As I sat here eating a very late breakfast (which I suppose qualifies as brunch now), I realized I should share what I consider to be an important find for quick and satisfying breakfasts while traveling. The links below are affiliate links, so I might earn a small referral fee if you decide to buy something, but this is an honest recommendation after months of treating this as a food staple on the road.

Not long after I left my Atlanta apartment, I discovered instant oatmeal cups from Kodiak Cakes*. I grabbed a few without much thought, figuring they would make for easy breakfasts. I had no idea at the time that I was about to adopt them as a go-to breakfast that I can prepare and eat while busy doing other things.

Other brands offer instant oatmeal cups, but believe me, I’ve tried others and they are not the same. Here are the things that make me skip the others and stick with the ones from Kodiak Cakes:

• Packaging. Even before you pick up one off the shelf, you can see that Kodiak Cakes uses paper for their oatmeal cups. Some other brands use plastic. Eww.
• Flavor. I grew up eating a lot of instant oatmeal from Quaker Oats, and even continued that into adulthood, but most of their varieties seem overly sweetened. This became more obvious as I got older. The level of sweetness of the Kodiak Cakes varieties seems much more appropriate.
• Serving Size. I feel reasonably full and can move on with my day after eating one serving from Kodiak Cakes. Other brands? I always feel like I want more and that their “serving size” is not very honest. Even when I was growing up, I remember adding two or more “single serving” packets of Quaker Oats to make a satisfying amount, and serving sizes of many products have become smaller over the years to mask the effects of inflation.
• Corporate Responsibility. Even setting aside the issue of plastic or paper packaging, Kodiak Cakes donates a portion of their profits to conservation efforts. Other brands? Who knows… but I suspect they donate to the C Suite execs’ annual compensation instead.

After relying mostly on the instant oatmeal cups, which seemed to generate excess waste, I bought some paper bowls and a box of Kodiak Cakes instant oatmeal pouches. I’m not sure the overall waste is less, though. This is an underlying problem with the lifestyle I’ve been living since late July, it generates much more waste than I’m comfortable with. Returning to a more sustainable lifestyle will be one benefit of settling down in one place for a while.

There are some things I would mildly criticize about Kodiak Cakes instant oatmeal, but they’re not anything that would turn me off from continuing to buy their product. I feel like their selection of flavors is pretty limited, and some of the flavors were worth trying once but I would never eat them again. That’s a personal preference, though, not a brand problem.

Also, it can be hard to find their product in stock in a physical store, so sometimes I end up buying an alternative simply because I can’t find what I want. There are many factors behind this (retail shelf space is no trivial thing), and I know I could order them online instead, but I hope that when I clear a shelf of their oatmeal cups it will encourage better stocking later.

If you’re on the road, or just busy, and you want a quick and easy breakfast, I will readily recommend Kodiak Cakes Oatmeal in a Cup*. I enjoyed my instant oatmeal this morning, and I think you will enjoy it too. Yours, that is. You can’t have mine. I already finished it. 🙂

* Link leads to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.