Pregnancy · Breakfast

Iron-Rich Apricot & Cashew Bircher

Name: Iron-Rich Apricot & Cashew Bircher
Total time: 10 min
Yield: 2 servings
Ingredients: 100 g rolled oats; 80 g dried apricots, chopped; 50 g cashews, chopped; 200 ml orange juice; 200 ml whole milk; 150 g Greek yogurt; 1 tbsp pumpkin seeds

Overnight bircher with dried apricots, cashews and orange juice - a cold breakfast quietly engineered around plant iron.

Soft-soaked oats with chewy apricots and cashews, closer to a chilled pudding than to oatmeal. It earns its pregnancy place by being made entirely the night before: no cooking, no smells, just a cold jar in the fridge ready for whatever kind of morning turns up.

Iron-Rich Apricot & Cashew Bircher - Overnight bircher with dried apricots, cashews and orange juice

Easy

Vegetarian IronFiberCalciumAntioxidants

Ingredients

for 2 people

100 grolled oats
80 gdried apricots, chopped
50 gcashews, chopped
200 mlorange juice
200 mlwhole milk
150 gGreek yogurt
1 tbsppumpkin seeds

Open this recipe in the interactive app to scale servings, switch to oz and cups, and tick ingredients off as you cook.

Per serving (approx.): 510 calories · 18 g protein · 70 g carbs · 18 g fat · 9 g fiber

Method

Combine. Tip the rolled oats into a large bowl or a lidded container. Add the chopped dried apricots and chopped cashews, then stir with a spoon until the fruit and nuts are evenly spread through the oats.
Soak. Pour in the orange juice and the milk, then stir well so every oat is wet and no dry patches remain. Cover and refrigerate overnight, or at least four hours, until the oats are plump and soft.
Fold. In the morning, spoon the Greek yogurt into the bowl and fold it through with a gentle figure-eight motion until the mixture looks creamy and evenly pale, about thirty seconds. It should hold softly on the spoon.
Serve. Spoon into bowls and scatter the pumpkin seeds over the top. If the bircher looks stiffer than you want, stir in a splash more milk until it loosens to a soft, spoonable texture.

Worth knowingDried apricots and oats bring the iron; the orange juice is the vitamin C that helps you actually absorb it. The pairing is the point.

Is this safe during pregnancy?

Yes - the milk and yogurt are the only ingredients with a pregnancy rule attached, and both are fine as long as they are pasteurized, which almost all supermarket dairy is, per NHS guidance on foods to avoid. One timing point worth knowing: keep tea and coffee away from iron-focused meals like this one, since the tannins in them get in the way of absorbing plant iron.

Substitutions & allergens

Swap the milk and Greek yogurt for fortified soy or oat versions - removes dairy; choose calcium-fortified ones so the calcium fit holds.
Use certified gluten-free oats - removes gluten with no other change.
Swap the cashews for extra pumpkin and sunflower seeds - removes nuts and keeps the crunch.
Chopped prunes stand in for the apricots and still count toward the plant iron this bircher is built around.

Storage & reheating

Bircher lives in the fridge by design: the overnight soak is the recipe, and the made batch keeps for up to 48 hours chilled, per FSA chilling guidance - so two mornings from one bowl is the practical ceiling. Fold in the yogurt and seeds on the morning you eat it. Nothing here gets reheated, and freezing turns soaked oats to paste - mix a fresh batch instead.

Checked against the public guidance we follow - see our sources & editorial standards.