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The Busy Mom’s Guide to Getting Real Food on the Breakfast Table

Healthy Breakfast options: protein pancakes, quiche, granola, pumpkin muffins.

Figuring out fast, healthy breakfast ideas for kids and families is hard enough – but do working moms have even less time to cook than stay-at-home moms?

I’m going to leave that up for debate – but the fact of the matter is, whether you’re rushing to get kids off to school or rushing to get yourself to work and everyone to daycare, mornings are hectic and harried for most American families.

Today’s post is jam-packed with strategies to fight against the busy-ness and find a way to get real food on the breakfast table.

I miss the days when I was a real SAHM and all the kids were home too, when they were really little!

Over the past few years, we’ve really had to juggle morning schedules.

When our oldest hit intermediate school with an earlier start time, mornings became the least favorite time of day for me and my husband.

We had one child who got up at 6:45 and left at 7:20, another who got up at 7:30 and left at 8:05, a preschooler who woke up anywhere from 7:30-9:30, no kidding (I swear he’s a college student in disguise) and a baby who might get up anywhere from 6 to 8:30 or so.

If your head spun reading that, thank you.

Because it felt like everything should be spinning with that schedule!

Now, our current schedule has two children dragging themselves out of bed at 6:15 to leave by 7:00, another child who needs to get up at 7:30 to leave by 8:00, and a preschooler who often gets up right at 7:10, which you’ll notice is annoyingly right in the middle the half hour we parents might have had to do something for our OWN morning routine! Le sigh…

By 8:30 or 9:00 , we often realize that we’ve been up for 3 hours and have done little other than make breakfast (4 times), pack backpacks and get people off to school or dressed. Half the time I haven’t even found time to get my own teeth brushed!

If I was a work-outside-the-home mom, some things would have to change about that.

Your kids CAN make their own healthy breakfast!

kids learning to cook

Join the Kids Cook Real Food Weekend Challenge: Kids Master Breakfast and imagine your kids making breakfast independently! This challenge contains pro-filmed video lessons you can do at your own pace and finish in one weekend. Perfect for busy families!!

Reader Struggles with Fast Healthy Breakfasts

I got an email recently from a reader struggling with breakfast as well:

My biggest challenge is getting food on the table every night, while I work three days a week, with 3 kids 5 and under, and my husband runs our farm and funeral home.

For instance….pertaining to breakfast — ‘cooking’ anything is not in the cards for me when I am theoretically putting dinner in a crockpot for after work and hubs is out of the house cutting hay or taking a funeral call. Cheerios is our staple, even for me most days…

When the best way to get a real food dinner on the table is to do a crockpot meal, which I agree is an awesome idea, but the only way to make that happen is to usurp any possible breakfast prep, what’s a mom to do?

I guess either breakfast or dinner has to find another time of day to be prepped.

Simple solution – but difficult implementation!

I shared this reader’s question on Facebook and almost 100 KSers chimed in with tips – so here are the most practical “real food breakfast for working moms” tips out there (find easy, healthy dinner ideas for busy families here).

How to Avoid Dry Cereal (when you only have 10 minutes for breakfast)

Healthy Breakfast options: protein pancakes, quiche, granola, pumpkin muffins.

These tips from readers (and me too) can be divided into 3 major categories:

  1. Faster breakfasts to cook
  2. Prep in advance and reheat
  3. Homemade cold breakfast foods

RELATED: Breakfast ideas for kids to make themselves

Saving Time When Cooking a Healthy Hot Breakfast

Steel cut apply cranberry Instant Pot oatmeal.

Oatmeal in the crockpot or Instant Pot steel cut oats (worth having two slow cookers or one and an Instant Pot for this ease of breakfast trick! Find out what Instant Pot is best for you here).

Oatmeal can get overcooked overnight, so if you can get a crockpot with a delayed start – or plug it into one of those timers like for Christmas lights that will start it in the middle of the night.

In the Kimball house, we make soaked oatmeal, which takes hardly any time at all to cook. You add the last half of the water upon waking, go to the bathroom or whatever, give it a stir, and while you’re getting coffee, water, or putting dinner in a crockpot, you stir a few more times and it’s done. Ten minutes cold to done, maybe?

We also make a double batch, leave it on the counter overnight and add water and reheat the next morning after adding a cup of water. Fewer pots to wash hack!

baked oatmeal for easy quick breakfast

Baked oatmeal is time consuming to put together, but it’s great for the “refrigerate overnight” category, OR do what this reader did:

Figuring out the time delay feature on my oven has been great. Baked oatmeal only needs to be mixed together the night before then it’s ready to eat as soon as you wake up.

