Ready Meal Revolution: Starbucks Berry Bircher, £2.35, or make it at home, 37p.
My ‘berry bircher breakfast pot’ (foreground) costs a sixth of the price of its coffee shop counterpart (background), even with the pumpkin seed and cranberry adornment – which I included to try to be as consistent with the original as possible – they’re nice but by no means essential! And to be accurate with costs, I counted the pumpkin seeds in my 100g packet. All 779 of them. And the cranberries and sultanas. There were 276 of those. I might invest in some decent electronic scales eventually…
Ingredients, makes two. They look small but they are incredibly filling!
50g porridge oats
200g natural yoghurt
50g frozen mixed berries (defrost by rinsing in cold water)
Approx 20 pumpkin seeds (level tsp)
Approx 20 dried cranberries and sultanas (level tbsp)
Combine the oats, berries and yoghurt in a bowl with a splash of water to loosen if it’s a little thick. Spoon into two ramekin dishes or portable pots (I find those pots that value soft cheese come in, with the snap on lid, are a great size). Top with the dried fruit and pumpkin seeds.
They can be eaten immediately, or chilled in the fridge and eaten within two days.
Ingredient costs Sainsburys, basics range where available, correct at time of printing:
50g oats, 6p (1kg/£1.19). 200g yoghurt, 22p (500g/55p). 100g frozen berries, 32p (400g/£1.29). 20 pumpkin seeds, 1p (100g/85p). 20 cranberries and sultanas, 12p (£1.65/250g).
Jack Monroe. Twitter: @MsJackMonroe. Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/agirlcalledjack
Categories: BREAKFASTS, Recipes & Food, RECIPES UNDER 50P, RECIPES UNDER £1
COOKING ON A BOOTSTRAP 
Sounds super yummy. I’m away to make some now 🙂
Excuse my ignorance but, is that it? No cooking required?! I have frozen berries, I have oats, I have a berry soya yoghurt. I think I am going to try this now…….
Nope, rinse the berries to defrost them if you’re going to eat it immediately. I make mine in advance and pop it in the fridge overnight for the berries to defrost.
I’ve rinsed to defrost already 🙂
I think, could be wrong though, that bircher style oats is like muesli (so no cooking) but you leave it to soak for bit. This looks gorgeous!
Can share that even with the “wrong” ingredients (and guessed the quantities, I am lazy) it is still yummy. My fussy 12yo approves too and she is funny about yoghurt with bits in. We were using tesco value porridge oats and are it straight away. They weren’t too hard to eat.
sounds scrummy! always nice to make something so tasty for a portion of the price!
Neat idea! I think I’d like those. Never having gone into a Loadsabucks, I’ve not seen these before. I’ve been adding oats to smoothies for a while and they work great there, but I haven’t considered them as an ingredient in fruity yoghurt till now. Nice one Jack.
I got electronic scales, great so easy. £3 in charity shop. Donated old scales so double win for charity shop..
I often do my muesli like this to take to work and eat at my desk, as I’m not madly keen on it unless it’s been soaked. I add fresh and dried fruit and extra nuts and seeds, yoghurt, milk (I prefer soya milk), mix it all up and put it in one of those tubs that has a click-close lid, and take it to work. By the time I get there the muesli has soaked up the yoghurt and milk and become creamy.
Yum!
I wonder how many days this stuff would last made up in the fridge. Would it go slimy after two or three days. I wonder what the use by stamps on the Starbucks stuff allows..
Oops, didn’t notice the bb 2 days above.
You could also soak the oats over night in a little bit of apple juice to soften them x
Sorry didn’t see the other comments suggesting soaking x
That’s ok! Apple juice sounds good!
Can you warm?
Not sure if the yoghurt would split, but you could make it with milk, warm through, and stir a little yoghurt in to make it warm and creamy?
And to be accurate with costs, I counted the pumpkin seeds in my 100g packet. All 779 of them.
This made me laugh. Thanks very much for your integrity with costs! 😀
I wasn’t laughing at the time! I guessed there might be around 200 in the packet, I was mildly unamused at counting nearly 800 tiny little seeds… 😉
An alternative technique, without scales, is to: (1) Pour the seeds into a conical pile; (2) Use a piece of card to split the pile into quarters; (3) Recombine opposite quarters (this massively reduces the errors) to get a pile half the size of the original pile; (4) Repeat until you have a small enough split to count easily. I was taught this for counting microfossils but it would work fine with seeds.
