6 Breakfast Ideas for People Who Hate Breakfast
We turn the first meal of the day on its head with foods you might never have thought would be good before noon.
By Lynn Andriani
Pizza
Top Chef's Mike Isabella loves eating a leftover slice cold out of the fridge for breakfast so much that he created
a collection of breakfast pizza recipes for O. Some are topped with brunch-friendly ingredients like bacon and eggs, but it's Isabella's more unusual combinations that have us hooked, such as strawberry jam with goat cheese; and mushrooms with smoked mozzarella. If you don't have time to make homemade dough, use the premade version from the grocery store.
Fish
The British have kippers, the Japanese have grilled mackerel, and here in the U.S., we have lox. But what about eating a poached or broiled fish fillet in the morning? There's something decadent about it (
especially when the fish—which in this New York Times recipe is flounder—comes with a sunny-side-up egg). There's also
this quick, simple broiled salmon recipe, which is rich in omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin E and iron.
Salad
If the thought of crunchy lettuce and carrots at 8 in the morning isn't any more enticing to you than fruit and yogurt is, broadening your definition of salad could help. Go beyond crisp vegetables like iceberg and cucumbers (their associations to lunch and dinner are hard to shake) and consider softer ones like butter lettuce, avocado, mushrooms and roasted tomatoes, or sweeter ones such as roasted butternut squash and sweet potato. Dress lightly with olive oil and then finish the dish with (you guessed it) a fried or poached egg. Your plate will look striking and have a wake-you-up contrast of warm and cool.
Cookies
Whole grain baker Kim Boyce's
Ricotta Breakfast Bars—which are made with barley flour, pecans, prunes, ricotta and poppy seeds—look a lot like biscotti, and
Ellie Krieger's version of breakfast cookies—with whole wheat pastry flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, mashed carrots, rolled oats, bran cereal flakes, raisins and walnuts—fall somewhere between cookies and granola bars. If you're going to eat a sweet breakfast, these will keep you sated much longer than a bowl full of sugary cereal.
Jook
Cecilia Hae-Jin Lee, author of
Quick and Easy Korean Cooking, says this thick, smooth rice porridge (it's often referred to as a Chinese or Korean take on Cream of Wheat) is a hearty breakfast, especially in winter. There are many types, both sweet and savory. Unlike Western breakfast cereal, which often gets its flavor from toppings, jook add-ins go in during cooking. The result is a deeply flavored, creamy hot cereal you might just fall in love with. Mark Bittman makes jook with
ginger, bacon and scallions, or he varies it with shiitake mushrooms, carrots, peas, chicken, pork or seafood. Lee grew up eating it with red beans and honey, pumpkin or black sesame seeds.
Get the recipe: Jook
Freezer Foods
Push your shopping cart past the frozen waffles, bagels and breakfast burritos to the savory end of the aisle, where you'll find pocket sandwiches, sweet potato pancakes, pot stickers, samosas, rice bowls and more. These would all be excellent breakfast stand-ins for anyone whose palate is adverse to breakfasts doused in syrup or topped with dried fruit. And meals with beans will definitely keep you full until lunch. A few to try: Amy's Organic Beans and Rice Burrito with cheddar cheese and Kashi Black Bean Mango, a whole grain pilaf (left).
Keep reading: A week of breakfasts from Bob Greene
Published 01/10/2012
