Almond Joy Overnight Oats taste just like the candy bar with chocolate, coconut, and almonds. Prep them the night before for an easy, filling breakfast!
Almond Joy Overnight Oats
Announcing the return of overnight oats, and right in time for your New Year’s Resolutions! Overnight oats are one of the best ways to stay on track for eating healthy breakfasts. They are ready when you wake up, so no excuses!
Although you likely wouldn’t want to make any excuses waking up to this dessert-like breakfast. Almond Joy Overnight Oats taste like a candy bar—and that makes breakfast anything but boring!
They’ve got all the delicious flavors from an Almond Joy candy bar: coconut, chocolate, and almonds! Then you’ve got flaked coconut and coconut extract, cocoa powder, and almonds to top off the oats.
Ingredients
- Milk: Any type of milk works in overnight oats. I like to use unsweetened vanilla almond milk.
- Oats: Old-fashioned oats work best. Steel-cut oats stay too hard and chewy. Quick oats soak up too much milk and make the texture mushy.
- Special Dark Cocoa Powder: I use Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder for rich chocolate flavor. It’s a Dutch-process cocoa, which gives a deeper flavor than regular cocoa powder. Any Dutch-process cocoa will work, but Special Dark is easy to find in most stores.
- Unsweetened coconut flakes: Along with the oats, the coconut softens a great deal overnight. If you want it to stay crisp, don’t mix it in—just sprinkle it on top when you’re ready to eat.
Quick Tip
Make them thicker. I love creamy oats—the creamier, the better! I’d say these overnight oats are fairly creamy (even after thickening overnight). If you’d like them thicker, just stir in a tablespoon or two of chia seeds or a few extra oats.
Ingredients, continued
- Maple syrup: This is my favorite sweetener to add to overnight oats. Depending on how sweet you like your breakfast, you can scale this up or down. I like at least 1 tablespoon and up to 2 tablespoons for a sweeter breakfast. You can also use liquid stevia drops instead if you want a no-calorie option.
- Almond and coconut extracts: These extracts add subtle flavor to the oats. While they certainly increase the “Almond Joy” flavor, these extracts aren’t fully necessary, so don’t worry if you don’t have them on hand. If you have them, just use 1 or 2 drops. They’re strong! Add more if you want a stronger flavor.
- Salt: It brings out the other flavors and helps everything taste balanced in Almond Joy Overnight Oats.
- Yogurt: I love Greek Gods’ Honey Vanilla Yogurt in these overnight oats. No matter what kind you use, make sure it’s one you like eating plain. If you don’t like it straight out of the container, you likely won’t like the flavor it gives these oats. Get one with a milder flavor. If it’s too strong, that’s all you’ll taste in the oats.
Quick Tip
Almond Joy, Hershey’s, and Greek Gods are brand names. I use these names so you know exactly what I’m talking about, but feel free to use other similar brands.
Almond Joy Overnight Oat toppings
These oats are amazing without any toppings. That said, if you’d like to add some toppings, these are my favorites:
- Mini chocolate chips or coarsely chopped dark chocolate bar
- Dry–roasted almonds (whole or coarsely chopped)
- A swirl or spoonful of almond butter
- Unsweetened coconut flakes
Almond Joy Overnight Oats variations
- Amp up the coconut flavor. For an even stronger coconut flavor, use a coconut yogurt in place of the Greek yogurt.
- Add some chia seeds. For thicker oats, add 1–2 tablespoons chia seeds the night before. The chia seeds will gel as they absorb the liquid—more info on chia seeds here.
- Add almond butter. A lot of overnight oat recipes I’ve shared have almond or peanut butter for more satiating power, healthy fats, and flavor. Add 1–2 tablespoons of a good roasted almond butter if you want.
More nutritious breakfast recipes
- Healthy Breakfast Cookies with peanut butter
- Healthy Banana Muffins naturally sweetened
- Soft-Baked Oatmeal Breakfast Bars with dark chocolate
- Peach Overnight Oats with a quick streusel
- Strawberry Scones with Greek yogurt
Almond Joy Overnight Oats
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup honey vanilla Greek yogurt
- 2/3 cup vanilla almond milk see note 1
- 1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
- 2 tablespoons coconut flakes unsweetend
- 1-1/2 tablespoons Dutch process cocoa powder
- Salt
- 1-1/2 tablespoons pure maple syrup see note 2
- 1 to 2 drops almond extract or coconut extract, see note 3
- Optional toppings see note 4
Instructions
- In a small bowl, jar, or plastic container, stir together the yogurt, milk, oats, coconut flakes, cocoa powder, salt, and maple syrup. Add in the optional almond extract and coconut extract if you’re using them.
- Stir until all ingredients are well incorporated. Taste the mixture and add any additional maple syrup if needed.
- Cover the container and place in the fridge overnight or until sufficiently cooled and thickened. Sometimes I'll even make them in the morning, get ready, and then go eat them, they are great even after just 30 minutes in the fridge.
- Just before serving, top oats with some roasted almonds, coconut flakes, mini chocolate chips, or a drizzle of almond butter. If desired, lightly toast coconut by placing it in a small skillet over medium heat. Stir constantly until lightly colored, golden brown, and fragrant.
Recipe Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
So I made these for breakfast this morning and they were delicious… I tweaked the recipe some…
I added my coconut and almonds when I made my oats… I used plain fat free Greek yogurt and added vanilla extract… I also doubled the recipe so I’d have some for tomorrow morning…
They are gonna be one of my new go to overnight oats recipes!!!
Made this for Monday’s breakfast using special dark cocoa powder and it was uh-mah-zing! So creamy and chocolatey and almond-joy-ey (I just made up a lot of words in my excitement). Thanks for sharing – definitely making this again!
Yay!! I’m so thrilled to hear you enjoyed these!! Thanks Natalie 🙂
Oh my gosh, Chelsea,I die! This looks and sounds amazing! Can’t wait to make!!
considering almond joy is to this day my FAVORITE candy, I’m pretty sure I’ll be obsessed with this real quick 🙂
This looks like something that might help me with the usual morning panic about what to make for breakfast, and tasty too!
I’m not really a candy girl, but there are a few I do go gaga over, and one of them happens to be almond joy! It’s the perfect amount of sweet for me, so I know I’d LOVE this!!
This looks like amazing oatmeal Chelsea! I’ve never made overnight oats before, but I need to because it looks great!
So I stumbled upon your pumpkin muffins made with oatmeal flour a few months back. I love them so much I eat them almost every day as my pre-workout snack. I wanted to give the recipe to some friends so I had to find your blog again. I think I am IN LOVE with your blog. Every thing you make and eat is similar to my taste and I LOVE so many recipes you have come up with. Plus I feel like you have a great balance of healthy and not so healthy type of recipes. You are just awesome. Thank you for taking the time to take beautiful pictures, come up with new fun recipes and then share them. What a talent!
So when are you inviting us over for breakfast?! These looks so chewy and delicious – I love coconut and oats so it’s the best of both worlds. Happy New Year Chelsea!