do for my superfood instant pot oatmeal recipe. Do you have that?
Great recipe. I have been suffering from constant diarrhea issue and so the doctor had advised me to include oatmeal in my diet. I would definitely recommend it to people who face similar health condition. Thanks for sharing such an amazing recipe.
Thank you for giving so many amazing sounding recipes! I have to say this is THE BEST oatmeal I have ever tasted. I have been suffering from constant diarrhea issue and so the doctor had advised me to include oatmeal in my diet. I would definitely recommend it to people who face similar health condition. Thanks for sharing such an amazing recipe.
I have been cooking a lot lately, trying many different healthy recipes found on a blog such as yours and I have to say this is THE BEST oatmeal I have ever tasted. I have been suffering from constant diarrhea issue and so the doctor had advised me to include oatmeal in my diet. I would definitely recommend it to people who face similar health condition. Thanks for sharing such an amazing recipe.
I tried making this dish once but it seems I have failed, maybe I should try again with a more accurate way.
You mention a cup of water in recipe but when you describe the method, the water is not mentioned.
sorry about that. I just adjusted the recipe. I used the extra water to thin out the oats half way through cooking. That’s if it needs it. It depends on your slow cooker and the oats you use. So if you see the oats are getting to thick and dry half way through slow cooking, you might add more milk or water. Does that make sense?
Hey, love this recipe!
Would I be able to use quinoa instead of the rolled oats?
Thank you. 🙂
You can sure try it!! The texture will be a bit different and it might take longer to cook. Keep me posted though
Okay, thank you!
I will
WOAH!!! this is SO pretty and drool worthy!
OH EM GEE!! YUM!! I need this in my life!
Love this savory version!
I love more ideas for savory instead of sweet breakfasts!
Ohhhh I haven’t made savory oatmeal in forever. Thanks for reminding me about it! And even better because it’s in the slow cooker. Perfect for busy mornings!
Savory oatmeal…why the heck not when you make it look like this!!
Such a great slow cooker dish!! You had me at crispy bacon!
Lovin’ this savory spin!!
You are a genius. Now go enjoy your vacation and by vacation, I mean that husband of yours.
done and done, literally. wink wink
SO much yum in this bowl! Seriously delicious ingredients! I’m excited to check out this savory oats idea!
yea! let me know if you do Melissa!
Happy vacation, Lindsay! This slow cooker oatmeal is a really clever idea–now I want to try my own savory oatmeal!
thank you friend! and I bet you’d love this with nutritional yeast and coconut bacon!! For sure!
I’ll admit I’m not the biggest breakfast (or morning) person in the world, but this does look good. And sitting here at work on a Friday afternoon at 2:30, that crispy bacon is looking mighty tempting about now. Sigh! I hope you’re enjoying Hawaii. I have been following along on your IG stories. Have a great weekend!
I feel ya! But this totally works for Brinner. And thank you for following on IG> it’s been UNREAL! Needed rest too, ya know?
I literally can’t even. Yup just said that 😉 !!!! Not only does this recipe sound amazing the photography is STUNNING!
haha you are too good to me! I will work on moving you here ASAP!
I’ll be waiting 😉
I think alll the time how I want to do a savory oatmeal! Thanks for the inspiration 🙂
let me know if you try it friend!
I’m so digging all of the savory oats lately. When I made them like 5 years ago, people thought I was so weird it actually landed me on GOMI. And that’s when I knew I hit it big. *eye roll*
ANYWAY… I love this idea, love the slow cooker take. I’m totally going to try these if it EVER cools off here.
Have so much FUN!
Hmm…oatmeal with bacon YES! Everything is just better with bacon.
You are so right about that my friend!
Totally in love with the fact that you made oatmeal savory! I havent had savory oatmeal in ages. And ive never made it in a slow cooker, but I love the idea!
right? It needs a comeback!
I am ALL about savory oatmeal! This looks delicious!
thanks lovely! I knew you’d agree.
Such a great idea! I’ve never made slow cooker oats before, and I love that you went savory
I think yoshi would like it. I mean, minus the bacon. 😉 For pregnant mama safety