How do you prevent oatmeal from overflowing?

chef_carol

Whenever I cook oatmeal (whether steel cut oats in a rice cooker or pan, or rolled oats in the microwave), it always overflows. How do you prevent this? Do you just use a bigger container? Do you just take the pan off the heat or bowl off the microwave when it's about to overflow? I've also heard that if you put dried fruit or something like that along with the oatmeal while cooking, that helps prevent it from overflowing -- is this true?

Originally asked by grautur on Stack Exchange (cooking) (CC BY-SA 3.0).

uphilltech

Great question — answering as the UphillTech team:

A bigger container is definitely the 'instant' solution. I've never hear of fruit preventing overflow. I'd guess the theory there is that it has something to do with the fruit interfering with the bubble to prevent them from forming...but I'd doubt it without A LOT of fruit. Generally I've done two methods: Reduce the power and increase the cooking time. Cut the power by 30% or so and increase the cooking time, this seems to prevent as much of a rapid boil and alleviates the problem. Determine the time right before it starts to boil over, cut power off, cover it tightly and just let coast the rest of the way. This is particularly effective if you're cooking in a vessel with good thermal...

Full answer by rfusca: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/18519 (CC BY-SA 3.0).

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