Christmas morning is often a flurry of excitement, giggles, and presents. But what about those hungry bellies? Shouldn’t the morning excitement include good food? Shouldn’t your kids have a special holiday breakfast to start the day?
A few years back we had quite an unusual Christmas. We woke up to a house without power.
The kids didn’t mind. My oldest three were one, four, and seven at the time. They thought it was fun to wear headlamps, light candles, and snuggle in blankets to open our stockings.
But the excitement wears off when everyone starts getting chilly and hungry.
Thankfully I had prepared some chocolate-covered strawberries as a special treat the day before. And since I couldn’t make much else I also let them each have a Christmas cookie. No-bake holiday breakfast is served.
I don’t remember if they had much else with it. But eating cookies for breakfast in the dark was very memorable.
Ever since that Christmas, we’ve made it a point to have a special breakfast treat when we open presents. Though when I have power, I make sure to balance the sweet with healthy protein and fat to avoid a hangry meltdown.
This is another year where Christmas might look a little different. So it’s especially important to make it special and keep our traditions when we can.
I decided to upgrade our usual chocolate-covered strawberries into a full-blown banana split! This is my healthy twist on a classic dessert turned breakfast.
Finding Breakfast Ideas that are Healthy
In a Standard American Diet (SAD) healthy breakfast is sort of an oxymoron. There is nothing healthy about starting the day with processed grains and loads of refined sugar. I’m looking at you, boxed cereal, toaster pastries, and frozen waffles. So it can be a challenge to find breakfast ideas that are healthy. Especially if you want to make it a special holiday breakfast.
Keep in mind that special does not have to equate to sweet. You can make an amazing egg and sausage casserole or these fun rainbow egg muffins.
As a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, my goal is always to have a balance of quality protein, healthy fats, and complex carbohydrates in a meal. So keep that in mind when creating your holiday breakfast. It’s OK to have a little sweet (preferably with natural sweeteners) as long as you have balance.
Banana Split: A Healthy Kid Breakfast?
I love to get creative in the kitchen. I’ve spent years recreating healthier and allergy-friendly versions of some childhood favorites like Oreos®, Nestle Crunch®, graham crackers, and Golden Grahams®. It’s fun to take something familiar and give it a new spin.
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This year I decided to take dessert and turn it into a healthy breakfast.
This breakfast banana split maintains all the flavor without the overload of refined sugar.
You start with the traditional banana split down the middle. Then top it with sliced strawberries and three flavors of “ice cream.”
The faux ice cream can be prepared hours to a week in advance. Then on Christmas morning you just slice, scoop, and serve!
It looks like a lot of steps, but in reality, it’s only about 10 minutes of prep work.
Healthy Breakfast Banana Split Recipe
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 10 mins
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: 1-2
- Category: Breakfast
- Diet: Gluten Free
Description
A healthy breakfast spin on a classic dessert. You can eat a banana split for breakfast!
Ingredients
- 1 medium-large banana
- 1/4 cup sliced or chopped strawberries
- mini chocolate chips (optional)
Vanilla “Ice Cream”
- 1/4 cup whole milk or coconut milk yogurt
- 2 tsp. maple syrup
Chocolate “Ice Cream”
- 2 Tbsp. butter (or coconut oil)
- 1 Tbsp. maple syrup
- 2 tsp. cocoa powder (use the code STEWARDSHIP for 10% off at that site!)
Nut Butter “Ice Cream”
- 1 Tbsp. sunbutter or nut butter
- 1 Tbsp. maple syrup
- 1 Tbsp. coconut oil (or butter)
- 2 tsp. coconut flour
Instructions
- In a small, glass bowl mix the yogurt and syrup. Freeze until just getting firm, about 30 minutes.
- In a small saucepan heat the butter, maple syrup and cocoa (use the code STEWARDSHIP for 10% off at that site!) powder over medium heat. Stir until the butter is melted and all of the ingredients are combined.
- Pour the mixture into a small, glass bowl and freeze until just getting firm, about 30 minutes.
