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Start your day right with these healthy breakfast ideas featuring nutrient-dense whole foods, easy meal prep options, and delicious recipes that fuel your day! From banana baked oatmeal to veggie scrambles, these are satisfying breakfast recipes you’ll actually want to make.

Healthy Breakfast Ideas
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Are you stuck in a rut in the mornings? It can be hard to find wholesome options to start the day. As someone who’s spent over a decade testing recipes and publishing cookbooks, I’ve learned that the best healthy breakfast isn’t about perfection—it’s about finding nutritious options that actually fit your life. Whether you have five minutes or 1 hour, there are ways to fuel your body with real, wholesome ingredients that keep you satisfied and energized!

Maybe it’s a cozy bowl of oatmeal topped with peanut butter and jelly, or a breakfast scramble full of colorful vegetables. There are so many tasty ways to incorporate nutritious whole foods into your morning!

What makes a healthy breakfast?

Let’s define what the term “healthy” means when it comes to breakfast. According to Harvard, the best way to start the day is with nutrient-dense whole foods like fruits and vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts, and seeds. In general, breakfasts with low glycemic load foods are best, since meals that don’t spike blood sugar result in improved cognitive performance and more sustained energy.

What does this look like in terms of foods? Here’s what Harvard recommends as some examples of healthy breakfast foods:

  • plain yogurt with fruit and nuts
  • oatmeal with fruit and nuts
  • whole wheat or rye toast with nut butter
  • eggs with vegetables
  • black beans and a corn or whole wheat tortilla.

This preference for fruits and vegetables, whole grains, nuts and seeds for breakfast is also the same philosophy as the Mediterranean diet, deemed the best diet in the world by US News and World Report. Try my top 20 Mediterranean Diet Breakfast Recipes!

The recipes you’ll find below are build around the philosophy of nutrient-dense whole foods first. They all vegetarian, with many vegan and gluten-free options. You’ll find only a few healthy pancakes recipes, which include high concentrations of whole foods ingredients.

Top healthy breakfast recipes

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Healthy Breakfast Ideas: Veggie Scramble & More!

Healthy Breakfast Ideas

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4.2 from 5 reviews

Want to eat more veggies? Make this breakfast vegetables scramble! It’s got lots of colorful veggies to start the day right (and a vegan option).

  • Author: Sonja Overhiser
  • Prep Time: 8 minutes
  • Cook Time: 7 minutes
  • Total Time: 15 minutes
  • Yield: 2 1x
  • Category: Breakfast
  • Method: Stovetop
  • Cuisine: American
  • Diet: Vegetarian

Ingredients

Scale
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1/2 red onion
  • 1 red bell pepper (or 1/2 red and 1/2 orange)
  • 4 cups baby kale or spinach
  • 1 tablespoon chopped chives or other fresh herbs
  • 4 eggs or this Tofu Scramble
  • ¼ cup shredded Colby cheese or crumbled goat cheese (optional)
  • ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
  • Fresh ground black pepper
  • Avocado slices, for serving

Instructions

  1. Prep the vegetables: Thinly slice the red onion. Large dice the bell pepper.
  2. Prep the eggs or tofu: In a medium bowl, crack the eggs and whisk them together until well-beaten. Stir in the shredded cheese, fresh herbs, kosher salt, and plenty of fresh ground pepper. Or, complete Step 1 of the Tofu Scramble.
  3. Cook the vegetables: Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. When hot, add the onion and peppers. Cook 3 to 4 minutes until tender and just starting to brown, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to low. Add a pinch of salt and the baby greens. Cook for 30 seconds until wilted. Remove and set aside.
  4. Cook the eggs or tofu: Keep heat on low. Pour in the eggs. Cook for 20 to 30 seconds. When the eggs just start to set, use a flat spatula to scrape sections of eggs, gently stirring constantly until cooked but still soft, about 1 minute. Or, complete Step 2 of the Tofu Scramble.
  5. Add the vegetables and serve: Add the veggies back to the pan with the eggs or tofu. Stir for a few seconds until combined and warmed. Serve immediately.

Notes

*Make ahead instructions: do not make the entire pan in advance and refrigerate overnight because the oats will absorb all the liquid. You can mix up the wets and dries separately and store in separate containers (with the wets refrigerated), then pour them together in the morning and bake.

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A few more breakfast ideas…

Need a few more healthy breakfast recipes? Here are some more non-recipe ideas for busy mornings:

More healthy meal inspiration

Looking for more healthy meal options? We’ve got you covered. Here are some of our favorite collections of recipes:

About the authors

Alex & Sonja

Hi there! We’re Alex & Sonja Overhiser, authors of two cookbooks, busy parents, and a real life couple who cooks together. We founded the A Couple Cooks website in 2010 to share simple, seasonal recipes and the joy of cooking. We now offer thousands of original recipes, cooking tips, and meal planning ideas—all written and photographed by the two of us (and tested on our kids!).

Leave a Comment

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11 Comments

  1. Christine H says:

    This was a winner – loved that it was oil-free, easy to make, good for you, and delicious to boot!

  2. caca says:

    perfect caca

    1. Anonymous says:

      Yes

  3. Anonymous says:

    T The only thing healthy for you is the egg and the rest will spike your sugar levels

    1. Josh says:

      Natural sugars are healthy, as for the other sugar-bearing foods on this list, they all contain additional benefits that outweigh sugar-free foods.

    2. Anonymous says:

      Except 13 grams a sugar is over 36% of what’s recommend daily. And eggs clogs your arteries when you eat them daily.

      1. nobody says:

        Then just don’t eat anything.

  4. KAO espoir says:

    très bon site ils nous donnent une plage d’idées de petit déjeuner
    je vous le conseille

  5. My But says:

    I haven’t tried it yet but looks yummy

  6. Sabrina says:

    thank you for all of these, looking for some breakfast inspiration, the crustless quiche looks especially good to me!

  7. kendall st clair says:

    so awsome rate 10/10