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Although I loved our high-calorie banana walnut and peanut butter overnight oats, this chocolate recipe is my favorite. It has 1004 calories, 40 g of muscle-building proteins and many energizing complex carbohydrates.
As a nutritionist certified in personal training and strength and conditioning, I did my best to make this recipe healthy and nutritious. Not that I did less for the other recipes for overnight oats, oatmeal, granola, oat smoothies or shakes.
This one is for you, chocolate lovers. Explore the recipe below.
For this overnight oats recipe, you'll need the following kitchen equipment:
To make these chocolate overnight oats, you'll need the following ingredients:
If you're on a gluten-free diet, use rolled oats with a clear gluten-free label.
If you're on a dairy-free or vegan diet, swap whole milk for plant-based milk, like oat or almond milk. Also, you can swap the low-fat Greek yogurt for plant-based yogurt.
In case you're allergic to nuts, you can replace almonds with seeds.
First, whole milk softens the crunchy texture of the oats, making them easier to chew. As a sidenote, milk counts among the cheapest high-calorie foods.
Second, cocoa powder brings antioxidants and a delicious chocolate flavor.
Onwards, salt highlights the flavors in our overnight oats recipe and provides iodine, an important element for overall health.
Rolled oats are the core ingredient of this recipe and a rich source of complex carbohydrates.
Low-fat Greek yogurt boosts the proteins and creaminess of the oats.
Honey sweetens this breakfast dish. Since honey is considered added sugar, we ensured it doesn't represent more than 10% of the overnight oats' total calories.
Almonds add healthy fats and extra calories.
Lastly, goji berries, one of the fruits with the most calories, add extra calories, carbs and vitamins.
Follow the next step-by-step instructions to make our high-calorie chocolate overnight oats recipe.
Pour the whole milk into the empty jar.
Add the cocoa powder and the table salt over the milk. Mix using a spoon or a small whisker.
Soak the rolled oats in the salted "chocolate" milk.
Add low-fat Greek yogurt over the mixture in the jar.
Add honey to sweeten the dish and then mix it with a spoon.
Top the jar with chopped almonds and goji berries.
Use a spoon to mix everything in the jar. Then, screw the lid and place the jar in the fridge for 8-12 hours.
Take the Chocolate Overnight Oats out of the fridge, grab a spoon, and enjoy. If you're in a hurry, you can even eat the oats on the go.
These oats taste like chocolate with pleasant bursts of flavor coming from the goji berries.
You can meal prep multiple jars of these Chocolate Overnight Oats. To ensure freshness, we recommend refrigerating the oats in airtight jars and eating them in 3-5 days.
| Serving size | 486 g |
| Calories | 1004 |
| Proteins | 40 g |
| Carbohydrates | 157 g |
| Fiber | 25 g |
| Added sugars | 23 g |
| Fats | 31 g |
| Saturated fats | 9.6 g |
| Unsaturated fats | 21.4 g |
Vitamins: A, E, C, D, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B8, B9, B12.
Minerals: calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, iron, zinc, iodine, selenium, copper, manganese, chromium, molybdenum, boron.
Other compounds: choline and flavonoids.
Our high-calorie chocolate overnight oats can bring many health benefits. Let's explore some of them.
Here are the reasons why our chocolate overnight oats recipe helps you build muscle:
Let's delve deeper into each of the characteristics above.
Since our chocolate overnight oats are high-calorie, they will help you keep a caloric surplus.
After all, the recipe delivers 1004 calories per serving, about half of a 2000-calorie diet. This is because our overnight oats are made with many good sources of calories. For example, oats are among the best weight-gain foods for females. Besides, almonds count among the high-calorie nuts and nut butters and the high-calorie foods.
If you don't know what caloric surplus means, know it's eating more calories than you consume. And it's essential for building muscle. The International Society of Sports Nutrition has the same position. In 2017, after reviewing over 140 scientific articles, they concluded that people who want to build muscle efficiently should follow diets that get them into a "sustained caloric surplus."
You can eat high-calorie overnight oats when cutting as well. In this case, you'll need to make sure you stay on a caloric deficit.
Besides boosting calories, these chocolate overnight oats make for a muscle-building pre-workout meal. Since one serving has 40 g of protein, it will also help you maximize your muscle-building efforts. Good news for those of you bodybuilding.
Wondering how do you maximize the rate you're gaining muscle? Trying to find out how much protein can the body use in a single meal for muscle-building, researchers came to the following conclusion.
