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80 Paleo Breakfast Ideas
If it wasn't for struggling to come up with different Paleo Breakfast Ideas, I'm sure more people would make the transition over to Paleo. Unfortunately, Breakfast seems to be associated with cereal, toast, bagels, crumpets and sugar laden foods.
Breakfast doesn't have to equal grains! tweet this quote
I think a lot of people also get stuck in a breakfast rut making the same dish every day. Well, it’s time to break it up – try something new for breakfast tomorrow!
My biggest tip is to get used to seeing breakfast as fuel – it’s just another meal! And who wants to start the day off with a big sugar crash?
I've come up with lots of great Paleo Breakfast Ideas for whatever your Paleo situation (no time, dislike eggs, want to drink breakfast, child friendly, SAD substitutes, vegetarian/ vegan or keen to impress) – there are certainly lots of options.
To prove the point, here is a HUGE list of 80 Paleo Breakfast Ideas to inspire you. And if you want even MORE, check out my very own Paleo Breakfast Recipe book, with over 100 pages of beautifully photographed step-by-step recipes.
Easy Paleo Breakfast Ideas
Here are some Paleo Breakfast Ideas for when you have a little bit of time in the morning:
1. Bacon, eggs, avocado, mushrooms & tomato
2. An omelette with your choice of meat, vegetables and of course – egg yolks as well as whites
3. Make a frittata with your favourite veggies, meats and cheese (if you’re more Primal than Paleo)
4. There’s nothing like steak and eggs for breakfast!
5. For a nutritionally dense Paleo Breakfast Idea, chop up chicken liver and scramble with eggs, mushroom, onions and capsicum (bell peppers)
6. Scrambled eggs mixed with diced bacon and avocado (my personal favourite!)
7. Soft boiled eggs and wilted spinach
8. Lots of nations wake up to soup – make a soup with bone broth – or try coconut milk and leftover meat and veggies
9. Sweet potato, sardines and a poached egg
10. Try substitution bacon for skirt steak and serve with pumpkin
11. Bake an egg in an avocado
12. Bone broth with an egg whisked in
13. Smoked salmon and fried eggs for a great protein boast
14. Smoked haddock with poached eggs and wilted spinach
No Time?
When you need a good, quick Paleo Breakfast and have no time to cook and prepare, here are some fast ideas:
15. Paleo Breakfast Casserole – the night before put your choice of ingredients in your slow cooker – and wake up to an instant hot breakfast
16. Egg muffins – cook these up with your favourite veggies and meat in a big batch – and help yourself from the fridge all week
17. Make up a batch of salmon and zucchini croquettes to dig into all week
18. Black Coffee
19. Got a couple of minutes? Scramble an egg in a mug in the microwave
20. The day before, roast some sweet potatoes, and some chicken and have waiting in a container ready for breakfast
21. Make up a breakfast salad the night before with nuts, olives, avocado – and dress with extra virgin olive oil to serve
Grab & Go/ Travel
With no time to eat at home, these are some Paleo Breakfast ideas you can have on the go, eat on the road or perhaps at work.
22. Take a can of tuna/ mackerel/ kippers/ sardines and some pre-cut raw veggies
23. Make a Paleo trail mix with your favourite nuts and dried fruit
24. There’s nothing wrong with beef jerky for breakfast!
25. Hard boiled eggs travel well and can be prepared in advance
26. Make a BLT sandwich using capsicum (bell pepper) as the “bread”
27. Coconut yoghurt
28. Take a halved avocado and a spoon
29. Pork scratchings/ crackling/ rind (whatever you like to call it!)
30. Make up nut balls with nuts, seeds, spices and coconut oil and store in the fridge
SAD Substitutes
If you’re missing your old SAD breakfasts, there’s a Paleo Diet grain-free equivalent for almost everything…
