Many health professionals strongly encourage everyone, young and old, to eat a nutrient dense breakfast every morning. This first meal of the day is important because it provides you with the energy and nutrients to fuel you through your day. However, it you're super busy in the mornings (or just don't want to get up early enough), finding the time to cook a nutritious breakfast can be hard. With a few tips, tricks and tasty recipes, you'll be able to have a healthy and nutritious breakfast every morning regardless of how busy you get.
Incorporating Nutritious Foods at Breakfast
1Always include a source of protein. One important component of your breakfast should be protein. Studies have shown that those people who had a decent amount of protein at their breakfast stayed satisfied longer and were able to maintain a healthy weight.
- Protein is what fuels your body, maintains lean muscle mass and fuels your metabolism during the day.
- To ensure you're eating enough protein at breakfast, aim for about 1 serving of a protein-rich food. This is about 3-4 oz or about 1/2 cup.
- Try these protein-rich foods at breakfast: lean breakfast meat (like turkey bacon, turkey sausage or ham), low-fat dairy products, smoked salmon or eggs.
2Try to include a serving of fruit. Another important component at breakfast is a high fiber fruit. Fruits are an easy way to get in a source of fiber and vitamins early in the morning.
- Fruit is a common and tasty breakfast side dish. Including them helps balance your breakfast meal and provides an adequate source of fiber, vitamins and antioxidants to your meal.
- If you choose to include fruit at breakfast, make sure to measure the appropriate portion. It's one small piece of fruit or about 1/2 cup of diced fruit.
- You can have any fruit as a side to your meal, but you can also add fruit to your meals to make them balanced. For example, top yogurt, oatmeal or cottage cheese with 1/2 cup of fruit.
3Add in a serving of vegetables if you can. Vegetables aren't always a common food group found at breakfast. However, if you include a serving of veggies early in the morning, it can help you balance your meal and meet your daily goal of 5 servings per day.
- Like fruit, vegetables are a great source of fiber, vitamins and antioxidants. Added to a lean protein, they can be a great addition to a nutrient dense meal.
- You can sauté vegetables and add them to eggs or add shredded vegetables to morning baked goods like zucchini muffins.
- 1 serving of vegetables is about 1 cup. This is a large serving, but even if you get in a 1/2 cup of vegetables, that's a great start to your day.
4Choose high fiber grains. Grains are a common food group found in breakfast meals. They offer a great source of energy and can be made quickly to help you get out the door faster in the morning.
- Grains, especially whole grains, are great for breakfast. They can offer a little bit of protein and fiber.
- Try to choose whole grains at breakfast. These are less processed and have a high nutrient content (especially fiber) compared to more refined grains.
- Great grain-based foods for quick breakfasts include: whole grain waffles, whole grain bread, oatmeal, whole wheat English muffins, mini whole wheat bagels or a whole grain cereal.
Making Breakfast Quickly
1Do food prep on the weekends. Meal prepping in advance is a great trick to get breakfast (and other meals) ready much quicker. Try to do a little meal prep in your down time to help get your weekday breakfasts started.
- Plan a time during your week where you can spend a little time doing some meal prep. This might be right when you get home from the grocery store or on a Sunday afternoon.
- Write out a little list of the breakfast meals that you're planning on having during the week. This will help guide you on what foods you need to get ready.
- You can meal prep your entire meal if you'd like so all you need to do is eat it or heat it up. Or, you can do a moderate amount of prep work, which will require you to do minimal assembly or cooking the morning of.
- For example, you can make oatmeal overnight in the crockpot and just scoop out a portion in the morning or you could just slice fruit up to get ready for a smoothie.
2Consider making breakfast ahead. If you are totally lacking on time, you might want to consider making breakfast the night before and making sure you can eat it on the run or when you get to work.
- Right after dinner or when you have time in the evening, make your breakfast for the next morning. Many meals can be cooked or prepared completely so you can grab it and go.
- Keep items wrapped or in an airtight container in the refrigerator if you're storing it over night.
- Items you can make the night before include: scrambled egg and cheese sandwich on an English muffin, yogurt or cottage cheese with fruit on top or overnight oats.
3Use your microwave more often. In addition to making your breakfast meal the night before, you may want to consider using your microwave to help speed along your morning. You can make a variety of breakfast items in just a minute or two if you use your microwave.
- Scrambled eggs are easily cooked up in the microwave. Spray a mug with cooking spray and scramble your eggs. Microwave for about 60 seconds and your egg is completely cooked. No dirty pan!
- Mug muffins are a popular breakfast item. You mix together flour, eggs, butter, spices and additional topping items like nuts or fruit. Microwaved for 1-2 minutes and you have the perfect muffin.
- Oatmeal is an easy microwave meal. Those little instant packets make a whole grain breakfast quick and easy.
4Use your crockpot for help. Like the microwave, your crockpot can save you loads of time on your breakfast meal. Plan to have a delicious, warm breakfast waiting for you when you wake up.
- Oatmeal is not something only for the microwave. Rolled or steel cut oats take a long time to cook. Added to the crockpot overnight and you can have this wholesome grain ready and hot to go in the morning.
