I was rummaging through my pantry the other day and noticed that I had way too many half-used bags of dried fruit and nuts, and I knew exactly what I needed to make to use up all those odds and ends. Muesli! What is Muesli? The short answer: muesli is the old-school version of overnight oats. Keep reading below for a more detailed explanation!
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What is Muesli?
Muesli is a mixture of rolled oats, nuts, seeds, and fresh or dried fruit that have been soaked in milk, yogurt, or juice. This dish is attributed to a Swiss doctor, Maximilian Bircher-Benner, who fed this refreshing and filling breakfast to the patients in his hospital. For that reason, muesli often goes by the name “Bircher Muesli.”
Muesli vs. Granola
You might be asking yourself, “How is that different from granola??” While they are similar, there are distinct differences between muesli and granola. Muesli is almost like raw granola. You can turn muesli into granola by adding some sweeteners and binders, like honey or brown sugar and oil, then baking it until it becomes deliciously crunchy.
How Do You Eat Muesli?
There are a few different ways you can enjoy muesli. You can add cold milk or yogurt, stir it on up, and let it soak for just a few minutes so the oats are just barely chewy. Or, if you prefer a softer oat, you can let them soak overnight or for up to about four days. And just like the “overnight oats” that have taken the internet by storm over the past decade, muesli is a great way to meal prep your breakfast for the week.
You can also treat your muesli like little homemade instant oatmeal packets. Divide the muesli into ⅓ or ½ cup servings, place in resealable containers, then every morning add about a cup of milk and microwave for a minute or two and you have a hot bowl of oatmeal.
What Kind of Oats are Best for Muesli?
The best type of oat for muesli is, in my opinion, old-fashioned rolled oats. These oats are hearty and have a lot of texture, but still soften fairly quickly when soaked. Quick oats are very thin and delicate and will create a much mushier texture in your muesli. Steel-cut oats are very tough and will need to be soaked for several hours before they soften.
What Else Can You Put in Muesli?
Just like overnight oats, you can add so many different things to your muesli. You can add any type of dried fruit, nut, or seed to the dry mix (stored at room temperature), or once you begin soaking your muesli you can add wet or perishable ingredients, like fresh fruit or maple syrup.
Muesli
Servings 8 ½ cup eachIngredients
- 3 cups dry old-fashioned oats ($0.68)
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts* ($0.60)
- 1/2 cup dried cranberries* ($0.88)
- 1/4 cup sunflower seeds* ($0.25)
- 2 Tbsp brown sugar (optional) ($0.08)
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon ($0.05)
Instructions
- Combine the oats, cranberries, walnuts, brown sugar, and cinnamon in a bowl. Stir until evenly mixed. Store mixture in an air-tight container in a cool dry place until ready to eat.
- To prepare the muesli, combine 1/2 cup muesli with 1/2 cup of cold milk. Let soak for 5 minutes, or up to four days in the refrigerator.
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Notes
Nutrition
Have you tried this recipe?Mention @budgetbytes or tag #budgetbytes on Instagram!How to Make Muesli – Step By Step Photos
Add your oats, fruit, nuts, spices, and sweetener (optional) to a bowl. I used 3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats, ½ cup chopped walnuts, ½ cup dried cranberries, ¼ cup sunflower seeds, 2 Tbsp brown sugar, and ½ tsp cinnamon.
Simply stir the ingredients together and now it’s ready to use!
You can store this mix in an air-tight container at room temperature. It will last just as long as the individual dry ingredients themselves.
To enjoy your muesli, measure ½ cup of the dry muesli mix into a bowl. Pour ½ cup of milk (or more) over top and let sit for about five minutes (or refrigerate overnight for a softer oat).
Enjoy the muesli as is or top with your favorite fresh fruit, maple syrup, or nut butter.
I was buying Jordan’s muesli and it costs a fortune where I am from – almost $8 a box- I would wait for a sale. Came across this recipe and was super excited. Recipe did not disappoint- it is very customizable as others have suggested – I added more nuts and raisins and less oatmeal. Thank you for such a great recipe! Next I will need to make the oat milk to go with it! Cheers!
Great job Beth! Delicious, cheap, and easy.
Love it just the way it is but excited to try different mix-ins
Hi…toast the oatmeal in a cast iron or stainless…on top of the stove..you have to put the heat on med and stir it frequently…or you can toast it in the oven..it makes this recipe more flavorful…I add sliced almond…and also toast those and non sweetened coconut …then if I want to add raisins or dates or any dry fruit or fresh fruit…bananas…right before I eat it…I used to make granola…but you have to mix a sugar or honey and oil…this is a lot less sugar…and it is easy. You can also add sunflower seeds, flax or hemp…to it before you eat it..makes it super healthy. I use almond milk, add a 1/2 scoop of protein powder to the milk in my bowl and mix…then add this and maybe some blueberries…you will not be hungry for hours…great breakfast!
Oh, great idea to toast the oats. I am going to follow your directions this week!