We have a few versions at KS, including apple-cinnamon or cherry-almond versions here and the pumpkin pie oatmeal is perfect for fall.

refrigerate grain-free crustless quiche made by kids for quick healthy breakfast

A crustless quiche or frittata can be made in advance and stored in the fridge (without plastic wrap!) like the photo above. Here’s one version of our grain-free quiche, pizza flavored, and we teach others in our fun add-on Premium Content for the Kids Cook Real Food eCourse. Grab that 4-video series HERE and get your KIDS to help make breakfast – another tip to making it doable for busy families!!!

Here’s how easy it is for kids to put together:

Can’t view the video above? Click to see it directly on YouTube.

We’d love to teach your kids to make it!

One reader said:

I have a couple overnight breakfast casserole recipes that I prep the night before and refrigerate then put in the oven as I stumble out of bed and to the shower. By the time I’m dressed they’re ready.

Katie agrees! Baked oatmeal is in this category too, as well as others in The Healthy Breakfast Book

Healthy breakfast bites with pumpkin come together in 10 minutes and cook in another 25 – and can be made ahead of time too, if need be.

healthy gluten-free pumpkin muffins (top 8 allergy free)

Kids swoon over freshly baked muffins but aren’t a fan if they’re cold? Try these reader tips for our excellent pumpkin muffins or gluten-free pumpkin muffins and more muffin recipes here.

I leave pre-mixed dry ingredients for muffins on the counter with the wet ingredients pre-mixed in the fridge. I then program my oven to pre-heat to 400 degrees in such a way that it will be ready when I get up. While the coffee is brewing I mix the wet and the dry, pour into a greased (the night before) 9×13 pan and throw it into the preheated oven. Square muffins with 5 minutes of morning hand’s on time.

Freeze muffin batter (right in the paper liners) and bake from frozen in the morning if you don’t love thawed-out muffins.

We also teach kids to follow recipes like muffins in our Kids Cook Real Food eCourse, and they demo the pumpkin version (whole grain, gluten-free, top-8 allergen-free, veggies too!) in the Intermediate level.

More Quick Breakfast Tips from Readers:

  • I make this easy drinking custard in the morning: 2 eggs, cream, vanilla, butter, sugar and boiling water, blitz, sprinkle cinnamon = voila (it’s like eggnog) & keeps kids full.
  • Think outside the box…not breakfast foods. With egg and peanut allergies, we look to grilled cheese for breakfast!
  • I’ve cooked both oatmeal and eggs in my Instant Pot. I prep as much as I can the evening before. Then I press the button and it cooks while I get the kids up. Chia and flax seeds on the oatmeal, eggs served with fruit or toast.
  • Always cook twice as much meat as you need for any recipe, put the extra meat in the freezer. DON’T use it the same week. (Katie says – homemade spices for sausage made from any ground meat can pop out of the freezer and directly into the pan for scrambled eggs, if you have 5-10 minutes to cook. If you don’t even have that, you can still cook extra meat at dinner time and put some into those egg muffins and bake while you’re eating dinner.)
  • Try muffin tin omelets that a child can hold in their hands. Children will eat almost anything they can actually carry in their hand (it’s why they like McDonald’s so much) so up the ante with things they can eat on the go. (Prep the night before so it’s just popping it in the oven)
  • Toast with peanut or almond butter and banana (maybe homemade sourdough bread toasted, says Katie)
  • Eggs, avocados and red bell peppers with sprouted grain toast (if not gluten-intolerant).

Speaking of eggs, you don’t always have to cook eggs in the morning. What about having hard-boiled eggs that you made in your Instant Pot already peeled and ready to go? We teach kids as young as 3 or 4 to peel hard-boiled eggs, too. 😉

RELATED: How to establish a morning routine.