"To maximize anabolism one should consume protein at a target intake of 0.4 g/kg/meal across a minimum of four meals in order to reach a minimum of 1.6 g/kg/day. Using the upper daily intake of 2.2 g/kg/day reported in the literature spread out over the same four meals would necessitate a maximum of 0.55 g/kg/meal," Brad Schoenfeld and Alan Aragon concluded in 2018.
For example, to maximize muscle-building, a 176 lbs (80 kg) individual needs 32-44 g of protein from one meal. Do you remember how much protein our overnight oats recipe has? 40 g.
Right on target.
Besides protein, the high-calorie chocolate overnight oats contain vitamins that help with muscle growth. One is vitamin B12, brought by low-fat Greek yogurt and whole milk in our recipe. Here comes scientific proof published in the Advances in Nutrition journal. Researcher Lindsay Allen states that one of B12's roles is to restore methionine, an amino acid used in protein synthesis.
Besides B12, another compound that improves muscle growth is choline. It's present in our overnight oats because of the oats and the whole milk.
The researchers behind a 2020 review of scientific studies that examined choline highlighted the compound's contribution to muscle growth and physical performance.
Our overnight oats recipe fights muscle cramps and reduces muscle damage during exercise. Thus, performance increases. Our oat dish does this because it contains almonds, a source of vitamin E.
A 2013 Nephro-Urology Monthly study of 20 patients with renal disease showed Vitamin E significantly reduces muscle cramps.
Moreover, a 2009 study of 21 participants published in The Journal of Physiological Sciences reached interesting results. The researchers concluded that vitamin E supplementation protects against oxidative stress and muscle damage.
More recently, a 2022 review published in Nutrients showed that even a low dose of vitamin E could prevent "exercise-induced muscle damage."
Another mineral you get from consuming our chocolate overnight oats is zinc. After all, our recipe contains oats, a good source of zinc.
According to a 2020 Redox Biology review, zinc helps form new muscular cells and regenerate depleted muscle tissues.
No matter when you eat them, our high-calorie overnight oats energize you for many hours. They're rich in complex carbs, low in added sugars, and abundant in vitamins and minerals that help your body produce energy.
The American Heart Association backs this up. Complex carbohydrates will give you energy for a longer period than simple carbs, like the ones found in white bread or candies.
Fortunately, our chocolate oats are full of ingredients that contain complex carbs:
The only added sugars in our overnight oats come from honey. Since the sugar in honey makes up only 9.3% of the recipe's total calories, it respects the recommendation of the 2020-2025 edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. According to the DGA, the calories we get from the added sugar in our diet should not exceed 10% of our daily calories.
Besides carbohydrates, our overnight oats contain compounds that help the body get and use the energy found in foods:
Let's look at some proof regarding the above micronutrients' roles.
A 2020 scientific review of B vitamins, vitamin C, iron, magnesium, and zinc is titled "vitamins and minerals for energy, fatigue, and cognition."
Here are the sources of B vitamins found in our chocolate overnight oats:
The only ingredient with notable amounts of vitamin C in our recipe is the goji berries.
As for copper, magnesium, and iron, almonds, cocoa, and oats contain plenty.
When it comes to phosphorus, the National Institutes of Health describes it as a component of "the body's key energy source, adenosine triphosphate (ATP)." The best sources of phosphorus in our overnight oats are whole milk and low-fat Greek yogurt.
As for manganese, a 2015 article reviewed manganese's effects on health. The research states that the mineral plays a role in significant physiological processes, including energy metabolism. Most of the manganese in our recipe comes from oats.
Our overnight oats also contain chromium, which "might play a role in carbohydrate, lipid, and protein metabolism," according to the NIH. In our recipe, chromium comes from almonds and oats.
Besides, a 2022 study on 138 soccer players states from its beginning that molybdenum plays an important role in adapting our bodies to physical training. Oats and almonds are the ingredients that bring molybdenum to our overnight oats.
Our overnight oats recipe strengthens your bones and connective tissues because it contains calcium, copper, manganese, boron and vitamin C.
A 2012 review of the essential nutrients for bone health agrees. It found that calcium, copper, manganese, boron, and vitamin C are commonly used to improve bone health.
Since you don't have to cook them, you can make these overnight oats in only 5 minutes. A good idea is to prepare them in the evening so you will have them ready by the next morning.
If you don't have time for them in the evening, you can prepare them in the morning and consume them as a late breakfast or snack after a few hours of refrigerating them.
Another good idea to save time is to make 3-5 portions of our chocolate overnight oats on a Sunday, place them in the fridge and eat them until the next weekend.
To follow our high-calorie chocolate overnight oats recipe in a compressed format, use the summary below.
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