31. Make a Paleo cereal with your favourite nuts, berries and seeds in a bowls of almond milk
32. Or try a Paleo cereal using dried fruit, seeds and nuts and serve with coconut milk and a pinch of cinnamon
33. Paleo granola can be made up from your choice of nuts and served with coconut milk
34. Make up banana bread with almond meal – and bananas!
35. A coconut muesli with nuts, seeds and coconut flakes served in coconut milk
36. Make up a noatmeal – or a Paleo porridge substitute using ground nuts, seeds, eggs and coconut milk
Leftovers
These deserve their own category! Make sure you cook up extra dinner the night before – and you have a ready made breakfast. What’s wrong with steak for breakfast? tweet this quote
37. Sauté onions and mushrooms – and last nights leftover meat and serve over poached eggs
Something Fancy
If you have the time, there are some great Paleo Breakfast Ideas that are perfect for an occasional treat. I very rarely use nuts and nut flours, but they are great for special occasions – and especially good for showing your SAD friends just what is possible when you go grain-free:
38. Paleo pancakes with almond meal take a bit more time, but are well worth the effort
39. Or try sweet potato pancakes
40. Waffles can be made with coconut flour or almond meal and served with a berry sauce
41. A Paleo NoOatmeal is far better than the SAD equivalent and can be prepared the night before, and cooked up in the morning
42. Raspberry Crepes made with coconut flour or almond meal served with fresh raspberries & whipped coconut cream – and a pinch of cinnamon
43. Scotch eggs; coat hard-boiled eggs in Paleo Sausage mixture, cover in almond meal and baked – amazing with poached eggs
44. A Paleo platter with a selection of fruits, cold meats, pickles, olives, sun-dried tomatoes & blanched veggies
45. Make bacon baskets using a cake case as a mould and bake eggs in them
46. My salmon burgers
47. Stuff capsicum (bell peppers) with salmon, mushroom and tomato and top with pine nuts
48. Sliced onion wrapped with smoked salmon on a bed of lettuce
49. Your favourite seafood & veggies
50. Serve scrambled eggs in an orange half
No Eggs!
It’s easy to make every Paleo Breakfast include eggs – and it can be easy to get fed up of eggs! Here are some egg free Paleo Breakfast Ideas:
51. Kippers and dried figs
52. Paleo Sausages and kimchi
53. Pan fried zuchinni served with guacamole
54. Stuffed portabello mushrooms
55. Sautéed minced (ground) beef, greens, onions and carrots
56. Sausages with sauerkraut & stir fried veggies
57. Trout with mushrooms and tomato
58. Fry kidneys and serve with broccoli
all without eggs!
Intermittent Fasting for Breakfast?
Since I've been Paleo, I quite often skip breakfast altogether – have you tried skipping breakfast?
Paleo Breakfasts For Kids (and big Kids alike!)
If your family has recently gone Paleo, here are a few suggestions your children and toddlers will love!
59. Egg & roasted vegetable soldiers
60. Make berry muffins with eggs, coconut flour, nuts and berries
61. Raw or blanched veggies served with nut butter, guacamole and salsa dips
Paleo Vegetarian/ Vegan Options
If you still can’t face meat in the morning, how about these ideas? Or you could always try a smoothie!
62. Poached eggs and sweet potato (or even yam) hash browns
63. Sauté some greens, squeeze on some lemon and add an egg
64. Fry eggs in a capsicum (bell pepper) ring or onion ring
65. Steamed broccoli with sweet potatoes
66. Mash up a hard-boiled egg with avocado
67. Try scrambling eggs with mushrooms, onions and a home-made tomato salsa
Fruit Friendly?
It’s common to minimise fruit intake on a Paleo Diet, due to it’s high fructose content. If you're targeting weight loss, it can be a good idea to minimise fruit and nuts. However, if you’re all for fruit, here are some fruity Paleo Breakfast Ideas. Remember berries have a lower fructose content and are loaded with antioxidants.
68. A nice simple fruit salad – served with whipped coconut cream
69. Even easier – a piece of fruit and a few berries
70. Make a warm fruit custard with eggs & coconut milk on the stove, nutmeg, cinnamon, berries a banana and some nuts
71. Chop up a kiwi fruit in coconut cream (or heavy cream if you do dairy too)
72. Wrap cubes of melon in prosciutto
Primal Breakfast Ideas
If your diet is more Primal than Paleo and you include some dairy, here are a few Primal Breakfast ideas for you.
