Breakfast
31 Healthful Breakfast Recipes for an Early Morning Boost
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but it's also the most delicious.
“Healthy” is a loaded term. What’s good for my health isn’t necessarily good for yours, and vice versa. Trying to “eat healthy” means something different for everyone, and so what a healthy breakfast consists of fluctuates a lot. However, choosing a breakfast recipe that will give you the fuel to get going in the morning and feel energized all day? That we can help with.
We like to think that beyond healthy, these breakfast ideas are nourishing, satisfying, and above all, delicious. Our overnight oats will save you time during busy mornings (mental health! yay!) and are jam-packed with good-for-you ingredients like hemp or chia seeds, nut butter, and good-quality dark chocolate chunks. And we’re not going to tell you whether or not fried eggs are bad for your cholesterol because who actually knows; what we can promise you is that they’re delicious served on a piece of crusty whole wheat or sourdough bread. Ditto for our sheet pan eggs: When baked with tons of greens like asparagus, peas, spinach, and kale, you’ll take in so many vitamins and minerals before 9 a.m.
Breakfast is allegedly the most important meal of the day, but we’re here to tell you that it can be the most delicious.
1. Tahini-Chocolate Chunk Overnight Oats
Kickstart your morning with these sweet overnight oats made with chocolate chunks, maple syrup, vanilla extract, and tahini. It takes no time at all to assemble the mixture the night before so all you need to do is grab a spoon as the sun is rising.
2. Berry Banana Oat Smoothie
If you’re rushing to eat in the morning, smoothies are one of our favorite convenient, healthy breakfast recipes because you can whip one together in mere minutes and take it on the go.
3. Magical Whole-Grain Pancakes
No need for an alarm clock when these sourdough whole grain pancakes are cooking on the griddle. Ready to find out what makes them such a delicious breakfast? Soaking the flour in milk overnight, which yields a moister, more tender pancake.
4. Game-Changing Muffin Mix
“This homemade muffin mix makes super flavorful, richly textured, crunchy-capped muffins attainable on even the busiest weekdays. And the recipe is endlessly adaptable because of the weights in grams,” writes recipe developer EmilyC. You can easily swap whole wheat flour in place of rye or use sour cream instead of Greek yogurt.
5. Nekisia Davis' Olive Oil & Maple Granola
I’m just going to start rattling off a few reasons why I, and pretty much everyone, love granola: You can really make it your own (leave out the pumpkin seeds! Add dried fruit!); it’s convenient to snack on throughout the day or eat for breakfast on the go; and it uses up the remains of leftover nuts, seeds, and whatever else you’ve been dying to get rid of in your pantry.
6. Mike’s Famous Fried Eggs
If you’ve never fried an egg in your life, or just want to improve your technique, this recipe, courtesy of Kristen Miglore’s husband Mike, will teach you how.
7. Almond Coconut Smoothie
Start your day with this smoothie recipe that’s packed with healthy fats from coconut milk, dates, hemp seeds, and almond butter.
8. Strawberry Oatmeal From Marcus & MJ Hill
If you’re trying to get your little ones to eat a healthier breakfast, just serve them something colorful and pink like this strawberry oatmeal. It gets so much natural sweetness from a puree of fresh strawberries and milk, which also makes for extra-creamy oatmeal, that they won’t miss the sugary breakfast cereal (at least not for a day or two).
9. Avocado Toast
Avocado toast may be a bit past its peak trendy moment, but it’s still one of our favorite breakfasts when we’re craving something quick, flavorful, and filling.
10. Cheesy Spinach & Artichoke Frittata With Arugula
Frittatas are kind of like dressing up for Halloween. You can go over the top with accessories, err ingredients, or keep it simple. No matter if it’s as understated as eggs and cheese, or a seasonal spin packed with the very best product, you know that everyone is going to eat it up.
11. Vanilla Berry Baked Oatmeal
This isn’t the breakfast for those mornings when you can’t find your keys/you ran out of coffee beans/you forgot it’s picture day at your child’s school. This recipe takes a bit of time to bring together, so save it for the weekend (you’ll be glad you did).
12. Kombucha Muffins From Jerrelle Guy
Kombucha not only has so many good-for-you, gut-cleansing benefits, its carbonation also lends itself to great muffin batter, the same way that beer or seltzer would for soda bread.
13. Sheet Pan Eggs
These are the aforementioned sheet pan eggs I mentioned and I’m so excited to introduce you to them now. Like I mentioned, you can add any vegetables, herbs, and greens that you want to the pan for a colorful, protein-packed breakfast.
14. Rye Puff Pancake With Greens & Eggs
“Really, this is my favorite thing about puff pancakes—you can whisk up the batter in a matter of minutes, pour it into a blistering skillet, and let the oven take care of the rest. While that bakes, work on whatever toppings you want. My go-to is sautéed kale, sunny eggs, and crème fraîche (not in the least because the eggs and crème fraîche are already in the pancake). But don’t let that stop you from swapping in another green (say, chard or spinach), or replacing it altogether with smoked salmon or bacon or prosciutto,” writes Food52’s Food Editor Emma Laperruque.
