We have five overnight oats recipes in our Weight Watchers breakfast recipes, and one of them gets made far more than the other four: our Apple Overnight Oats. Diced red apples, cinnamon, rolled oats, and a jar in the fridge doing all the work while you sleep. As written it is 2 WW Points per serving, which is already a lovely number for breakfast.
It can also be zero, and it barely changes the recipe.
Here is the part nobody tells you: of the eight things that go in that jar, only two of them carry points at all. Replace those two with foods off WW’s ZeroPoint list and you have a breakfast that costs you nothing. The ten jars below are each a complete version of that breakfast, built on those two swaps, so you pick one, make it, and it is zero. The first four are the plain apple jar on four different bases. The last six change the flavor, so it does not taste like the same jar every morning.
Everything here is built on WW’s Core plan ZeroPoint list, the one where oats are free, so if you are on a different plan, or the list has changed since I wrote this, your app is the last word over anything you read here, including me.
Where the 2 points actually come from
Eight ingredients go into our version: three large red apples, three packets of sweetener, a teaspoon of cinnamon, a cup of rolled oats, two tablespoons of chia seeds, a cup and a half of skim milk, a handful of almonds, and a few drops of lime juice.
Only two of them carry the points as written: the skim milk and the chia seeds. That is your entire 2 points. The apples are zero, the oats are zero, and cinnamon, lime juice and a zero-calorie sweetener packet do not move the needle. The handful of almonds is listed as optional, and nuts are not on WW’s list either, so that is the one thing to leave out rather than swap.
So the rule is short, and every jar below follows it. Replace the cup and a half of milk with a base from WW’s list, and use two extra tablespoons of rolled oats instead of the chia, because thickening was the only job the chia had, oats do it too, and oats are free. Chia soaks up more liquid than two tablespoons of oats will, so each jar’s water is set a little lower than the original to allow for that, and a full overnight rest matters more than the four-hour minimum. Chia and flax are genuinely good foods, they just are not ZeroPoint ones. If you want them in there, keep them and spend the points knowingly.
2 WW Points Per Serving. That is the Apple Overnight Oats recipe as written, for 4 servings. You can view the recipe on the WW App here. (WW login required.) Open it there and you can build any jar below in the app and watch the number move for yourself.
1. The plain apple jar
This is the jar every other one on this list starts from, with plain nonfat Greek yogurt as the base. Greek yogurt is on WW’s list, and it is the base I would pick first because it makes the jar better rather than just cheaper: thick, tangy, closer to a fruit-and-yogurt pot than a bowl of cereal. Makes four servings, same as the original.
- 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons rolled oats (the extra two stand in for the chia)
- 1 cup plain nonfat Greek yogurt
- 3/4 cup water
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon and a small pinch of salt
- 3 packets of zero-calorie sweetener, or 1 ripe banana, mashed
- 3 red apples, diced in the morning, with a few drops of lime juice
Stir the oats, cinnamon, salt and sweetener together in a bowl. Whisk the yogurt and water until smooth, pour it over, and stir until there are no dry oats left. Cover and refrigerate overnight. In the morning, dice the apples, toss them with the lime juice, and stir them through. Every food in that jar is on WW’s Core ZeroPoint list, water is water, and the cinnamon, salt and sweetener are seasonings rather than foods, which the app scores at zero too.
The water matters, because yogurt on its own will not hydrate the oats and you will wake up to a paste. If it still sets firmer than you like, loosen it with a splash more in the morning. It has to be the plain kind: anything vanilla or fruit-on-the-bottom has sugar in it and is not on the list. Regular plain nonfat yogurt is on the list too and works the same way; it is thinner, so use half a cup of water with it. Either one brings a bit more protein than the milk did, which is the honest weakness of the original: the recipe lists 7.7 grams per serving.
2. The cottage cheese apple jar
Same jar, different base. Plain nonfat cottage cheese is on the list, and it makes the richest of the bases by some distance. It is the one I reach for on a Sunday when I am making jars for the week.
One rule: blend it. A cup of plain nonfat cottage cheese with half a cup of water, blitzed until completely smooth, then poured over the same oats, cinnamon, salt and sweetener as jar 1. It blends thinner than Greek yogurt, which is why it takes less water. Skip the blender and you get curds in your breakfast, which nobody wants. If working with a blended base is new to you, our blended overnight oats uses the same trick on the oats themselves.
Apples in the morning, as always. Plain and nonfat again, for the same reason as the yogurt.
3. The nothing-in-the-house jar
No yogurt, no cottage cheese, and a jar still wanted. A cup and a half of plain water in place of the yogurt and water from jar 1, over the same oats, cinnamon, salt and sweetener, still lands at zero, because there is nothing in it that is not on the list, apart from the water.