73. Greek yoghurt with nuts, berries and your favourite spices
74. Apple and cheese is a winning combination!
75. Try the paleo cereal suggestions in raw milk instead of coconut
76. Bacon and tomato wrapped in cheese and lettuce wraps
Drinkable Breakfasts
A nice alternative – or something hand to have on the go is a smoothie or shake. There are some good options. Make sure you add in fat, perhaps an avocado or some coconut oil and enjoy your breakfast drink!
77. Green smoothies; try adding in Kale and spinach for a vitamin boast
78. Make an anti-oxidant berry smoothie with coconut milk
79. A veggie juice with coconut milk, carrots, broccoli and celery
80. A banana smoothie made with frozen bananas , coconut milk and almond butter
I hope I've given you some inspiration! If you're after even more, please check out my very own recipe book, the Paleo Breakfast Recipe Book with a recipe to suit every single paleo breakfast situation! I’d love to hear your favourite Paleo Breakfast Ideas in the comments below! What's on your menu?
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Paleo Meets Vegan Meets Vegetarian
On the way to LAX airport from PrimalCon, my new friend Jennifer and I stopped off in Santa Monica for coffee (Jennifer) and tea (me). We got talking to an interesting couple, who seemed keen to find out about us, as soon as they realised we had different accents to them.
They were asking what we were doing in California, to which we replied rather vaguely, telling them we’d been to a health conference. The conversation then progressed onto health and how healthy our new friends believed they were. That’s where they proudly told us they were Vegan, clearly of the popular belief that that is the ultimate in healthy lifestyles. That wasn't really a conversation I felt like having, so didn't delve further. However, it wasn't long before they asked exactly what our health conference was about. Before I could say it was a Kettlebell conference (I know, gutless – but this was Vegans on their home turf) Jennifer quickly announced we’d been to PrimalCon – and were Paleo, pretty much the opposite to Vegans. Carnivores. I filled the silence by explaining how we actually have a lot in common. We don’t eat feed lock, intensively farmed meat. We are really careful to ensure our meat is ethical and comes from well cared for animals, in their natural environment and fed their natural diet. They seemed to accept this, before the woman started to tell us how she could never eat a cute, soft, cuddly, beautiful cow and how if she saw one she’d have to take it home so she could pat it and stroke it all day. Or something like that.
This conversation (and the book I'm currently reading “The Vegetarian Myth”) has got me thinking about the similarities and differences between being Paleo and being Vegetarian or Vegan.
Is it possible to be Vegan or Vegetarian and Paleo?
I've even seen increasing numbers of people on Paleo forums posing the question as to whether it is possible to follow a Paleo lifestyle as a Vegan or Vegetarian. Denice Minger has a talk about this very subject. With the absence of meat and dairy too (in the case of Vegans) this group often rely heavily on grains as a source of calories and legumes as a protein source. A shift from a grain and legume heavy diet, to a meat-free Paleo diet would be quite a transition, but theoretically possible – probably involving lots of nutritionally dense eggs. I guess it’s a lot easier for those Vegetarians who do eat fish (Pescetarians) – that would certainly make following a Paleo style diet a lot easier…
The Vegetarian/ Vegan is Healthy Myth
I don’t think it’s accurate to assume that just because someone is Vegetarian they automatically live a supremely healthy lifestyle. Whilst a lot of Vegetarians are healthy, there also seem to be a lot of “Junk Food Vegetarians”. So many processed foods have the “V” Vegetarian symbol. In fact, it would be very easy for a Vegetarian to conduct their entire diet through packets of processed foods, without a vegetable in sight. I think this is where Paleo differs. Whilst I'm sure industry will start to produce “Paleo Processed Foods”, they will never be Paleo – as the whole basis of Paleo is to eat natural, uncomplicated, whole foods.
From Vegetarian/ Vegan to Paleo?
A lot of people do seem to become Vegetarian or Vegan through concern for their health. It amazes me how many of those now following a Paleo lifestyle used to be Vegetarian of Vegan, in fact, the 2012 Paleo Survey results show that over 38% of Paleo respondents used to follow either of those lifestyles. I have a lot of respect for these people, as it can’t be easy to go through such a transformation. How do you start the process of telling your friends and family you now eat meat? Do you spend time as a secret meat eater before casually ordering a steak at dinner with friends?
Have you ever been Vegetarian or Vegan? Do you think Paleo is the polar opposite lifestyle?
