NO PREP: A couple slices of smoked salmon. A few cherry tomatoes. Another fruit of your choice (apple, orange, berries, etc.)
Substitute similar things for variety: Smoked mackrel, whitefish, trout, or herring. Vegetables like cauliflower, broccoli or snap peas instead of cherry tomatoes. Fish not your thing (too bad cause it's VERY healthy) then eat sliced meats. Leaner is healthier.
ANOTHER LOW PREP OPTION: Charcuterie board. Make it in a big glass storage container and keep it in the fridge so all you have to do is take it out. Graze. Put it back. These can have almost endless foods on them, but choose wisely. No candy, Nancy! Eat some nuts.
Miso soup is my go-to breakfast. You can get dashi powder and miso paste, then just heat water in the kettle and combine. I love that it’s warm and flavorful, but actually a pretty light breakfast (which I prefer).
Cottage cheese with granola. Similar to yogurt but I think cottage cheese is more palatable. The low fat version (often 1% or 2% instead of whole/ full fat) doesn’t have as strong a taste to me and is covered pretty easily by granola if you don’t like the flavor of cottage cheese. I also recommend store brand for the same reason—the taste is less strong, it seem, than name brand. For example, I think Daisy cottage cheese tastes a lot like their sour cream and just doesn’t work as well as whatever store brand is available (and often cheaper) right next to it.
Sometimes I add a little jam or something too, which is also good
I make pork and vege wontons and freeze them in the deep freeze in packets. When I don’t want to eat in the morning, I put a packet in the steamer and have a shower. When I get out on the shower alarm, I have hot cooked dumplings to eat. It is good even at 430AM.
But if you want no prep, not even the ease of a steamer, then stewed fruit from the fridge or a can, mixed with yoghurt and some nuts (or nut flour) and a handful of dry uncooked rolled oats. It takes zero time, and is good quality, and can change with the seasons.
Egg on toast. Takes just a minute or two to fry/scramble an egg and frankly you don’t have to watch it like a hawk the whole time so you can make your coffee or whatever while it’s frying. Throw a slice or two of cheese on top while the egg is still hot
I get a fairly low-sugar granola, or make my own (see ‘food wishes - granola’ on YT) and portion it into tupperware containers, 1/2 cup each. Then I put on 1/2 cup greek yogurt (the real kind, not the sugar-loaded kind) and freeze like 10 of them at a time. In the morning, i take one, add 1/2 cup oat milk, maybe some extra dry or frozen fruit, and by the time i get to work, its defrosted but still cold, mushy but still crunchy. Should be relatively low in bad sugars and pretty tasty.
Frozen pancakes (1 min in microwave per package of 3) and a whey protein shake. This is the pinnacle of efficient and delicious nutrition. Everyone else’s advice is misguided and wrong. Nobody has time for all that bullshit. You’re welcome.
Smoked salmon in scrambled eggs, 1/3 avocado, a slice of toasted gluten-free bread, a few leaves of baby kale or spinach, orange juice (preferably freshly squeezed), and as many fruits you want, chopped into a plain yogurt. That’s the ultimate breakfast for me. I like it so much, that I often have it for lunch or dinner too.
I would never touch oatmeal, because I’m celiac: three Canadian research papers have found that even GF oats are actually contaminated in the field, and even if not, oats contain the avenin protein that is chemically too close to gluten, and so many immune systems mistake it for it, and react badly. My gluten-free bread mentioned above would have only rice flour, potato flour/starch, and tapioca starch, but no other grain apart from rice (I react to all other grains).
I’m struggling with the “little to no preparation required” part, I can see prep the night before for everything but the avocado and toast. Any tips to avoid cold hard bread and brown slimy avocado?
The bread slice can be kept in a plastic bag to stay soft. The avocado must be sliced at only 1/3 (don’t expose the rest), put in a plastic bag with a bit of lemon juice the night before.
For the bread, I usually buy sliced bread at the bakery, or you can slice it yourself. And I freeze it. I always unfreeze it in the toaster and it’s basically perfect and takes no effort
I’m cheap, and I also have barely any time for breakfast in the morning, and my wife likes it when I make her breakfast but she leaves for work an hour after me.
So this is what I do, and have done for almost three years straight now.
First thing I do when I walk into the kitchen is start the toaster oven, getting it hot. Then I take a chicken patty out of the freezer and break it in half on the edge of the counter while it’s still in the bag. Then I take a half sheet paper towel, and fold it in half, because I hate doing dishes. I put both halves of the chicken patty on it, pop it in the microwave for one minute, 30 seconds per half if I’m only doing one. Then while that’s going, I slap two tortillas on the counter, sprinkle a healthy dose of cheese on them and spread it out evenly. By the time I’m done, so is the chicken, so I put each half on one side of each tortilla. Next comes the flavor. You can sprinkle a little garlic salt and pepper, or a dash of worcestershire, or my favorite was a dab of Chick-fil-A sauce under the patty. Then, slide it onto the rack in the piping hot toaster oven. Then I walk away to go start getting ready for work, just a simple task like finding socks or something, then I come back a minute or two later and the cheese is nice and bubbly, the tortilla is browning on the edges, it’s just about ready to pull out. Then I pull them out, fold them in half, put mine on my water bottle to cool, and hers goes back into the toaster oven, but it’s a fancy oven so I set the temp to 160f so it’s nice and hot when she gets up, but doesn’t keep cooking too much.
The whole process takes less than 10 minutes, maybe even 5 minutes if I’m really on my game in the morning.
The whole thing costs like 50 cents, and is plenty filling for me. It’s probably not the healthiest option, but… 🤷♂️
Why don’t I use something more breakfasty, like sausage? Because I can’t find it as cheap as the chicken. Funny enough, I actually started this whole process during COVID, with frozen precooked sausage patties. We got a bag of them with one of our low income commodity boxes, and couldn’t figure out what to do with them. So I started doing this. Then when the bag ran dry, I transitioned to chicken. Not as good, but still good, and like I said, I’m cheap lol.
I mean, I guess it depends. Oats are pretty cheap, I’ll give you that. But eggs? The cheapest I can source in my area is about $2.50 a dozen, maybe less if I looked harder. That’s 20 cents an egg, and since you said eggs, plural, I’ll assume two eggs. So 40 cents, that is cheaper than my 50 cent concoction, but… eh.
I do like eggs for breakfast, and I do change up the routine on weekends. But for work days I don’t want to have to think about my breakfast, and I want to be able to eat it with one hand, so I can run.
Toast and jam is a little too much like dessert for me, not enough protein 🤷♂️
I’ll agree there are cheaper breakfasts, but there are also way more expensive ones 🤷♂️
It’s definitely got the protein requirements, for a lot of people that’s the main thing they worry about getting enough of. It’s not like you have to eat it everyday or anything.
A serving each of full fat Greek yogurt, peanut butter, and chocolate protein powder all mixed up. It forms a mousse and is yummy. Takes a minute to make and a couple minutes to eat, lots of protein and fat so it keeps you going way longer than it should. I mix the PB into the yogurt first then mix in the protein, that helps it mix better.
I’m stealing this. I need to change up my breakfast routine, I’ve been making the same breakfast for 3 years. Cheesy chicken patty tortilla melt thing 🤷♂️
Add comment