15. Whole-Wheat Sourdough Sandwich Bread
Homemade bread is obviously tastier and better for you than most of the loaves you’ll find squished together on a grocery store shelf. Plus, as much as I love grocery shopping, I love making bread.
16. Instant Pot Homemade Yogurt
If you have kids, or once were a kid, then you know there is no greater joy than store-bought yogurt studded with Oreos, Reese’s Pieces, m&ms, or any other sugar-laden bite. And while we are rethinking what healthy means, these yogurts are definitely not it. But homemade yogurt prepared in your Instant Pot? That’s a nourishing breakfast that will make you feel good, sans sugar crash.
17. Hot Buckwheat Cereal
“Buckwheat is a great alternative to oatmeal for when you want something that's filling and warm; it's also a nice option if you have gluten or wheat sensitivities. The fancy toppings add pops of flavor and nutrition, like omega-3s and protein, but feel free to mix things up with different combinations of fruits, seeds, nuts, and yogurts,” writes recipe developer Anna Billingskog.”
18. Eggs in Spicy and Minted Tomato Sauce
This is our take on Shakshuka, the traditional Maghreb dish. From the crushed tomatoes to the jalapeño peppers to Sriracha, it’s loaded with so much heat that’ll instantly wake you up.
19. Toasted Pecan Yogurt
Healthy food doesn’t mean that it’s bland or boring! The proof of that is in this upgraded Greek yogurt; the plain stuff is blended with pecans and maple syrup for a breakfast that will give you all the fall feels.
20. Matcha Smoothie
“The caffeine in the green tea will keep you alert throughout the day, and thanks to the spinach, cashews, and hemp seeds in this smoothie, you’ll also get your fair share of antioxidants and protein,” according to our editors.
21. Hannah Kirshner's Best Ever (Vegan) Tofu Waffles
Don’t grimace at the thought of tofu waffles; embrace it! It’s the secret to a creamier, fluffier, all-around better batter!
22. Morning Person Zucchini Bread
Come summer, we want to eat squash in any and every form. We can’t get enough! This quick bread will help you make use of two to three zucchini and it guarantees an early morning dose of greens for you and your little ones.
23. Sweet Potato Smoothie
Smoothies generally come two ways: They’re either blended with tons of fruit, which makes them high in sugar, or they’re loaded with dark, leafy greens, which makes them quite nutrient-rich but not always the tastiest. This smoothie gets natural sweetness from sweet potatoes and the teensiest bit of maple syrup, plus healthy fats from almond butter.
24. Breakfast Chia Seed Pudding
Chia seeds are uber fibrous, which means that this light breakfast pudding will actually make you feel full (in a good way!) well until lunchtime.
25. Glazed Oat Milk Doughnuts With Streusel
I will defend doughnuts for breakfast even when I’m on my deathbed (and no, the two are not related). But if you’re like, Kelly, doughnuts aren’t actually good for you, I will first shudder in horror and alert the authorities. And then I will present you with this recipe for vegan cinnamon doughnuts filled with oat milk pastry cream and topped with more oat milk glaze to prove you wrong.
26. Peanut Butter Granola
Recipe developer Lindsay Maitland Hunt was thoughtful about what ingredients she used in her recipe for peanut butter granola. “Most granolas have the same amount of sugar as a cookie, which means that I leave breakfast feeling guilty that I ate my dessert before even starting the day. So, I developed this recipe with as little sweetener as possible—a serving has only 2 teaspoons of maple syrup—just enough to have an indulgent sweetness, but not so much you’re sugar-crashing on your commute,” she writes.
27. Sweet Potato Yogurt
With just two ingredients, Food Editor Emma Laperruque is reimagining how sweet potatoes are served. And how yogurt is served. How does she do it?
28. Blueberry, Oatmeal and Flaxseed Muffins
Looking for a healthy muffin recipe that doesn’t resemble cardboard? This is it. A combination of whole wheat flour, rolled oats, and flaxseed form the base for these yummy muffins studded with fresh berries.
29. Go-To Vegan Pancakes
Over the years, I’ve had my fair share of failed vegan pancake recipes. I’m sure you have to. But recipe developer Gena Hamshaw came up with the perfect combination of ingredients using entirely basic pantry and fridge staples for a stack that you’ll actually want to eat.
30. Blueberry Cardamom Chia Seed Pudding
If you’ve never tried making chia seed pudding before, this is a great recipe to start with. It’s easy (I mean, really easy), totally vegan (bonus!), and quite flavorful (blueberries and cardamom and cinnamon, oh my!).
31. Banana Nut Bread
After many months of tests and dozens of conversations about what makes a good banana bread (should the fruit be mashed or diced? Should there be nuts? What about spices?), Emma Laperruque has officially developed what we think is the absolutely best banana bread recipe of all time. No big deal.
Written by: Kelly Vaughan
Popular on Food52
5 Comments
foods recipes.
Wishes,
Mane Kancor
https://qumbakombucha.com//
See what other Food52 readers are saying.