I know how that sounds. After a night in the fridge the oats give up their starch and it comes out thicker and softer than you are picturing, though I will not tell you it is creamy, because it is not creamy the way milk is. Two things make it work. The pinch of salt, which is doing real work here rather than sitting in the background. And the apples in the morning, which bring the sweetness and the juice.
If you make this one, borrow the grated apple from jar 5 or the banana from jar 6 and it stops being the plain one.
4. The dairy-free jar
Plain almond yogurt and plain soy yogurt are both on WW’s list, and either one goes in exactly like the Greek yogurt in jar 1: a cup of yogurt, three quarters of a cup of water, the same oats, cinnamon, salt and sweetener, apples in the morning.
The jar comes out a little looser than jar 1, because neither is as thick as Greek yogurt, so hold back a splash of the water if you like it firmer. The almond one carries a faint almond note that suits the apple; the soy one is the more neutral of the two. Two things to know. Plain is the whole game, because the vanilla and fruit versions are sweetened and not on the list. And unsweetened almond milk is not the same thing as plain almond yogurt. The milk is not on the list at all, and it trips up more people than anything else in this post.
5. The Bircher jar
The oldest trick in the overnight oats book. Bircher muesli, the Swiss original, was oats soaked overnight with grated apple, and it still works.
Build jar 1 with one change the night before: grate one of the three apples skin-on straight into the oats, along with those few drops of lime juice, and cut the water to about half a cup, because the apple gives up its juice as it sits. Leave the sweetener packets out. The grated apple gives up its pectin too, so it sweetens the base and thickens it at the same time. Dice the other two apples in the morning as usual.
The texture is soft and saucy with a bit of bite, apple all the way through rather than apple on top. Honest note: even with the lime it goes a shade brown by morning. It tastes exactly the same, it just does not photograph. The lime is not decoration, by the way, in this jar or the original. It is the difference between a shade brown and properly brown.
6. The banana jar
Jar 1 with the sweetener packets swapped for a banana. Mash one ripe banana, the sort with freckles on the skin, into the yogurt and water before it goes over the oats, and leave the packets out entirely. Bananas are on the list, and a properly ripe one sweetens far more than people expect. Same oats, same three quarters of a cup of water, apples in the morning.
The banana also thickens the jar a little, which is why it is the flavor I would put on the water jar first. If you like your oats on the sweeter end generally, our cinnamon roll overnight oats leans in the same direction.
7. The apple pie jar
Trade one of the three apples for about a cup of unsweetened applesauce and you get a completely different jar out of nearly the same shopping list. Soft, spoonable, warmly spiced, much closer to apple pie filling than to fresh fruit salad.
Build it on the Greek yogurt base from jar 1, but the applesauce is wet and goes in the night before with the yogurt, so cut the water back by about a quarter cup, to half a cup. Same oats, cinnamon, salt and sweetener. Dice the other two apples in the morning so you get both the pie filling and the fresh bite.
Unsweetened is the whole game here. That is the version on WW’s list, and the regular sweetened kind is a different food, so turn the jar around and read the label.
8. The pumpkin pie jar
This one surprises people: pumpkin and pumpkin puree sit on WW’s ZeroPoint list under non-starchy vegetables. So a pumpkin pie breakfast is on the table for nothing.
Jar 1, with half a cup of plain pumpkin puree whisked into the yogurt and water along with the cinnamon and a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice, then poured over the same oats. Keep the full three quarters of a cup of water: pumpkin thickens the jar, so this is the one place I would not hold any back. It goes velvety in a way the apple version does not, and the diced apple in the morning is still good in it. Our own recipe already nudges you toward this, and if you want the fully worked-out version, our pumpkin latte overnight oats is where I would send you.
Check the can says pumpkin and nothing else. Pumpkin pie filling is a sweetened product and it is not the same thing.
9. The sweet potato pie jar
Plain mashed sweet potato is on WW’s list, under starchy vegetables, and it does the pumpkin’s job with a little more sweetness of its own. If there is a baked sweet potato left from dinner, this is the jar.
Jar 1 again: half a cup of plain mashed sweet potato, skin off and nothing added, whisked into the yogurt and water with the cinnamon and a pinch of nutmeg, or the teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice if that is what is open, then poured over the same oats. Keep the full three quarters of a cup of water, as with the pumpkin. Apples in the morning, still.
