High Protein Overnight Oatmeal with Cottage Cheese

I've overhauled my breakfasts thanks to this high protein overnight oatmeal with cottage cheese!

As a fast-to-prepare meal prep option with at least 20g protein per serving that can be customized in SO many ways, it's my new go-to for my early morning routine.

Cottage cheese may be trendy, but it's now a staple for my breakfast meal prep thanks to this high protein overnight oats recipe along with my go-to Homemade Italian Turkey Sausage!

It's so easy to customize and packs in 20g protein per serving without added protein powder.

Granted, if you'd like to further boost the protein content, try Chocolate Protein Overnight Oats (with Protein Powder)!

Or, if your interest in cottage cheese is piqued, make Cottage Cheese Baked Oats for breakfast, Cottage Cheese Egg Salad for lunch, or check out all the ideas for what you can make with Blended Cottage Cheese!

Key Ingredients

You'll love how simple the ingredients list is for these overnight oats.

For the base recipe, you only need 3 ingredients. Of course, if you're going to add some flavor to it, you might need a couple more. But you can't beat starting off meal prep with just 3 things!

Rolled or steel-cut oatmeal - NOT quick oats. To me, quick oats get too mushy when made as overnight oats. I love that rolled oats retain some of their texture. Plus, rolled or steel-cut oats have 6g of protein per ½ cup, which adds to the overall protein of the recipe!

Low fat cottage cheese - I typically use 2% cottage cheese and the results are plenty creamy for me. I use 2% cottage cheese for Blended Cottage Cheese too!
My preferred brands are Good Culture or Nancy's - they're higher-quality brands that both make super thick cottage cheese which makes the finished overnight oats extra creamy.

Milk (dairy or non-dairy) - Use whatever milk you normally keep on hand! My spouse can't handle too much dairy, so we typically have almond milk on hand. I often just use water for this recipe.
Obviously, the milk you use will impact the overall protein content, which you can use to your advantage if you want to squeeze more protein into your breakfast.

You only need two steps for this recipe. Well, three if you count assembling your ingredients and containers.

Since this is a meal prep recipe for me, I pre-portion the ingredients in sealable containers and stir them up in those containers before popping them in the fridge, just like I would with any meal prep like Feta Greek Salad Meal Prep Bowls or Chicken Souvlaki Bowls!

If you prefer, you can prep a big batch in one bowl/container and portion out later.

That said, to make protein oatmeal with cottage cheese:

Overnight oatmeal will keep in the fridge for at least a week and a half. Perfect meal prep, ready to grab and go.

Flavor ideas for customizing these oats

And here we get to the best part of high protein overnight oats with cottage cheese - it's a blank slate for so many different flavors!

Here's a few I've tried and/or want to try:

Cookie Dough Overnight Oatmeal

¼ cup chocolate chips + 2 tablespoons maple syrup

Blend the maple syrup with the cottage cheese.

Mocha Overnight Oatmeal

2 tablespoons cocoa powder + 1 tablespoon instant coffee (OR 1 scoop coffee protein powder)

Blend with cottage cheese.

Peanut Butter Overnight Oatmeal

¼ cup peanut butter

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Easy MORE Protein Overnight Oatmeal

As mentioned, one of the easiest ways to add even more of a protein boost to this breakfast is a scoop of protein powder. That's also an easy way to change the flavor of the recipe!

Just add a couple scoops of your favorite protein powder to the cottage cheese when blending.

I even have a recipe for Double Chocolate Protein Overnight Oatmeal!

My go-to protein powder is Equip Prime Protein, and their myriad of flavors offer SO many ways to customize this recipe. Salted caramel, coffee, strawberry, cookies & cream... all fantastic flavors for protein overnight oatmeal or high protein recipes like Peanut Butter Protein Smoothie!

Have any other flavor combos you've tried? Drop it in the comments or tag me on Instagram!

Cottage cheese for extra protein

I first grabbed a container of cottage cheese to try my hand at Cottage Cheese Cookie Dough.

Immediately, my recipe-testing brain started to conjure up all the ways I could use cottage cheese for other recipes.

A typical 16 ounce container of low fat cottage cheese has four ½ cup servings with 14 grams of protein per serving. That makes cottage cheese a relatively high non-meat protein source. That's about 2 ½ eggs worth of protein!

As someone who strives for at least 150g of protein a day, a high protein breakfast goes a long way towards my daily goals.

And if you want more protein in each serving? You can easily bump it up with protein powder - overnight oatmeal with cottage cheese is a blank slate for lots of flavor combinations.