This Spiced Vanilla Chai Oatmeal tastes like your favorite chai latte! Flavored with a blend of black tea, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, and vanilla this creamy bowl of wholesome oatmeal is a delicious, flavorful way to start your day!
Combining Chai Latte with my morning oatmeal has quickly become a favorite at my house.
Perfectly sweet, a tiny bit spicy, and filled with warmth from the blend of spices, this oatmeal takes on the flavor of a chai latte, yet makes a much heartier and filling breakfast than a latte alone!
Not to mention oatmeal is full of fiber, nutrients, and whole grains, so this Chai Oatmeal will keep you satisfied for hours.
Notes on Ingredients and Substitutions
- Oats: Use rolled or quick-cooking oats for this recipe. Not steel-cut oats. And be sure to use certified gluten-free oats if needed.
- Chai Seasoning: I use a blend of cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, and cloves to create a homemade Chai spice blend. If you like, you can add a dash of black pepper to add a bit of spice to your chai oatmeal.
- Black Tea: Be sure to use decaffeinated black tea if serving to your children for breakfast, or keep the caffeine to get your morning fix all from your bowl of oatmeal.
- Milk: You can use any milk you like in this Chai Oatmeal recipe. I love to use unsweetened vanilla almond milk for the extra vanilla flavoring, but coconut milk, cow's milk, or soy milk all work well.
- Sweetener: I find that this oatmeal needs no added sugar, but you can sweeten the Chai oatmeal with maple syrup, honey, or granulated sugar as desired.
How To Prepare Chai Oatmeal
- In a medium saucepan, bring water, milk, chai seasoning, and tea bags to a boil over medium-high heat. Be sure to whisk often to prevent the milk from scalding.
- Once the mixture comes to a boil, reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 2-3 minutes to allow the tea to steep into the milk. Continue to whisk this often!
- After a couple of minutes, remove the tea bags and stir in the oats.
- Simmer for 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the oatmeal has thickened.
- Turn off the heat and stir in the vanilla extract and sweeten as desired.
- Serve warm.
Chai Seasoning
If you love Chai, be sure to double or triple the blend of spices to create a larger batch of homemade chai seasoning. Store the mixture in an airtight container for up to 3 months in the pantry.
Then you can use this mixture to flavor oatmeal or make Homemade Chai Lattes. To make a Chai Lattes, add 1 teaspoon of the homemade chai seasoning to 1 cup of freshly brewed black tea along with ½ cup of warm, frothed milk.
More Oatmeal Recipes
- Slow Cooker Maple Cinnamon Oatmeal
- Overnight Oats
- Sweet Potato Oatmeal
- Banana Baked Oatmeal
- Instant Pot Oatmeal
If you enjoyed this recipe for Chai Oatmeal, please be sure to leave a comment and review below.
Spiced Vanilla Chai Oatmeal
Ingredients
For the Spiced Vanilla Chai Oatmeal
- 2 black tea bags
- 1 cup water
- 2 teaspoons chai seasoning
- 2 cups rolled oats
- 3 cups milk of your choice
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the Homemade Chai Seasoning
- 1 tablespoon ground ginger
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
- ¼ teaspoon allspice
Instructions
For the Chai Seasoning
- Mix all the spices together and store them in an airtight container for up to 3 months.
For the Chai Oatmeal
- In a medium saucepan, bring water, milk, 2 teaspoons of the Chai seasoning, and tea bags to a boil over medium-high heat, whisking every 30 seconds or so to prevent the milk from scalding.
- Once boiling, reduce the heat to medium-low, and let simmer for 2-3 minutes, to let the tea bags continue to steep. Discard the tea bags and stir in oats. Cook until thick, about 5 minutes, stirring often. *If using quick-cooking oats, you will only need to simmer for 1-2 minutes to thicken.
- Remove the oatmeal from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract. Serve immediately or cool and store in the refrigerator.
Kimbo Baggins
Every autumn I crave warm comforting spices. This recipe satisfied the comfort a bowl of oatmeal brings with a chai kick. I used one cup black chai tea opposed to 2 black tea bags. It was spicy! Also it didn’t need sweetener but I thought I would try it and wow. The sweet and spice and everything nice. Now I know where that nursery rhyme came from! Thank you. (Also your chai spice mix, spot on!)
Kristen Chidsey
So happy to hear you enjoyed, Kimbo!
nicki
Curious. I drink iced chai every morning and use the Oregon Chai Latte Vanilla concentrate. Would that work with this recipe? We are having a debate at home.
Kristen Chidsey
I think that would be absolutely delicious Nicki 🙂 However, it will be really sweet if you were to only use the concentrate. Just be sure to use only a small amount (enough for 1/2 cup to 1 cup) and then use milk or water of your choice for remaining liquid.