Mash it properly smooth while it is still warm, or push it through a sieve. Lumps of cold sweet potato in a jar are not the texture anyone is after. It sets denser than the pumpkin one, closer to a pie filling than a pudding, and it is sweet enough on its own that I drop the packets to one or two. Butternut squash is on the list too and works exactly the same way, a touch less sweet.
10. The carrot cake jar
Carrots are on WW’s list, pineapple is on WW’s list, and carrot cake is one of those flavors people happily eat for breakfast without calling it dessert. It just usually arrives with walnuts, raisins and a cream cheese frosting, and none of those are coming.
Build it on the Greek yogurt base from jar 1, which is standing in for the frosting: half a cup of carrot, grated fine, half a cup of crushed pineapple, drained, the teaspoon of cinnamon plus a pinch of ground ginger, all stirred in with the yogurt the night before, over the same oats. Cut the water to about half a cup, because the pineapple is wet even after draining. I drop the apples to one in this jar, diced in the morning, and some mornings I leave them out altogether.
Grate the carrot fine, on the small holes of the box grater. Coarse carrot stays crunchy and earthy in a cold jar, and fine carrot softens overnight and tastes sweet. Fresh pineapple and fruit canned in water are both on the list; canned in juice is a different product, so if that is what you have, scan it in the app before you count it as free.
No raisins and no walnuts, and here is why. Nuts are not on the list, and neither is dried fruit of any kind. That is one of the more surprising lines on the list, which names fresh figs and fresh apricots and nothing dried.
What will not make this a zero point breakfast
This is where good intentions go wrong, so let me save you the trouble.
- Unsweetened almond milk. The trap. It is low in calories, it is in every healthy-breakfast recipe on the internet, and it is not on WW’s ZeroPoint list. Neither is skim, nonfat or any other milk. Water, plain nonfat yogurt, blended plain nonfat cottage cheese, or plain almond or soy yogurt are the zero bases.
- Nuts and nut butter. The handful of almonds on the original is optional there, and nuts are not on the list, no nut is, so leave them off. Same for walnuts, peanut butter, all of it.
- Chia and flax seeds. Good for you, not zero.
- Dried fruit. Raisins, dates, dried cranberries, dried apricots. Fresh fruit is on the list and dried is not, and it is the most common oats add-in there is.
- Flavored yogurt. Vanilla, honey, strawberry, fruit-on-the-bottom. The list says plain, and it means it.
- Protein powder. A very common overnight oats addition, and not on the list.
- Honey and maple syrup. Fruit is your sweetener here, or a zero-calorie packet.
- Cocoa powder. Even unsweetened. If you want a chocolate jar we have Choco Oats, but it is a points recipe rather than a zero one, so check it in your app before you commit.
A few things worth knowing about the zero point jar
The crunch the almonds were giving you is worth replacing, and oats can do it. Put a quarter cup of rolled oats in a dry skillet over medium heat, no oil, and shake them around for three or four minutes until they turn golden and smell nutty, like the top of a granola. Cool them on a plate, keep them in a dry jar, and scatter them over the oats right before you eat, not the night before. They stay crisp for minutes, not hours. Rolled oats are on the list, and toasting does not change that, because nothing has been added to them.
Make four at once. The recipe already yields four servings, so portion it into four jars on Sunday night and the week’s breakfasts are done. That is most of the appeal of overnight oats in the first place.
Stir berries through on the morning you eat it. All fruit is zero, and blueberries or raspberries added at the last minute give you something to find in the jar. Adding them the night before turns everything a sort of purple grey, which tastes fine and looks alarming.
Two more crunches, for the curious. A small handful of air-popped popcorn crushed over the top with a shake of cinnamon is a fun one, and plain air-popped popcorn is on the list. It goes soft in about two minutes, so it is a novelty rather than a habit. Cooked chestnuts, chopped, are the only nut-like thing on the list, under starchy vegetables. They are sweet and a little mealy rather than crunchy, but in December they belong in an apple jar.
The jar’s honest weakness is protein, and the cleanest fix is beside the jar rather than in it: two hard-boiled eggs, which are on the list. Raw egg does not belong in a cold jar, so that is where the eggs stay.
If you can find quark, the plain kind up to 1% fat is on the list too. It makes a base somewhere between the Greek yogurt and the blended cottage cheese, with no blender involved.
Expect the jar to firm up by day three. Loosen it with a spoonful of water and stir hard before you eat.
Start with the recipe
Everything above is one recipe with the points taken out of it, so start there: our Apple Overnight Oats has the full method, the photos and the Points. Make it as written once so you know what you are aiming at, then pick a jar and build your version in the app so the number is yours rather than mine.
If you land on a combination that works, come tell me. I always want to know what people are actually eating for breakfast.
