Was wondering about possible new uses for oatmeal, and had a vague idea of making it savory as opposed to sweet/fruity.
Any ideas?
I did try googling but too many of the recipe hits I got required wading through garbage ads or signing up for e-mail crap or whatever, so poopy on them.
Trying to avoid making the Devling associate breakfast with sweets, I make a range of savoury oatmeals. Parsley, a touch of garlic powder and some cheese is one his favourites. A tiny bit of butter and salt (kind of like grits, I think) is very good too. I tried a chicken bullion concoction with less success (but may just need to work on it) and a hint of curry paste made one that I thought was delicious.
My preference is for savory oatmeal. I enjoy it especially with a fried or poached egg. Throw in bacon and chopped scalliions, as well, if you want. Or hot peppers. But oatmeal + fried egg with a runny egg yolk is my favorite starting point.
Here’s a recipe I posted awhile ago by Mark Bittman in Serious Eats. Once again, I’d add a fried egg to that, but, otherwise, that’s pretty good.
I’ve had banana curry oatmeal with caramelized onions (from here) that is awesome.
I know oatmeal stuffing is a thing. So maybe there are some recipes there.
Now that you’ve got me thinking about it, I kind of want to try some things out. Like something based on the flavors in an African peanut stew. Or something Moroccan.
I use oatmeal as the filler in meat loaf instead of bread crumbs. One cup of oatmeal to one pound of ground meat. Add one egg and enough V8 to moisten, plus minced onion or dried onion flakes to taste. Sometimes I add parsley as well.
MLS beat me to the meatloaf idea. I do the same thing by using oatmeal in place of breadcrumbs. I think it improves both the flavor and texture. You can substitute the oats without making any other modifications to the recipe.
You can whiz up the oats in a food processor to get an oat flour, which could be used just about anywhere you’d use regular flour. When one of my acquaintances went on a gluten-free diet, they did this. I tried a muffin they baked that way… while it was a little different in taste/texture, I didn’t know what the change was until they told me. (They also did the applesauce substitution for cooking oil, so there were a lot of tweaks on these muffins). Overall, very tasty.
And then there are options I haven’t tried. Apparently, you can think of oats pretty much in the same way you’d use other grains that come out creamy when cooked such as grits, polenta or risotto.
Thanks for the replies - any more ideas?
Any oatmeal stuffing recipes? That might be a hit for the spouse.
Yesireebob. I’ll sometimes add a bit of sage as well.
If you like it a bit sweet but without all the sugar, try adding chopped fresh dates and toasted coconut.
I’ve been wanting to try something like this
I’m the first to mention haggis?
I was the market research manager on Quaker Oatmeal in the 1990s. At that time, we had recently introduced flavored instant oatmeal in China, where sweet breakfast foods weren’t popular, and breakfast cereal was a fairly novel idea; we had several savory flavors for that market, including pork and (IIRC) shrimp. 
How did it sell?
From what I remember, reasonably well, in China, of course (the flavors were never marketed in the West). All of us on the team in the States wanted to get our hands on some, to at least try it, but it was difficult to get even a few samples sent over.
I’ve done this : Steel-Cut oats and vegetable torta, and it was really good.
I’ve also cooked rolled oats in a stock, rather than water, then added some cheese, salt and pepper and some protein (often a fried or poached egg) - it’s an easy, fast dinner.
One early morning when I was half-awake, I reached for the cinnamon to sprinkle on my oatmeal and mistakenly grabbed a container of chili powder. I knew something was different right away but it tasted good so I kept going. I figured it out about half-way through the the bowl (I never claimed to have good taste). I decided it was pretty good and still once in a blue moon have chili oatmeal. YMMV.