Make a Quick Healthy Breakfast by Prepping in Advance and Reheating

homemade sausage patties for the freezer

Many readers echoed this sentiment: “The key is to make multiple meals on the weekends!” Here are some examples of what savvy readers have in their refrigerator or freezer for quick, healthy breakfasts:

  • While fixing eggs I will wrap burritos and keep them for breakfast too, and the kids reheat.
  • Oatmeal muffins that are mashed banana, egg, oats, milk and some dried fruit. It is like portable oatmeal. (Probably can be eaten cold, too – our baked oatmeal is awesome cold and I bet it would go in muffin tins no problem!) Another reader said: “A pan of baked oatmeal with fruit and nuts and cinnamon had been great for me, half in the fridge and half in the freezer and you’ve got breakfast for days!” and quite a few others echoed the sentiment!
  • I freeze breakfast tacos and breakfast sandwiches made on English muffins in bulk each month. You can also freeze the cooked eggs baked in muffin tins with cheese & bacon bits. Watch for our homemade English Muffin video with the kids soon! 
  • Putting bacon on a cookie tray lined with parchment paper and baking it at 400 for about 15-20 minutes saves a lot of time, and it gets perfect! I sometimes make a tray of bacon and refrigerate it and in the morning, I just throw it in the oven for a few minutes to warm it up while I’m getting bowls, etc. out.
  • Either one day for dinner or one morning on my off day I cook homemade biscuits, and will cook enough bacon, sausage and such and make the biscuits, individually wrap them and put in the freezer, the kids grab whichever they want and reheat it.
  • I make breakfast casseroles, cut them into “fit in a snack size baggie” then freeze…microwave and roll in a paper towel or brown paper and run out the door…protein (egg and sausage), veggies (pepper, carrots onion, zucchini, etc), and carbs, (whole wheat bread cubes, or taties or sweet taties), herbs. (Could likely be reheated in a toaster oven too, and then everyone’s can be put in at once instead of that dance of putting someone’s in the mic, turning it over for another minute, putting the next one in while the first gets cold…)
  • There’s also nothing wrong with dinner leftovers for breakfast! “We eat dinner leftovers for breakfast. I make a huge batch of every dinner, send some with my husband for lunch, and my son and I eat it for breakfast. Unconventional, but it is typically protein-heavy and that’s what I’m going for breakfast – that and quick.”
  • Precook sausage patties and freeze them–we pop all this in the toaster oven and it is ready in no time! Our kids make homemade sausage patties with any ground meat in the special breakfast videos set (pictured above). Grab those now!
  • I cook a big batch of steel-cut organic oatmeal on the weekends and put it in the fridge for the week. Then we just scoop out what we need and warm it. It’s a fast easy breakfast for us. We just throw some fresh berries in it and we are set.
grain-free coconut flour muffins

Homemade “freezer waffles” and the like were mentioned by MANY readers – we like to mimic what the food industry does for convenience foods, but we make them from scratch!

My kids eat a lot of muffins, waffles, or pancakes that I make ahead of time and freeze. Triple batches!

These pumpkin pancakes freeze great and are perfect for fall! They can be made with whole wheat, gluten-free, sourdough, almond flour, coconut flour…anything goes! And the pumpkin muffins from above also freeze great, but nothing stays as moist as grain-free coconut flour muffins. They do not even need to be heated to eat and enjoy! Same is said for this incredible apple squares recipe, so moist!

One last tip for speeding up the freezer-stocking process:

We like our waffles with pb, which makes them stick longer. I’ve found that if I use several cast-iron waffle makers in a hot oven, it cuts my cooking time for those significantly. Otherwise, I’m standing in front of the waffle maker for what feels like hours. You can also get silicon waffle molds, which look kinda cool.

Homemade Cold Breakfast Foods Makes it Quick and Healthy!

healthy homemade granola bars made by kids

Our family’s homemade granola bars are one of the options, and I have to tell you that they’re my 10-year-old daughter’s favorite recipe, one she always choose when asked to make something for snack. Granola bowls are great too.

In general for a quick, cold breakfast (grab and go!) choose from homemade granola bars or quinoa bars or plenty of other bars in my eBook Healthy Snacks to Go.

kid-friendly quick green smoothie

Smoothies can be “in advance” as well – make “smoothie bags” with just what you want in yours, all in ONE bag in the freezer: the greens, the frozen fruit, any supplements like probiotic powder or kelp powder for iodine, flax or chia seeds, etc. Everything but the liquid, then dump the whole bag in the blender with the water, milk or yogurt in the morning, blend, and done! Batch the smoothie bags so you have 5-10 of them instead of trying to take out 5 different bags of fruit, seeds, etc. every time you make a smoothie.

