Breakfast Ideas Kids Can Make This Summer

It’s summertime! While we adjust to new schedules and fun plans, it’s the perfect time to encourage our kids to develop life skills that are harder to focus on during the school year.

We want our kids to enjoy their summer and fill it with lazy days, outdoor play, and getting lost in library books, but we also want to help them keep their minds sharp.

Also, since they are home all day and want to snack 1,467 times a day, it’s only fair they learn how to be independent, creative, and confident at mealtime.

While cereal and milk is a classic independent go-to breakfast, we want to help fill our kids with good food too – food that will fill them up so they won’t be hungry again 20 minutes later. Today I want to show you a bunch of real food breakfasts your kids can help prepare on their own this summer. 

You can use these ideas to help your kids make their own breakfasts, or use them to help your kids learn to make breakfast for the whole family.

Cooking is an important skill kids will need as they grow up, so just like we teach them how to clean their bedroom and brush their teeth, children should learn how to feed themselves good food that fuels their bodies well.

RELATED: A busy mom’s guide to getting breakfast on the table

Can’t see the video? Watch it here on YouTube.

When Can Kids Make Their Own Breakfast?

Kids are far more capable than we think! Even a very young child can spread peanut butter on a slice of bread or slice a banana with a butter knife.

In our house during the summer, breakfasts are largely a serve-yourself affair. I stock the kitchen with fresh fruit, yogurt, granola, oats, milk, eggs, and bread. They get to decide how much work they want to put into their breakfast.

My 5-year-old enjoys pouring his own yogurt and topping it with frozen blueberries and chia seeds. My 8-year-old makes his own smoothies and homemade instant oatmeal. My 10-year-old doesn’t like traditional breakfast foods, so he prefers making himself a breakfast taco or even a grilled cheese sandwich and some fruit.

Not sure your kids can handle it? Teach them to cook with the Kids Cook Real Food eCourse and see how much they can do in the kitchen! If your kids have already gone through the course there’s an additional SkillLab just on making breakfast!

Here’s how I tried to encourage my kids to develop independence from a young age:

For Very Young Kids

I usually did most of the food prep for them, then I let them assemble the pieces on their own in the mornings.

I prepared foods like:

• Baked oatmeal – they ate the leftovers cold
• Hardboiled eggs with fruit and muffins
• Pancakes – cold leftovers dipped in maple syrup
• Yogurt, frozen berries, and chia seeds (or with homemade granola)
• Homemade popsicles
• Cold egg & cheese muffins (actually delicious)

For Slightly Older Kids

I let them use the toaster oven or microwave to reheat food. Mine were capable of cooking their own scrambled eggs and slicing fruit (with supervision, of course).

They made and ate breakfasts like:

• Baked oatmeal (premade)- they reheated it in the toaster oven or microwave
• Hardboiled eggs with fruit and muffins
• Pancakes (premade from the freezer – try sheet pan pancakes!) – toasted to reheat and dipped in maple syrup
• Yogurt, frozen berries, and chia seeds
• Homemade popsicles
• Eggs & toast
• Avocado toast
• Fruit salad
• Breakfast wraps – cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, bacon, etc.

For Older Kids

With older kids, it’s just a matter of teaching them the skills they need to prepare their own food. Kids are far more capable than we think they are. Consider having older kids choose a day to make breakfast for the whole family. This encourages them to try recipes they usually won’t make for breakfast just for themselves.

Easy Recipes for Kids to Make

Kids can help in the preparation for any of these recipes.

• Instant oatmeal packs
• Yogurt parfaits
• Fruit salad
• Frozen berry whip
• Smoothie
• Eggs and toast
• Snacky breakfast: hardboiled egg, fruit, toast or muffin, sprouts
• Sausage
• Breakfast hummus
• Granola bowl
• Breakfast mudballs
• No-bake energy bars (for on-the-go breakfasts)
• Overnight refrigerator oats
• Paleo sweet potato hash

You can prepare these ahead of time, and they can reheat and assemble them for breakfast:

• Crispy baked home fries – use with eggs, frittata, and breakfast burritos
• Breakfast burritos
• Baked oatmeal
• Egg and cheese muffins
• One-bowl granola

Don’t forget all the awesome recipes in the Chef Junior cookbook! (See how a group of kids became published authors here!)

Your kids can learn to cook, even if you don’t know where to start

My 4 kids and I created the online Kids Cook Real Food lessons to help bring real food and independence to families all over. Over 10,000 kids have joined us and we’d love to invite you along for the adventure!

I’m so pleased to offer a little gift from our family to yours, a knife skills lesson as a free preview of the full cooking eCourse!

Get The Free Knife Skills Lesson!

We want our kids to have fun this summer and spend hours playing outside, reading books from the library, and letting their imaginations grow. We also want to equip them with fun hands-on skills they can use for the rest of their lives.

Use these simple real food breakfast ideas to make this their most delicious and empowering summer yet!