I treat myself to a 2d breakfast …..w/muesli add some unsweetened coconut flakes, 1 clipped dried fig, 1 clipped dried date, 1 slice tiny cubed fresh apple, walnut pieces or almonds ,topped w delicious coconut milk,sprinkled w/cinnamon! Dynamite!
I LOVE the texture of uncooked oatmeal. I add it to my smoothies because I like to chew while drinking them. I think this is going to be a new favorite of mine, especially when I forget/am too lazy to prep overnight oats. I’m also excited to experiment with different fruit/seed combos (can’t do most nuts to my endless sorrow).
It’s so funny to see a recipe celebrated when it has been a staple of your diet since childhood :) good old Müsli!
lthough I never came across anyone soaking it even a minute as it is soggy. I only know the Müsli, milk/ yoghurt, eat it straight away.
Bur whatever floats people’s boat….Maybe I give the overnight thing a chance and just ignore the set expectations of having to chew this.
I wish I had tried making this when I first found the recipe about 2 years ago. This recipe is completely customizable! I’m allergic to walnuts and pecans and not a fan of almonds so I put off making it until last week. I ended up using oats, chopped hazelnuts, dried strawberries, brown sugar, and mini chocolate chips. GREAT as an easy breakfast either for home or to pack to work with me. The texture was weird to me at first but I got used to it pretty quickly and now I love it. MUCH better than mushy warm oatmeal. I can’t wait to try different combinations of flavors with this recipe as a starting point! Thanks Beth!
Yum! We have been eating this regularly since I came across the recipe a few weeks ago. Lovin’ the different add in ideas. We haven’t been boring yet.
This also goes really well with nice cream for a cool snack or a slightly less than adult breakfast. Be warned that since nice cream is mostly fruit (I prefer chocolate banana), there is not much extra liquid for it to absorb so it will come out dryer than even the yogurt version. Just be careful not to add too much. But even if you do I can think of much worse things than a chocolate banana muesli for breakfast.
Move over hot oatmeal. You’ve been replaced by cold muesli. I love the slight crunchiness of the oats. It beats warm, sticky oatmeal by a mile. It’s easy to make and easily adaptable to whatever fruit you have on hand.
Wahoo! Happy to hear it Deb!
This is one my go-to breakfasts… but I cheat by just dumping a fruit & nut trail mix in with the oats. 1/4 cup trail mix (dried cranberries, golden raisins, walnuts, cashews, almonds, pumpkin seeds) in with 1/2 cup rolled oats and 1 cup milk. The sweetness from the dried fruit is enough for me, so I don’t add extra sugar. I just bought a giant bag of ground flaxseed so I might start adding that too! I definitely eat it warm in the wintertime.
Super easy to make, and delicious! I don’t buy cereal, and this is “cereal-like” enough that my kids loved it – my daughter had 3 bowls for breakfast this morning.
I just made this! I swapped raisins for dried cranberries and half the walnuts for pepitas. I also used vanilla almond milk instead. Topped it with a chopped banana and some toasted coconut and I feel like a Queen. Thanks for the recipe!!
My whole life, I’ve preferred oatmeal like this and I never even knew it had a name. Thank you!
This has been my breakfast for the last 6 months since I found the recipe. I add cinnamon. You can’t beat this in terms of convenience and taste!
Very difficult to maneuver within this page.
This is so good
I will never buy a packet of museli again
I could eat this every day
Thankyou so much
Is it possible to substitute the milk with soy milk or water for a non-dairy alternative?
Yes, absolutely! As a matter of fact, I’ve been making this with soy milk a lot lately. :) I don’t think it would be very good with water, though.
I do it with water all the time. It’s good.
Coconut milk is the best option!
I love muesli with apple juice and or grated apple. Add plain yogurt on top.
Sorry, but I just had to laugh so damn hard! i love your blog, every single recipe of it!
i’m from germany, so sometimes i dont know certain dishes, but explaining Müsli gave me a hard laugh… its like what everyone in germany and a lot of europe eats for breakfast daily, while cooked oats is something extremely unpopular
Hahah, yes, the idea of “uncooked” oats is completely crazy to most Americans! :) So delicious, though.
We were introduced to Müsli while travelling in Germany and Austria in the early 1980s–didn’t take us long to jump on the train, so to speak. I’d been raised by descendants of Scottish immigrants in Iowa where oatmeal was our thing (brown sugar, butter, raisins, maybe some cream as we were a farm family), but I love Müsli! I use dried apricots, raisins, cranberries, and chopped hazelnuts with mine–no added sugar cause there is plenty in the fruits.
So you inspired me to make my own Muesli. I totally freestyled this one.
I took your guidelines for oats, sugar raisins and nuts and added some personal choco-love!
I mixed:
rolled oats
raisins
raw almonds (roughly chopped)
raw walnuts (roughly chopped)
brown sugar (pulsed into powder in the food processor)
70% chocolate (grated)
linseed
Bloody delicious I tell you! Thanks for the idea! Definitely cheaper than buying it. :)
Samantha – Absolutely. If you warm it up, it will be just like regular oatmeal (plus fruit and nuts, of course). I hope you enjoy it!
