Breakfast Ideas: Our Master List of Go-To Meals

Breakfast is one of the hardest meals for meal prep. This list is a compilation of personal favorites, member favorites, and members of the Workweek Lunch Instagram community, compiled over the years. We asked for suggestions about go-to breakfasts and compiled a list of all the answers. There is MUCH to work with here . . . wait till you see these breakfast ideas!

There are lots of benefits to meal prepping breakfast:

• You have more control over what goes IN your breakfast.
• You’re less likely to go for the free cereal at work every morning or some other quick and/or processed shortcut that isn’t that filling.
• AND you get to sleep in because you don’t have to worry about cooking in the morning, cause the prep is ALREADY DONE. Yay!

We hope this breaks you out of your meal prep breakfast rut or inspires you to get started!

Oats

The holy grail of breakfast ingredients, indeed. Here are some of the meal ideas you can make with oats:

• Fresh oatmeal: Add in your favorite fruits, nut butters, seeds, nuts, protein powder or chocolate chips. Some people even like a savory oatmeal with parmesan and olive oil!
• Overnight oats: You can eat this with similar ingredients as freshly made oatmeal, but there is no cooking involved! Try our delicious horchata overnight oats here!
• Baked oatmeal – think brownies, blondies, or chewy bars, but for breakfast and made of oats. That’s baked oatmeal and it’s so easy to eat on the go. Plus, it’s freezer friendly!
• Homemade granola. Yes, it has a lot of ingredients, but it’s ten times better for you than most store bought granola! You can find our easy recipe here!
• Homemade muesli: Like granola, muesli is super easy to whip up and makes for such an easy breakfast. Here’s a recipe I like.

Loaded up toast, crackers and bagels

• Fruit + nut butter – any combination works! I like peanut butter and strawberries or blueberries.
• Regular butter – can’t go wrong with this classic.
• Butter and jam – another classic that won’t let you down.
• Savory idea: mushroom, chestnut, avocado – this was a very interesting combination I loved!
• Melted cheese on toast or bagels. It’s never too early for an open-faced grilled cheese!? Add a slice of tomato if you like!
• Avocado toast – Throw some Everything But The Bagel seasoning on it and it’s a real delight. Or drizzle some olive oil over the top and some sea salt!
• Regular avocado toast with eggs: Open face or not, but a drippy egg is so good here.
• Refried beans and cheddar cheese: Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it! Our community came up strong with this one.
• With lox and cream cheese: This is a total classic that will keep you full till lunch!
• With hummus and veggies: So many types of hummus, but we like regular old hummus with slices of cucumbers in particular
• Avocado and pickled veggies This is another delicious combo that also gets some veggies into your breakfast if that’s a goal.

Wondering what bread to use? We like the generic whole wheat bread in grocery stores. But if you want something different in terms of grains or texture, try Dave’s Killer Bread, Ezekiel Bread, Wasa Crackers and Thomas English Muffins.

You can also make your own sandwich bread with our easy recipe!

Baked goods

• Breakfast Cookies! These are perfect for breakfast and snacks. This recipe is banana chocolate chip.
• Baked oatmeal (like we mentioned above)
• Muffins – These savory cheddar muffins are absolutely delicious
• Banana, pumpkin or zucchini bread
• Sheet pan protein pancakes – This recipe looks amazing.
• Cinnamon rolls – Try this recipe
• Scones – I love this recipe. 
• Homemade biscuits – try this recipe!

Smoothies

• With protein powder
• Add nut butter
• With your favorite milk (I like almond milk)
• Add lots of fruit, fresh or frozen
• With veggies, fresh or frozen
• As a smoothie bowl
• With lots of add-ins like chia seeds, coconut and flax seed

My FAVORITE smoothie combo: banana, cold brew, cocoa powder, vanilla protein powder, and almond milk. It’s like coffee and breakfast all in one. It’s hard to improve up on that!

Breakfasts with yogurt

• Berry Parfaits – get the recipe here!
• With protein powder
• With granola
• Mix yogurt with cottage cheese – an interesting idea from a community member!
• With chocolate chips
• With fruit and honey and/or nut butter
• Parfaits – like above!

My favorite yogurts are plain Fage, Chobani and Siggi’s. And for non-dairy yogurts, I love CoYo, Forager and Kite Hill.

Eggs

• Breakfast Burritos – The one above is our delicious veggie breakfast burrito recipe!
• Egg muffins – these are amazing.
• Meal prepped frittata – a foolproof meal prep idea that’s easy to change up.
• Scrambled eggs are classic; add veggies or not, top with hot sauce, serve with toast, or not.
• Omelets
• Hard-boiled  are great for a quick breakfast on the go
• With turkey bacon or regular bacon. You heard it here: bacon is NOT just for the weekends!
• With leftovers: Put an egg on leftovers like quinoa salads or roasted veggies, and call it breakfast.
• Fried and sunny side up eggs take less than 5 minutes in the morning!
• Poached with toast: Poached eggs are quick too and only sound fancy!!
• Breakfast sandwich: Fried egg, bacon or sausage, a slice of sharp cheddar cheese on a bagel, roll, or English muffin. Fan favorite, fo rsure.
• With potatoes : Have you tried meal prepping potato and veggie hash? Trust me on this.

VEGAN IDEAS: scrambled tofu, scrambled chickpeas!

Waffles and pancakes

• Premade – Pop them in the toaster and call it a day. I like Van’s waffles; they also make gluten free ones!
• Prepped, savory: I love me some good savory pancakes or waffles! This recipe looks awesome.
• Prepped, sweet: I always look forward to traditional pancakes and waffles when I prep them. The picture above shows our incredible blueberry lemon pancakes!

Waffles and pancakes are a kid-friendly AND freezer-friendly option for breakfast meal prep. Get on it!

Bars

• Natures Bakery
• RXbar
• LARABAR
• Cliff Bar
• Or make your own! The cereal bars above are in the WWL Program!

Breakfasts with tortillas

• Peanut butter and bananas (and maybe chocolate too!). It’s true; you don’t have to wait until dessert to eat this satisfying breakfast!
• Sauteed potato with soy chorizo and corn tortillas is an amazing idea from a community member
• Breakfast tacos! These are so easy and tasty! Here’s a recipe I love.
• Breakfast quesadillas! Just take your normal quesadilla and add scrambled egg. BOOM. Breakfast quesadilla.
• Sweet potato and black bean wraps!  My recipe is part of the WWL Meal Prep Plan as a vegan breakfast burrito option.

Other breakfast ideas

• Easy Shakshuka With Feta
• Tuna sandwich
• Daily Harvest smoothies
• Pasta with tomato sauce
• Chia pudding
• Poptarts
• Belvita biscuits
• Cereal with milk (I love Nature’s Path cereal!)
• Dinner leftovers
• Just fruit and nut butter

Want to add any breakfast ideas to this massive list? Drop them in the comments below!

My go-to breakfast are always: overnight oats, pancakes, frittatas, egg muffins and regular muffins. And of course a smoothie when I need it to be fast and loaded with everything I need!

If you found this master list of breakfast ideas helpful, save it for the next time you need an easy, quick breakfast idea.

Happy prepping!