- Rinse the saucepan and add the sunbutter, maple syrup, coconut oil, and coconut flour.
- Stir and heat over medium heat until the oil is melted and all of the ingredients are combined.
- Pour the mixture into a small, glass bowl and freeze until just getting firm, about 30 minutes.
- Once the mixtures are semi-solid, scoop and form into one-inch balls (you can use a small cookie scoop for this).
- Place the balls on a small, parchment-lined baking pan and return to the freezer until ready to serve.
- To assemble, slice the banana in half lengthwise and lay in a long, narrow dish.
- Lay sliced strawberries on one half of the banana.
- Add as many “ice cream” balls as you like/as fit.
- Top with chocolate chips if desired.
- Serve immediately.
Notes
- A corn-on-the-cob dish works well for banana splits.
- If you don’t have a long dish or if you want to make it easier to eat for small children, you can serve it with sliced banana rounds instead of slicing lengthwise.
- You can serve this without the bananas if your kids don’t like bananas/have an allergy to bananas.
- You can substitute raspberries, blueberries, pineapple, cherries, or kiwi for the strawberries.
- For a real treat you can top the banana split with this five-minute dairy-free caramel sauce.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 2
- Calories: 439
- Sugar: 27g
- Sodium: 78mg
- Fat: 30g
- Saturated Fat: 19g
- Carbohydrates: 40g
- Fiber: 5g
- Protein: 6g
- Cholesterol: 4mg
Keywords: healthy breakfast, healthy dessert, fruit recipe
Kid-Approved Healthy Holiday Breakfast
Kid-Approved Healthy Holiday BreakfastThis holiday breakfast banana split contains quality protein from yogurt and sunbutter or nut butter, healthy fat from coconut oil, butter, and nuts, and complex carbohydrates from bananas and strawberries.
There is a bit of sweetness from maple syrup, which also contains trace minerals.
If you have a kid that struggles with blood sugar regulation, you may want to add some extra protein on the side, like a scrambled egg or some bacon.
Using sunbutter, coconut milk yogurt, and coconut oil, breakfast banana split is grain-free, nut-free, egg-free, and dairy-free! That means nobody is left out.
A banana split for breakfast got eight thumbs up from my crew! I know that your kids will love it too.
One banana split is pretty big. It could be split between two or three kids, depending on age.
Looking for Breakfast Ideas That are Healthy and Fun?
Kids not a fan of bananas? No problem. There are plenty of other healthy breakfast ideas.
You can always make the banana split without the banana. My kids wanted to eat all of the “ice cream” plain.
A few other fun breakfast ideas include:
- Apple pie breakfast parfait
- Baked cinnamon sugar donuts
- Baked pumpkin french toast
- Grain-free pumpkin spice breakfast cookies
- Hot cocoa waffles
- Penguin parfait
- Teff + sorghum cherry bars
- Broth scrambled eggs
- Egg muffins
- Cardamom cranberry cake
Our Special Holiday Breakfast
Our Special Holiday BreakfastAfter waiting a few hours to see if the power would come back, we decided to move our celebration elsewhere. With an estimate of two days, we didn’t want to freeze for Christmas.
My grandparents happened to be in hospice care at the time, and their old farmhouse was sitting empty. We loaded up the kids, the new toys, and our duck for roasting and drove across town for Christmas dinner. We spent the night at my grandparents’ farm. It brought back so many great memories of my own childhood.
We played Twister®, ate subpar duck that I had to roast much faster than I would have liked, and pretended it was a sleepover. In the morning we had hot cocoa and yogurt parfaits for breakfast. And rejoiced to hear that our power was back and we could head back home.
Although I didn’t want to move Christmas across town, in the end, we got such a special treat to be the last family members to ever celebrate Christmas at the old farmhouse. By the next December, it was sold. I wouldn’t trade that Christmas for anything.
At the end of the day, I want my kids to remember our time together and the special memories. They probably won’t remember many gifts, but they will remember the time together as a family. And making fun, unique Christmas breakfasts part of our tradition really adds to the memories!