We have our littlest chefs make the smoothie bags in advance so that they’re the “helpers” on a school morning in a way, even when the family can’t really slow down enough for toddler/preschooler helpers. 🙂

You can also make a big batch and freeze the leftovers in a Squooshi pouch – then if kids have a day they have to run, put them in the fridge the night before to partially thaw, and the kids can have a muffin and a smoothie even with only 30 seconds to grab breakfast!

crunchy homemade granola for a quick breakfast - in bowls and on dehydrator trays

Making a quad batch of granola in advance is another way to be able to say to tiny chefs, “Thank you so much for making breakfast this morning!”

My son loves helping measure and stir up in our biggest bowl, and we actually teach that recipe to the Beginner crowd in our special Healthy Snacks Kids can Make video set.

kids make dehydrated granola

Here’s what one reader says about it:

Kids love it, and my little boy likes to revisit in in a few hours when it’s squishy.

Here’s my homemade granola recipe, and there are other versions, including grain-free, in Healthy Snacks to Go.

homemade plan yogurt with berries in a bowl

Yogurt is always fast and easy, either plain storebought or homemade. We love our homemade yogurt but you know – plain yogurt from the store is still packed with healthy probiotics!

You can boost nutrition and satiation factor by mixing in chia seeds, hemp seeds, or nut butter.

Yogurt parfaits are always fun too and can be made ahead in the fridge: glass jar and layers of plain yogurt and fruit-only jam, some berries and kids can top with granola in the morning.

Other Ideas from Readers for Healthy Cold Breakfasts, Fast!

  • Hard-boiled eggs (add toppings like diced peppers, green onion, or even thawed frozen peas and cut up the eggs in a “mash” – add a little homemade mayo or mustard if it seems too dry – and you’ve got veggies in your breakfast too!)
  • I frequently poach eggs in an egg poaching pan on the weekend and store them in a mason jar for quick breakfasts. They are like hardboiled eggs, but better and no shell to peel off.
  • Fruit for breakfast
  • My kids beg for a ‘Chocolate Monkey’ every morning. Immersion blender takes on almond milk, banana, chocolate protein powder (grass-fed cow whey based and sweetened with Stevia), avocado oil (for skin and brain), cocoa powder, milled flax.
  • Renee at Raising Generation Nourished has “Breakfast Cookie Friday” that is always made ahead, usually grain-free and such fun for her girls. Here’s one example.
bowl of bananas, coconut, nuts and raisins - monkey salad made by kids

Speaking of monkeys – our family’s easiest “go-to” cold breakfast with no prep ahead is Monkey Salad – some combo of bananas, coconut, cashews (use the code STEWARDSHIP for 10% off at that site!) or other nuts, sometimes milk or raisins too. It’s all in The Healthy Breakfast Book right HERE. There are FIVE different meal plans for fit every need, tons of “how to get it done” tips, a whole section on prepping ahead, 2 sections on quick cold breakfast items, and even a “company’s coming” brunch primer. Some of our most-used recipes are in there!

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Some readers were so helpful, they talked about the whole “system” of working and eating real food, and I have to highlight this one because the reader happens to be very special to me in real life, and I love her all the more for how hard she works to keep her family nourished!!!

I work full- time & have 2 young kids. For me weekends are key. I do a ton of prep then – making Katie’s grain free apple flax muffins, overnight oats, hard boiled eggs or “egg muffins”. (Veggies, egg & cheese baked in muffin tins. Veggies for breakfast – heck yea!).

It saves us from Cheerios! I can make a week’s worth on Sunday or even freeze some.

When I cook dinners I make double or triple. (Like tons of grilled chicken) I slice or dice it & freeze it so I can throw it on pasta or salads when needed. It definitely takes time & planning, but I make it a priority since I know it’s important for our health & my sanity!! Good luck!!

Others had very nice specific advice for a 3-day-a-week working mom:

brown eggs and shells
  • Use the days you are off for meal prep for the days you work.
  • Fun conversation from a handful of gals saying that by Thursday, they’re just dead – so they have breakfast for dinner. NO guilt about that at all!! And perhaps you could have time to make a double or triple batch of those pancakes, and then voila! Friday’s breakfast is ready! Winking smile
  • We have started a weekend meal planning/prep. I’m NOT a morning person and have to get 3 school aged kiddo’s out the door by 7:30! We use the muffin tin to make single serve omelets, muffins made with protein powder, freeze pancakes that can fit in the toaster etc. We try to keep yogurt and granola around- but I’ve got an 11yo who is too “cool” to eat anything but frozen waffles for breakfast…
  • I have 2 crock-pots. One is often used for dinner and the other is for overnight oatmeal. I also take advantage of “free” time to make freezer meals, both for dinners and breakfasts (sandwiches, burritos). It is a great activity to do with kids as it is a bonding time, a teaching time, and it gets something done that needs to be done.
  • More crockpots, I have had all of mine going at once before (breakfast started the night before and lunch/dinner started in two crockpots before I left for work).
    • Ok, so I’m hearing – buy more crockpots – or Instant Pots!! Winking smile
  • I loved this one: “When my kids were little I was trying to get them ready for daycare and myself ready for work. cooking was not going to happen when they were awake! I ended up getting up and extra 15-30 minutes early, cooking something simple (eggs, toast, sliced fruit, oatmeal) and THEN waking them up. While they were at the table eating, I would prep for dinner and put it in the fridge to slide into the oven when I got home. Make breakfast simple. When the kids get older and can brush their own teeth and get themselves dressed THEN you get to be the Pinterest mom. Until then, you’re just surviving.”
  • Working mother of 3 and gluten-free! I menu plan all 3 meals each week. I make the kids help me and then they look forward to the meal we planned. For breakfast, I boil a dozen eggs in advance and we eat them until they are gone. I make a few dozen muffins at a time and freeze them. The kids like them with cream cheese or nut butter. Smoothie packs for the freezer are a hit too (ripe banana, pineapple, and spinach are a great mix). Just add milk of choice. Overnight oats are great too. Endless combos. We only eat cereal once a week or so Smile
  • When I was working outside the home, I used to put my crock pot dinner together the night before, after the kids went to bed and stick it in the fridge until morning. Simple, easy, and I wouldn’t forget an ingredient in the morning rush.

And others recommended Pillsbury crescent rolls (oops, wrong blog for that!!) or microwaving eggs (ewwww…and I’m not a huge fan of the mic if I can help it) and “What’s wrong with Cheerio’s?”

What About those Overnight Oats?

Oats and Oatmeal Toppings

Quite a few readers recommended overnight oatmeal, which is basically raw oats soaked overnight in milk or yogurt, or one person said prep the raw oatmeal in jars and then pour hot milk over it in the morning and let it “steep” while you get ready.

For a traditional foodie, eating uncooked oats is a pretty big conundrum. I wrote about Overnight Oats in one of my monthly newsletters a while back and I reprinted the article online for you more recently: Are Overnight Oats Traditional? Are They Safe?

(That’s just the kind of exclusive content you get, by the way, when you’re on the KS monthly newsletter list – sign up now and get a free eBook!)

Please share these awesome tips with your friends who you know need this!

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13 thoughts on “The Busy Mom’s Guide to Getting Real Food on the Breakfast Table”

  1. I am curious what cereals you approve of. We also do just one day of cereal a week. We have come to really like this: https://www.amazon.com/Arrowhead-Mills-Cereal-Puffed-Rice/dp/B000EVQ0NQ.
    Just rice, nothing else. The ones who want to add raw honey or real maple syrup.

  2. Heres some more planning help:
    at our house, once a day is eggs, sometimes with meat but generally not (the eggs are most often in savory oatmeal topped w/dulse & milk, occasionally raw in a fruit smoothie with greens)
    once a day is
    1. beans & rice or nonGMO tortillas
    2. nutbutter & jam sandwiches
    3. cashews, pecans or walnuts with buttered rice or kasha happens occasionally
    once a day is greens, cooked or raw in a smoothie
    once a day is salad (real hot summer days we’ve eaten salad at breakfast with hardboiled eggs lol)
    once a day is yogurt and then once a day is cheese or milk
    This gives a rough built-in frame for every day’s meals, yep–meat happens just once a day usually!
    This simplifies my shopping too; do I have eggs, greens, salad, nutbutter, smoked hocks for the beans, tortillas, milk (for yogurt makings), cheese? If yes, Im 2/3 of the way there for the whole week! (beans, rice, kasha, nuts, oats bought in bulk)
    If your husband’s not on board, make him tuna, chicken or egg salad sandwiches a few days a week. He’s going to eat dinner with meat too so he shouldnt notice your frugality 😉

  3. We also eat a vit C fruit at brkfst most days…orange, kiwi, strw or rasp berries; pineapple rarely. We eat alot of raw peppers and take oregano oil too…3 drops for kids, 5 drops for adults (yes it’s high in vit C!). Take it at night if you take probiotics in a.m., it’s a potent antimicrobial.
    No chips or cookies or even fruit at lunch…later they eat an apple or pear or some grapes (rarely a banana, we have them in smoothies & in muffins) for a snack instead of junk. My kids like a smidge of butter or cream cheese too just eaten off their fingers where I smear it or hand the cube to..great with the fruit and keeps them better till dinner. Go Fat!

