Instant Oats© Denzil Green
These oats have been pressed very thinly and fully-precooked so that they take literally only a minute to cook — you can basically cook them by letting them stand in hot water for a minute.
The main reason for Instant Oats’ existence is as a quick, hot breakfast cereal. The downside is that they don’t have the same chewiness or full-flavour as regular oats. If you’re a real oatmeal fan, you won’t be satisfied with a bowl of porridge made from these.
Not everyone sees the need for them in the kitchen. They’re more expensive, and unnecessary, given that a microwave will have ready a bowl of porridge made from regular oats in 2 minutes. Sure, that’s 1 minute longer, but when were you planning on buttering the toast? Plus, the Instant Oats usually come with a bunch of flavouring added that you may not want; you may prefer to add your own flavouring.
Substitutes
Quick Oats or Regular Oats, but adjust cooking times accordingly.
Unless they really are all you have to hand, don’t swap Instant Oats in for other oats in your baked good recipes. Instant Oats are very soft because they have been fully cooked already, and once you add a liquid to them and add them into a baked good batter, they can make the batter downright gloopy.