It’s commonly said that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and for millions of people, it’s also the most delicious. Provided you have the time for it, you can cook amazing meals every morning. But how do you do it?
The Goals
Our goals in this article are as follows:
- Give breakfast the attention it deserves. People spend a lot of time cooking dinner and developing innovative, unique meals for the evening. Lunch, while not as important, also gets a lot of attention. But when it comes to breakfast, most people just want to grab whatever’s convenient, rather than cooking a full meal. Here, we want to give breakfast the attention it deserves.
- Save time. One of the biggest problems with cooking breakfast is finding the time to do it. If you already have a busy schedule, and a job that needs you to arrive early, it may feel like breakfast is impossible. Trust us; it isn’t.
- Enjoy better tastes and textures. And of course, we also want to improve the tastes and textures of your breakfast meals.
Improving Your Breakfast Cooking
These are some of our best strategies for achieving the preceding goals:
- Do prep work the night before. If you have to create an entire breakfast from scratch when you wake up in the morning, you’re going to lose motivation almost instantly. But you can save time and motivate yourself in the morning by doing more prep work the night before. Simple steps like cutting meat, cracking eggs, and portioning out different ingredients can make the morning cook a snap. Freshly cooked meals are usually better than reheated ones, but you can also cook a full breakfast and reheat it the next morning if you’re in a pinch.
- Balance your meal. Assuming you’re hungry enough, create a meal that includes at least one food item from every major food group. Include a protein source, like eggs or meat. Include some complex carbohydrates, like oatmeal or grits. And include some fruits or vegetables, like a side of asparagus or a selection of mixed berries. It provides a diverse flavorful experience – and a nutritionally balanced one as well.
- Get yourself a flat-top grill. Flat-top grills are similar to griddles, giving you a flat surface that you can use to cook pancakes, bacon, and other goodies. If you’re used to using a conventional stovetop, you might be surprised how easily you take to a flat-top grill; you may never go back to using anything else.
- Add some sour cream to your scrambled eggs. Scrambled eggs are a breakfast classic because they’re quick and easy to make, but the skill ceiling is high for this scrumptious breakfast treat. One easy way to make your eggs tastier and give them a fluffier texture is to mix in a spoonful of sour cream before cooking them.
- Cook eggs with last night’s leftovers. One of the miraculous properties of eggs is that their flavor is neutral enough to make them fit with almost any other type of food. You can take advantage of this by mixing scrambled eggs with practically any leftovers you have in the fridge; in a few minutes, you can have a delicious and unique meal while simultaneously getting rid of the extra food in your refrigerator.
- Cook your bacon in the oven. Most of us are used to cooking bacon in a pan, but it cooks more consistently and makes less of a mess if you cook it in the oven. Lay down a layer of aluminum foil so you can trap the grease.
- Make overnight oats. “Overnight oats” is a general name for any recipe that allows you to mix oats and leave them in the fridge so they’re ready in the morning when you want to eat them. There are endless variables to tinker with here, including ingredient proportions and styles.
- Take advantage of the slow cooker. You can also use a slow cooker to cook most breakfast foods, even overnight (if you can do so safely). And if you have interested, you can use the slow cooker to cook breakfast foods for dinner.
- Try various seasonings and sauces. Lots of people add chives to their eggs or cinnamon to their oatmeal, but try to expand your palate by experimenting with many different seasonings and sauces for your breakfast foods. It’s an easy way to discover new combinations.
- Don’t sleep on boxed mixes. Anyone who takes their culinary abilities seriously will likely tell you that mixing a recipe from scratch typically results in a better-finished product than relying on boxed mixes. But is this really the case? The answer is “mostly.” With a few extra touches, like adding new seasonings or mixing in fruit, boxed pancake and waffle mixes can become delectable.
- Have some emergency options on hand. Let’s face it. We don’t always have the time. Keep a few granola bars or protein shakes on hand in case you need them.
Are you ready to have consistently enjoyable, relatively fast breakfast meals in the morning? Are you willing to shake up your normal routine for something a bit more time intensive but much more delicious? You can get started right now preparing breakfast for the morning.