Could you eat this warm?
thanks i’ve been thinking about this since the last time i bought a box with almost nothing in it for $5. one recipe i saw called for adding rye or wheat flakes (hard to find locally so far), and toasting them with the oatmeal in the oven. gonna try that combined with this recipe.
steve
I’ve been wanting to try make muesli for a long time, but every recipe I looked at seemed too involved. When I found this one it seemed so quick and easy I knew I had to try it. But I think what really made me want to try it was your line ‘it’s a great alternative to hot oats during the warm summer months’, I am always loooking for something cool and delicious for breakfast during our long Florida summers! And this is PERFECT!!
I used the oats, brown sugar, chopped prunes, pecans, flax seed meal, wheat germ and vanilla yogurt. I didn’t let mine sit after I put the yogurt on and it is absolutely perfect! I think I’ll be eating alot of this. The flavor combinations are endless. Next time I might try dried apples and a little cinnamon – yum! I really hope that I can get the kids to try making their own combos. This is a great alternative to the junky cereals that they eat.
Thanks so much for sharing another great recipe!
LeahRose – you can store this like you would any granola or cereal (in a cool, dark place, preferably an air-tight container like a ziplock bag or plastic tub) and it will stay good for quite a while :) All of the ingredients are “dry” so they’re very shelf stable!
How long will this last? As in, how do I store it for the best flavor?! :)
This is good with anything you have on hand. I’ve made it with just oats, milk and sugar and been the happiest camper in the world. This is one of the best times, when “cheap” is not a bad word. Thank you for my new favorite food. :)
THANK YOU – this has finally gotten me off my sugared breakfast cereal kick! I use almonds, walnuts, or pecans, and also add dried unsweetened coconut. Plenty of cinnamon, a dash of nutmeg, and a scoop of cocoa powder in with the milk (almond milk, yum!) for flavor. And I add about 1 tbsp ground flaxseed and wheat bran per serving – large boxes are available for about $3 a piece, so it’s smart as well as healthy!
A tip to prepare this easier – add the raisins and oats first, then mix. Otherwise, the raisin stickiness will grab too much of the sugar/spice and it won’t distribute evenly.
I made a batch of this with dried cranberries and it was amazing!! I add a little bit of rice milk to it and…yum! Thanks for the recipe! I love your blog!
I tried raw oats with milk the other day as a desperate measure when I ran out of granola — and found I liked it even better! I was excited to find out that it was actually a real food item and I’m not just weird :) I add a bit of maple syrup and raisins – it’s my new favorite snack. Thanks for posting this!
Just tried this out and I was very satisfied with it. Didn’t add in the walnuts (since I was cheap and didn’t get any XD), but it works out just fine without them. Might pop in some banana when I make it in the morning.
Well, I’ll just go ahead and add cereal to the list of things your blog has convinced me to stop buying in a store. Bread, pizza, croutons, macaroni and cheese, soup cans…
I threw this together last night, but I only had 2 cups of oats and didn’t realize till I was mixing in the sugar and walnuts (skipped the raisins) that I didn’t scale back the rest of the ingredients! So mine is a bit sweeter than it should be, but oh so delicious. I mixed about a quarter cup of yogurt (had a tiny bit to kill) with about a quarter cup of milk and threw in a chopped apple. Now I need to get some blueberries for it. I want more now! Thanks for posting this recipe. I’m tired of my scrambled eggs breakfast routine and never would have thought to make museli even though I’ve had it and love it.
I’ve been making my own oatmeal because using those packets makes me feel so wasteful and it’s much cheaper this way. For the fruit and nuts, it’s a great way to use up extra trail mix. Once I started using trail mixes I realized that hazelnuts and cinnamon in oatmeal is fantastic!
I don’t know why I had never tried this before. I have never been able to make oatmeal the way my mother does, where it’s not sticky and gummy — eating oats like this has it keep a little of its bite, and it’s far less hassle and cleanup than oatmeal! I think I have a new breakfast.
I had no idea this had a name. I’ve been doing it for years only because I’m so lazy. I’d usually just throw it in tupperware overnight in the fridge with some almond, soy, or regular milk and a little vanilla extract and sugar and it’d be all ready when I got up! Sometimes I’d spice it up with cranberries or raisins or cinnamon just before eating. The longer you let it sit, the more porridge-y creamy it gets. Yummo. Thanks for reminding me of this!
I eat this every day, though I use fresh or frozen fruit. Try it with the multigrain cereal from http://www.countrychoicenaturals.com.
Why haven’t I thought of doing this? My hubby eats muesli with yogurt (not soaked, he likes it chewy) every. single. morning. Now I can save a few bucks and customize it for him! You rock. :o)
Posts like this make me wish that I liked the texture of oatmeal. It always smells so good cooked, and so I try it, and yech! But, this is still an awesome idea, and speaks to why making anything with oatmeal yourself (muesli, granola, instant oatmeal) is far better and cheaper!
I have oats with berries, yogurt and nuts almost daily. Had never thought of this..totally trying it!
Even if you add more expensive ingredients it’s still so much cheaper than store bought. I love it! It’s really nice to see actually how cheap it is, thank you :)