  4. fry up greens, maybe some onion, pepper, garlic in dinner’s meat grease (add vinegar).
    bowl up cooked beans n the greens, chill.
    nuke bowls in morning as frying, poaching or scrambling eggs.
    kids set table, portion out yogurt, make toast if more carbs needed.
    stir eggs thru each bowl…2 per bowl (hot sauce on top).

    fry up greens, maybe some onion, celery, garlic in dinner’s meat grease (add vinegar).
    bowl up cooked rice, kasha, quinoa n the greens, chill.
    proceed as above recipe.

    either recipe is a great on the go lunch if you scramble the eggs and add to cold bowled up food then reseal to nuke later—>that a.m. you have pb on toast w/fruit n yogurt.

  5. I have been trying to purchase The Healthy Breakfast Book off and on all day today. It keeps sending me to PayPal. I would prefer to pay with MasterCard unless you only take PayPal. Either which way, I can’t figure out how to pay for what I would like to buy. I also want to buy The Healthy Lunch Book.
    Thank you,
    Patty

    1. Hi Patty!
      After you click the “pay with Paypal” button, there’s a small-ish text link at the bottom of the screen to “pay with a debit or credit card.” Can you see that? If that doesn’t work, email me at katie at kitchenstewardship.com and I’ll work out another way. Thanks so much for your interest, I know you’ll love the books! 🙂 Katie

  6. Great article! Our family is just we two old retired folks, but here are our go-to breakfasts when we have to get out of the house on time:

    * We keep the butter on the counter so it’s always soft enough to spread and a loaf of sliced seeded batch bread in the freezer so it won’t go stale. Then, in the morning, just take out 4 slices of the frozen bread and put it directly into our toaster — works a treat! Butter and go, or add peanut butter, or cinnamon sugar — whatever you like on the day. It’s freezer-toast!

    * Make a coupld of bowls of oatmeal in the microwave. Recipe for a bowl is 1C oats, 1C whole milk, 1T butter, microwaved for 2 minutes. Then leave the door shut for 2 more minutes to “finish” cooking. Stir well, sprinkle with plain sugar (or substitute) or pre-made cinnamon sugar to taste, and top with cold milk — creamy and yummy quick hot meal!

    * If we’re really in a rush, grab a high-protein flying brekkie from the fridge. Pre-make hardboiled eggs (only a few days at a time, they spoil faster than fresh eggs!) and pre-cut cheese (again, only 2-3 days at a time kept in a plastic baggie with most of the air removed). We like edam, swiss, cheddar, or even mozzarella (usually in the form of string cheese). Again, yummy and it’s grab-and-go, once you’ve peeled the egg. [For an easy way to crack and peel and egg in one quick movement that takes about 5 seconds, see the Crazy Russian Hacker’s youtube vid on how to peel an egg — fun and it works!]

    * Toasted egg salad sandwiches are quick and easy. Keep some egg salad in the fridge with a bit extra mayo in it, then make some freezer-toast (as above) and slather generously with the egg salad, no need to butter the bread. Have with some pre-made bacon, cold from the fridge. That’s a bacon, egg, and toast breakfast (with mayo subbing for the butter) and it can be made in just a few minutes on the day.

    * Lastly, but definitely my favourite, is a BLT sandwich and so easy! Again, using freezer-toast and pre-made bacon, this one needs some pre-sliced or chopped tomatoes in a food keeper mixed with mayo and finely chopped celery (in place of lettuce). Make the toast, slap on some bacon and spoon on some tomato-celery-mayo mixture — you’re good to go!

    Almost any classic breakfast can be made ahead (like the quiche rather than scrambled eggs, or pre-made french toast, muffins, etc) and either warmed up or eaten cold.

    Just takes, as you say, a bit of planning ahead and having things on hand.

  7. Lots of great ideas! These are my two favorite breakfasts, one with tomatoes and one with apples or other fruit, each of which can be made from scratch in about 10 minutes. When I have a chance to cook a whole pot of apples in advance, then breakfast is even faster.

      1. 200 pounds of apples! Sounds like an article coming on -0- what do you do with that many? I like apples, but unless you’re making applesauce for the food kitchen, I can’t imagine what to do with so much bounty!

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