- French toast casserole is another easy crockpot meal. Using whole grain bread, you'll wake up to a fiber filled breakfast.
- Egg casseroles are another great dish for the crockpot. You can mix eggs, cheese, sausage or bacon and vegetables together in your crockpot. You'll have fluffy and flavorful eggs the next morning.
5Get a little help from the store. If you're in need of quick and nutritious breakfast items, you can always get a little help from the store. This is perfect on an overly busy week or weeks where you couldn't fit in time for food prep.
- Consider purchasing frozen low calorie breakfast sandwiches or burritos. There are many varieties available in the freezer section. You can pop one of these in the microwave for a low calorie, but high protein meal.
- Also consider purchasing frozen sausage patties or links. You can microwave these and sandwich them in a whole grain English muffin with a piece of cheese.
- Also consider purchasing individual yogurts, yogurt sticks or individual cottage cheese containers. You can grab one quickly or throw in your bag to bring to work with you.
Trying Out Fast Breakfast Recipes
1Make overnight oats. One super easy and tasty breakfast recipe is overnight oats. This is a newer and very popular way to get in a serving of fruit and whole grains at breakfast. Plus it takes just a few minutes to make and zero prep time in the morning.
- Stay by adding 1/2 cup of rolled oats to a mason jar or tupperware container.
- Add in 1/2 cup of milk (or almond or soy milk), 1/2 cup of your favorite yogurt, and 2 teaspoons of chia seeds. Mix well.
- To add a little extra nutrition and fiber, stir in 1/2 cup of your favorite fruit. You can try a combination of raspberries, blueberries and blackberries for a mixed berry oatmeal.
- Seal your container and place in the refrigerator overnight. Allow to chill at least 8 hours if you can. The next morning, all you need to do is grab a spoon and enjoy.
2Freeze your own breakfast burritos. Another great quick breakfast idea is to make and freeze your own breakfast burritos. You can make this for yourself plus all the other members of your family.
- To start, decide how many burritos you want to make. You'll need one 8" tortilla and 1 egg per burrito.
- Scrambled your eggs in a skillet over medium high heat. Remove and set aside in a bowl.
- If you want, you can also cook breakfast sausage, bacon or ham. Cook 1-2 oz of these per burrito.
- In addition, add some vegetables by sauteing some onions, peppers or spinach together. Again, you want about 1 oz of vegetables per burrito.
- Mix your eggs, vegetables and meat together in a bowl. Add in your favorite cheese (about 2 tablespoons per burrito). Stir to combine.
- Fill each tortilla with some of the filling. Roll up your burrito tightly and wrap in plastic wrap and stick the freezer. Morning of, defrost in the microwave for a few minutes or until heated through.
3Toast up a whole grain waffle. Take a little help from the store and consider purchasing whole grain waffles. They're a great source of fiber and can be cooked up quickly in the toaster.
- In the morning, pull out one or two waffles (depending on how hungry your are or if you're following a specific diet). Toast according to the package instructions in your toaster.
- Top each waffle with 1-2 tablespoons of your favorite nut butter (like peanut or almond butter).
- Then, slice up an apple or banana (or other fruit) and lay on top of the nut butter. If you'd like, you also add a sprinkle of cinnamon for extra flavor.
4Make a breakfast smoothie. Breakfast smoothies are already a somewhat quick meal to have. However, there are a few preparation steps that you can do in advance to make this go even quicker in the mornings.
- Start by measuring and portioning out your fruit. Per smoothie, you want about 1/2 cup of frozen fruit. Measure this out the night before or on the weekends. Place in a freezer safe plastic baggie.
- You can also prep the other smoothie ingredients the night before. Place 1/2 cup of milk and a 1/4 cup of your favorite yogurt in the cylinder of the blender. You can also drizzle in a tablespoon of honey if you'd like. Keep this covered and in the refrigerator.
- The morning of, take out the blender cylinder, add in 1 baggie of fruit and blend until smooth. Pour into a glass or a to-go cup and drink it on the way to work or school.
- Make sure your breakfast always has a source of lean protein. This will give you energy throughout the day.
- Try to take advantage of this morning meal to get in a serving of fruits or vegetables.
- If you truly don't have a lot of time, a quick piece of fruit or a protein shake is an OK breakfast occasionally.
Sources and Citations
- ↑ http://www.jhsph.edu/offices-and-services/student-affairs/_documents/Breakfast
- ↑ http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/08/21/433239573/rethinking-breakfast-what-we-eat-may-trump-when-we-eat
- ↑ http://www.choosemyplate.gov/protein-foods
- ↑ http://www.choosemyplate.gov/fruit
- ↑ http://www.choosemyplate.gov/vegetables
- ↑ http://www.choosemyplate.gov/grains
- ↑ http://www.quakeroats.com/cooking-and-recipes/overnightoats
- ↑ http://www.food.com/recipe/breakfast-burritos-once-a-month-cooking-30165
- ↑ http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/frozen-fruit-smoothies-recipe.html