When it comes to vegan breakfast, the options are truly endless! You can enjoy roasted potatoes, fresh fruit, cereal, oatmeal smoothies, pancakes, tofu scramble, bagels, waffles, tempeh bacon, etc. Make the transition easy for yourself by thinking about what you're already eating and replacing the animal products with vegan options. An easy example of this is oatmeal.
Oatmeal is naturally vegan -- it's what we put in it that usually isn't vegan though.
Instead of using dairy butter, you can use coconut oil or Earth Balance vegan margarine. Instead of white sugar (a lot of white sugar isn't vegan since it's processed using bone char from animals), you can sweeten your oatmeal with dates, raw sugar (usually vegan) or natural maple syrup.
I can definitely understand if planning a vegan breakfast has you overwhelmed! It took me some time to wrap my head around the idea of no longer having meat, dairy & eggs as the center of our meals.
No worries though -- I promise there's sooo much variety when you start a vegan journey.
Here are more examples of how you can make popular breakfast options vegan:
*Scrambled eggs ---> tofu scramble (firm tofu crumbled and fried in a skillet with salt, black pepper, paprika, garlic powder)
*Toast ---> Cobblestone Mill, Arnold's, Vermont Bread Company & Ezekiel all offer vegan options for bread. You can top your toast with avocado, jam or Earth Balance vegan margarine
*Bacon ---> Tempeh bacon - you can buy or make your own
*Smoothie ---> Blend together almond milk (or water), berries, a frozen ripe banana and a handful of spinach
*Pancakes ---> replace dairy milk with almond milk and replace butter with oil or Earth Balance vegan margarine Here's a recipe we really like
*Roasted potatoes ---> Season with salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder and garlic powder and roast as usual Here's the recipe I usually make
*Cereal ---> There are tons of options, but I'm going to list a few that you can find in any grocery store -- original and cinnamon Life cereal, Kashi Strawberry Fields and Cascadian Farms Cinnamon Crunch
Serve with almond, soy or coconut milk instead of dairy milk
Quick Breakfast Tips:
- Try not to overthink breakfast.
- What are you already eating and how can you make a vegan version of that?
- Start off by planning a couple of vegan breakfast meals each week and buy enough to last several days to save both money and time.
I hope this is helpful!
