Quick Healthy School Day Breakfast Ideas

School day breakfast is a big thing in our house.

Mainly because I’m obsessed with my daughter going to school with a well balanced meal inside her tummy.

To my mind a healthy breakfast involves a good mix of protein and carbs – and is super low on sugar. 

In short, brain-food.

Because brain-food is what keeps her focused in class and swerving blood sugar crashes.

That said, it’s hard to always come up with the goods at breakfast time.

I noticed my repertoire of yummy school day breakfast ideas dwindled towards the end of the last school term.

So, I put myself together a school day breakfast cheat sheet, that I can use to keep myself motivated and, hopefully, ahead of the curve for this school year.

I use the cheat sheet to mix and match breakfasts, sometimes choosing two or three things to make up a healthy breakfast.

Here’s the cheat sheet, do let me know if you have any great ideas that I can add to it.

Quick and Healthy School Day Breakfast Ideas

1. Spelt or wholemeal flour pancakes with sliced banana and a dollop of organic yoghurt
2. Organic peanut butter on brown bread toast or wholemeal bagel
3. Porridge with unsweetened almond milk
4. Poached salmon
5. Mini organic high welfare sausages
6. Boiled egg and brown toast soldiers (Eggs cooked on Sunday night will last through week if too short on time to boil eggs)
7. Eggy bread with spelt bread (low gi, low gluten) so will pack them a long lasting energy punch without clogging insides
8. Poached egg and brown toast
9. Green eggs – Very (very) finely cut a small amount of baby spinach, or even blend the spinach, in with eggs and then scramble for green eggs 🙂
10. Omelettes – hide green veg in same way and add any easy veg they will eat
11. Cheese on brown bread toast
12. Organic yoghurt flavoured with natural fruit juice
13. Pear or apple, sliced but not peeled
14. Cucumber fingers
15. Small bowl of strawberries
16. Small bowl of blueberries
17. Handful of unsalted cashew nuts
18. Vegetable muffins  (make at the weekend and freeze)
19. Secret spinach berry smoothie – click for a great secret spinach smoothie recipe

Some school day breakfast nutritional notes…

Drinks

It’s all about keeping drinks simple in our house. The drink M asks for most is water and that’s the way we like it… no sugar, no nothing… except hydration!

As an alternative she sometimes (sometimes) has a small glass of 100% pure fruit juice diluted with three parts water.

Cereal

We don’t have any cereal other than porridge, there’s so much sugar added to even some of the healthiest looking branded cereals. School day breakfast in our household is all about keeping G.I levels balanced, for maximum concentration and minimum energy dips.

Bread

We pretty much always opt for brown bread, be it wholemeal or spelt bread(though who doesn’t love the taste of freshly baked crusty white bread, sigh). I also mix it up with gluten-free bread, as kids can end up consuming so much gluten, and I know from experience that gluten overload can lead to stomach issues as the years pass.

I do make bread at home from time to time, but if I buy it, I’m always careful to buy bread that doesn’t have heaps of added sugar. You’d be surprised how much of the white stuff gets added to some brands’ bread.

Milk

M pretty much went off drinking milk the second she stopped having it in a bottle.

It made me realise that I often didn’t feel great after having milk in the morning. I’d feel mildly nauseous, but never badly enough that I dwelled on it. Still, it set me looking for an alternative to having milk on cereal… turns out we both like almond milk and feel fine after having it.

 Meat

Do need to avoid highly processed meat but look for unprocessed ham, bacon & sausage cured with natural ingredients – buy less and make sure you buy from a butcher with high animal welfare standards.

Got breakfast on the mind? Check out our post of 100 quick and easy pancake toppings, which are perfect for quick breakfasts, or lazy Sunday brunches. 

Want more ideas for school day meals? I have a post with a big list of healthy school lunchbox ideas and one specifically on healthy school lunch ideas for teens.

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