A nutritious breakfast is a great way to fuel the start of your day. We know mornings can be a busy time for most families, so we’ve put together some of our favourite quick and tasty recipes!
What should I do if my little one doesn’t like to eat breakfast?
Lots of adults and children don’t feel like eating much (or anything) in the mornings. Try some of the tips below:
- Start off with light bites – e.g. half a piece of fruit or a quarter of toast. After a little while our appetites in the morning will increase.
- Make sure your child has enough time to eat – being rushed to eat might impact on your child’s view of breakfast and reduce their appetite. To allow them a little extra time, you may need to wake them up 10 minutes earlier than normal.
- Set the table – you could try setting the table up for breakfast the evening before to help save a little time in the morning.
- Is breakfast club an option? If you really struggle for time in the morning, you could check if your child’s nursery or school offers breakfast or their school runs a Breakfast Club.
- Try to keep breakfast interesting! Being offered the same breakfast everyday can get boring and children’s motivation to eat may reduce. It’s a good idea to give children a couple of choices at breakfast time and allow them to choose the one they would like.
- Make the food look appealing – include different colours, tastes and textures to make breakfast more enjoyable. Remember if the food looks exciting children are more likely to eat it!
- Role Model- if your little ones see you eating breakfast they are more like to want to try it too. Breakfast is also a really important meal for adults! A healthy breakfast can provide you with 20-25% of the vitamins and minerals you need each day for good health. Research has shown that if we eat breakfast we are more likely to have a balanced diet, are less likely to be overweight (and loose weight more successfully if we’re overweight) and have a reduced risk of certain diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
Let’s take a look out some of our nutritious family breakfast ideas for you and your little ones!
Tasty Toast Toppers
Toast toppers are a great way of adding some variety to your breakfast! For example:
- Avocado and eggs, such as poached an scrambled
- Nut butter with sliced fruit, such as banana or berries
- Cheese and tomatoes
- Beans and cheese
- Cream cheese
- Hummus and mushrooms.
Top tip: try swapping bread for other starchy food items, such as bagels, crumpets, breakfast muffins and wraps!
Eggy Bread
These eggy bread recipes make for fantastic family breakfasts. They can be easily chopped into suitable sized pieces for your little ones and served with a variety of finger foods too!
Check out the YouTube videos below:
- Eggy bread with avocado fingers (opens in new tab)
- French toast with strawberries (opens in new tab)
Overnight Oats
Overnight oats recipes are easy to make and perfect for kids and adults. The basic ingredients are simply rolled oats and milk, and then you can add whatever you like (and whatever you have in the fridge/ cupboards!).
Here are some of our favourite topping suggestions:
- Strawberry, banana and nut butter
- Yoghurt, blueberries and raspberries
- ‘Carrot cake’- grated carrot, sultanas, mixed spice and yoghurt
- Grated apple and peanut butter
- Pumpkin and date.
Check out our Overnight Oats Recipes here! (opens in new tab)
Breakfast Couscous
Yes, we know breakfast couscous sounds strange, but this recipe is honestly delicious and something totally different. The ingredients in this recipe are slightly different from your average breakfast recipe, for example, pistachios and orange zest. Give it a try, you’ll be surprised!
Check out the recipe card here! (opens in new tab)
Pancakes
If you have a little more time at the weekends, then pancakes are a great family breakfast option! Your little ones can help with making the mixture and choose their own toppings.
Some of our favourite toppings include:
- Carrot and sultana
- Blueberries, banana and plain natural or Greek yoghurt
- Cheese, courgette and sweetcorn
- Tomato and mushroom
- Cheese and ham
- Banana, raspberry and peanut butter
- Rhubarb compote with crème fraîche
- Mixed berries with cream cheese and a squeeze of lemon juice
- Cottage cheese, chopped fresh herbs and lemon juice
- Tahini, yoghurt and grated cheese
- Roasted cherry tomatoes and rocket
- Roasted butternut squash, goats cheese and rocket
- Tinned salmon, sliced avocado, fresh chives and lime juice
- Sliced kiwi fruit, passion fruit and natural yoghurt.
Check out our pancake recipes here! (opens in new tab)
Breakfast Muffins
Our vegan breakfast muffins are a great weekend treat and a nice way of adding more variety at breakfast time. They’re a fantastic recipe to make with your little ones as they’ll love to weigh out and mix together the ingredients.
Watch the YouTube video here to get the recipe! (open in new tab)
Smoothie Bowl
If you fancy making something a little different for breakfast, then you might be interested in this delicious turmeric smoothie bowl! It’s easy to prepare and makes for a perfect summer breakfast.
Click here for the recipe card! (PDF, 144KB)
You can find more recipes via:
- Our Early Start Nutrition blogs: Breakfast in your Early Years setting (opens in new tab), Baby Breakfast Ideas (opens in new tab) and Example Menus (opens in new tab)
- Start for Life website (opens in new tab)
- Action on Sugars Breakfast Recipe booklet (PDF, 3.7MB) which also features our popular Breakfast CousCous
This is an amazing choices of breakfast for children and adult, it is worth try it.
Brilliant ideas for kids
Heya.
These are rather nice ideas. I used to have hot scrambled eggs on toast with fruit for breakfast once a week in order to get my daily fix of protein. Or you can have scrambled eggs on their own. Other classic options include a full English breakfast with all of the trimmings.
Sometimes I had either pancakes or tiny waffles. Put mini scrambled eggs in a cup and munch away. Or sausages. Cut up meat and serve it with eggs for breakfast. Cold cuts of meat and eggs in a sandwich.
Best of luck. Try having warm toast and tomato ketchup for a mini breakfast too. I fancy making different things for my breakfast tomorrow. So I may try to have a nice cheese and ham omelette. Or alternatively try beans on toast. You can even have fried mushrooms on toast.