I am not one of those people who sees a recipe in a magazine and makes it immediately.  I’ll dog-ear it or tear it out and stick it in my “inspiration” pile or wait for someone else to make it just in case it’s not a winner.  So the fact that I saw this oatmeal souffle recipe in Food & Wine magazine on Saturday afternoon and made it on Sunday morning is highly unusual behavior for me.  And then when many of you requested the recipe on my Instagram feed, I had to make it again on Monday to photograph it.  And I am not mad about it because this is MY NEW FAVORITE BREAKFAST.

This is saying a lot since I have a pretty good breakfast repertoire.  I was just starting to get a little bored with baked oatmeal and then boom!  Oatmeal souffle came into my life.  I had oatmeal souffle at a restaurant once, I think in Mexico.  And I remember it being too sweet with a caramelized top.  I can’t do very sweet for breakfast.  It just sets me off for the whole day and I get very loopy and I start craving sugar all day like a drug addict.

This, on the other hand, is fluffy and light and barely sweet.  You’ll have no idea that this is related to oatmeal.  And it’s not that there’s anything wrong with oatmeal.  On the contrary, I love it and eat it often, but I also like to mix things up a little and this oatmeal souffle was the perfect way to do that.

One of my gripes with oatmeal is that I have to add fat and protein to it otherwise I am hungry in an hour.  This souffle is fortified with 3 eggs and 3 cups of milk or a dairy-free milk and I felt perfectly satisfied.  Although I will admit, the first time I made this I ate half the pan myself and it’s supposed to serve 4 people.  No wonder I felt satisfied, hehe.

I think this is a great base recipe which you can tweak with different fruit and flavor combinations.  I had some fresh blueberries on hand from recipe testing, and to accompany the souffle I made a blueberry sauce from frozen berries.  Absolutely delicious.  You can do this with any berries or bake it fruit-free and serve it with sautéed bananas and pomegranate seeds.  I already know this is going to be amazing with stone-fruit in the summer and I can predict a pumpkin version of this for sure.

I’m not sure I would have time for this on a weekday though, even if I was able to make the oatmeal the night before.  There is some egg white-whipping to do and the souffle takes 30 minutes to bake.  Maybe, but I’m thinking this will be for the weekend, which is just a few more days away.  Can’t wait!