Great attention to detail … beyond the call of duty! 😉
Not keen on yoghurt with bits in either but I have stacks of free blackberries in my freezer 🙂
puree the blackberries and seive, use as topping rather than bits? Love bircher Muesli with apricots and smashed up nuts.
Good idea for using those pots with lids too! Thanks Jack – another scrimptastic winner!
this i brilliant way to use up the tons of frozen foraged fruit in the freezer! great idea. i wonder if it would work on gluten free porridge too.
I had a friend at uni used to do this. She would mix yoghurt, frozen raspberries, and porridge oats the night before, and bring it in to eat in lectures in the morning. Eventually a whole load of us were doing it. It’s brilliantly filling and really easy 🙂
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The mixture of yoghurt and seeds is a great mood enhancer – gives the right B vitamins to create a feel good mood! Sunflower seeds would be a good substitute for the pumpkin. Will definitely try your version!
Great idea Jack. I used blueberry flavoured soya yogurt instead of berries. Topped with a bit of mixed dried fruit and a few seeds. Ate straight away. Yum! 🙂
This looks great AND you pay tax!
Curious. Will try this with buckwheat, for a gluten-free version.
Thanks – really made me laugh, as I have never had the Starbucks one! Great idea, got to make it today on principle!
Just a thought for those who often eat on the go, this breakfast would be perfect in a small kilner style jar (classic preserving jars with locking lids and rubber seals) which are often to be found very cheaply in charity shops.
Another great night shift food 🙂 X
I love that you’re coming up with cheap alternatives to things that we know are overpriced but still pay for sometimes. I am using up sachets of porridge and muesli in this way at the moment with a few added raisins and I take it in a tub to work and eat it at my desk. I used to eat the frankly hit and miss porridge from my work’s canteen and it was 90p a time. I’m sure I’ve saved myself a lot of money. Thanks a lot Jack!
I HAVE to try this… and as well as being a great thing to eat while at work, it has lots of nutrition. 🙂 Thanks Jack, you continue to be a star! 🙂
ow I was hoping you’d teach us how to make the natural creamy yogurt, maybe later?
I make yoghurt in a Thermos flask. Boil a pint of milk and cool to around body temp, then mix in a teaspoon of natural yoghurt. Rinse out a Thermos with boiling water to sterilise, then put in the milk/yoghurt and leave overnight.
Thank you CJ! I’ll give it a go.
My 3 year old loves porridge oats blended with banana and soya milk, I will have to try him with this 🙂
I am astonished that anyone thinks they can get away with charging that much for bircher muesli! That’s ridiculous! But then you only have to think about how much they mark up their coffee!
As you say though the joy with bircher muesli is you can prepare in advance so there isn’t even the argument on time. Make it, chill it, grab it, go! Oh and boil a blooming kettle while you’re at it!
I loved this post. Bless you for counting out those pumpkin seeds. I have something similar for breakfast – porridge oats and a few cashew nuts soaked overnight in soya milk, then some plain Greek yoghurt mixed in. Oats are very underrated I think.
Jack,
I also add flax seed powder and if they’re around the cupboard, dried cranberries. Added bonus is locally harvested honey.
Be well,
Laurence
Oooh! I was just thinking I’m tired of porridge – and it’s getting a little warm here for the cooked stuff – but my mum’s given me a bag of frozen berries and I have a marked-down tub of berry yoghurt that needs eating by tomorrow. And I always, always have a big barrel of mixed flaked barley, oats and seeds. I now have a plan. Yum!
My daughter enjoyed it so much for breakfast that she made up double tonight (four pots of soya yoghurt do not quite the quantities in jack recipe) so that she could have some for dessert and some for breakfast. For anybody as lazy as me, we put in 3 dessert spoons full of porridge oats and a good handful of fruit for every two pots of fruit yoghurt. I have no idea how this tallies with the recipe but it tasted good. (We’re out of dried cranberries, raisins and seeds).
I have fruit and yogurt for breakfast every morning – in the winter I used the frozen because it’s cheaper (and force grown berries are yuck!). But I’ve been starting to struggle because it’s just not been filling enough. I made this last night, stored it in the fridge, and I am half way through just now and THANK YOU JACK!! I used discount brands island mix from Tesco as a little scatter amount over the top – the difference in textures is lovely. Overnight has meant I could use the fruit from frozen and it’s defrosted naturally, so full flavour, the oats have softened amazingly, the whole thing is scrumdiddlyumptious. I have been following you for a few months now, and I love your posts. And I love the success you are now having, you deserve it.
The comments are almost as good as the recipe – so much handy advice, thanks everyone!
yoghurt is the only thing I can face for breakfast during the week. This looks great. Just added the frozen berries and oats to my shopping list for the week.
I don’t have frozen fruit at the moment but I do have a couple of jars of those rediculously-priced black cherries in syrup (Christmas present from last year that I haven’t got round to yet). Do you think these would do instead, if I chopped them up a bit?
Yes I think these would be great!
Jack have you tried making your own yoghurt??? Might make it cheaper / at least you know what your eating.
I got a yoghurt maker – currently on offer at about £7 at a very well known home ware store – this weekend and made some yoghurt overnight last night. It was really simple and its supposed to last 2 weeks (if I don’t eat it 😉 ) . Used the sachet that come with it which apparently can be simple but you don’t have to use the sachets you can just use a spoonful of yoghurt and milk.
You don’ t need to splash out on a yoghurt maker either, could put do it in a thermos but then you have to wrap it in a blanket, decant to other containers etc so for me the yoghurt maker it the way forward.
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Had this for breakfast this morning and it was very nice. As the fruits defrosted, it thinned down to a nice consistency. I put the sultanas in at the start so they plumped out nicely. Will make some more for tomorrow.
I made this last night for me and my OH to take to work. It took a few minutes to put together and was really yummy.
I made a batch of this, and it works really well as a make ahead breakfast for the week. I’ve now also seen berry bircher on a couple of other sites and up to five days seems to recced as OK for pre-prepping. Nicely creamy, especially after the oats have soaked overnight. I added a bit of honey to mine and missed out the seeds and dried fruit topping. While oats are filling, a ramekin dish is pretty tiny, I’d double that for a decent breakfast.
Wanted to let you know we love this recipe! Thanks so much!My 11 yo daughter makes a pot up by herself every 2 days for her brekkie, and she loves it! We had already tried a few different “bircher” recipes and tho nice, she didn’t like them enough, or find them consistent, and all the variations were getting expensive! We love this and will stick to it! Thanks!
They probably make them for the same price and just add the huge mark up for profit at the end.
Thank you for this great idea Jack – I pinched a couple of those (over-priced) Pret yogurt pots from the girls at work, cleaned them and made my own (very reasonable priced) version this morning. I went with greek yogurt, frozen berries, oats and a smidge of golden syrup – all from Aldi. By the time I had got into work, the oats had soaked up the yogurt and the berries were soft, delice! Will recommend to friends.
Just made this after having it for the first time in Bigbucks the other day. Have added grated apple as there was definitely that in theirs. Think might need a bit of sugar or honey to sweeten it up.
My husband loved this, and he’s a fussy bugger! Thanks for the breakfast inspiration, x
Thanks Jack for this recipe – I’m addicted to the Starbucks bircher but it’s so expensive! I found adding 2 teaspoons caster sugar to this recipe made it taste exactly like the Starbucks one 🙂
Made this yesterday for the husband and me. Was a big success. I added chopped apricots a teaspoon of almond flakes and raisins to the top instead. As we got loads of dried apricots an almond flakes left from Christmas. . 🙂
This may become a breakfast stable at our house
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One result of doing the Breadline Challenge last week was that I started to rethink eating out, as well as buying drinks from cafes. I don’t do either regularly and if I know I’m not going to be at home for lunch or dinner, I usually pack something to take with me. I’ve been known to picnic on homemade sandwiches and fruit on BA flights; the look on the faces of other passengers when you start peeling a banana is priceless! Earlier this year I also stopped taking my wallet to work with me so that there is absolutely no possibility of me making any unnecessary food purchases (mainly of the chocolate kind)!
Meeting with a friend for a coffee or going to a restaurant on a special occasion or while on holiday is something I do enjoy. But this Jack Monroe recipe was a good reminder of how much of a rip off large chain cafes can be, and how, more often than not, you’re paying over the odds for something you could very easily make yourself at home.
I’ve made this ready for tomorrow’s breakfast 🙂