{Please, welcome my friend Samantha from Inspired by Lucile to the blog today! She’s another mom of many who knows what it is like to feed a large crew! Today, she’s sharing tips for making breakfast less complicated and more nutritious!}
We all know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. We all say this to our children, but we tend to set a poor example and not eat breakfast ourselves. Honestly, it is because we are busy just trying to get everyone ready for the day. That’s how it used to be for us, but after making a few changes we no longer have problems. So here are some Breakfast Ideas for the Busy Family.
How to Plan
The hardest part for me was figuring out what to make. Once that was done the rest happened easily. I asked my kids and my husband what they enjoyed eating for breakfast and then added a few extras.
I spent some time on Pinterest finding recipes that not only sounded good but would freeze well. The easiest way to do this is to look for Freezer Cooking Breakfast Ideas. I found a plethora of ideas and some great links making the rest of my task easy.
Weekend Food Prep
The biggest change we made is making food prep on the weekends. My oldest daughter and I spend a lot of time in the kitchen on Sunday afternoons. It is our time to prep for the week, especially breakfast. While this may take a couple of hours depending what we are making, it saves time during the week. Things move smoothly and my husband is especially blessed to have something he can grab and take with him on his way to work.
Since we are large family this is also considered bulk cooking. We make a lot of food all at once, and then bag it up and freeze it for the week. By separating things out it makes it a grab and go meal not only for my husband but for the children as they get up they can take care of themselves.
Quick Announcement from Amy…
The FREE Knife Class for kids that will teach your children (and you too!) how to properly use knives in the kitchen opens back up today over at Kitchen Stewardship. You can learn more HERE!
What We’ve Made Before
There are many different things we’ve tried before. While they were great fresh, I couldn’t quiet make it work for our family coming from the freezer.
Here is the list of things that didn’t work out for us:
Biscuits- they didn’t rise like we were used to.
Applesauce cake- change in texture
Pancake Muffins- the grease from the sausage or bacon didn’t mix well after thawing
Granola- it was just easier to make it fresh once a week.
What we make now:
Breakfast Burritos and Sandwiches: We have found a secret to making them at the same time. We bake the scrambled eggs in the oven. Then use a cup to cut out the eggs to fit the breakfast sandwich. The rest of the egg isn’t wasted but put in the burrito. In our burritos, we will use eggs, sausage or bacon, shredded hashbrowns, and cheese. For the sandwiches, we will use eggs, sausage or bacon and cheese. I like buying sausage patties in bulk at Sam’s club.
Breakfast quiches: These are nothing more than quiches made in muffin tins. I will scramble up eggs and add the fixings of a quiche or omelet. Our favorites are onions, green peppers, green onions, mushrooms, cheese and tomatoes. This is a great way to use up produce that is starting to look a little sad. Bake at 350 for about 15- 20 minutes.
Pancakes: I cheat and make these from a box. Why? Because I hand the box to my 11 year old and he goes to town making these on the griddle. He cooks until the box is gone. If we are making these for the week, we will make 1 box per meal we plan to eat it. Our large family with “starving” boys demands it.
Muffins: This is always fun and changes from baking session to baking session. It all depends on what we are in the mood for and if we have things that need to be used up. Some of our favorites are Banana chocolate chip, Blueberry, Applesauce, and Pumpkin Chocolate Chip. Any recipe will do, and you can also use a box mix if you want. These are bagged in sets of 14, enough for the 6 kids and my husband to have 2 each.
Smoothie Packs: You could easily make this individual or like for our family, we make these in gallon sized bags. My 4 youngest LOVE smoothies. My 11 year old knows to dump the bag in the blender along with some juice and yogurt and blend until smooth. Our bags include whatever frozen fruit we have on hand, grapes, kale, and 1 banana.
Granola and Granola Bars: These are made weekly by my oldest daughter, it is her “secret” recipe. Really it is a basic granola recipe, but she changed up what goes in them. These are NOT frozen as it didn’t turn out like we wanted, but made fresh weekly. The granola is eaten as a snack with yogurt and the bars are eaten for breakfast. A 9×13 pan goes quickly in our house. (Check out Amy’s homemade granola bar recipe!)
Packaging and Eating
If these are things that are individual then I use cheap sandwich bags to hold the item, and the place those in sets of 12 in a gallon sized freezer bag. I always make sure the bag is labeled and we reuse the gallon bag all the time until it is unusable. This makes it quick and easy for the children and my husband.
When it is time to eat, the individual bags get tossed into the microwave and reheated. The bag keeps the item from drying out by keeping the moisture inside. Once again it is all about convenience.
Things like pancakes are bagged in gallon sized freezer bags. I will pull it out the night before and let it thaw in the refrigerator so it will be ready to reheat the next morning in the toaster or microwave.
Muffins are just left on the counter to be grabbed and eaten as they want.
Granola is bagged up in a gallon sized bag and the bars are bagged up individually. All put away in the pantry so they aren’t consumed too quickly.
What are we trying next?
I’m always looking for ways to expand my children’s taste buds without breaking the bank. I’ve found a few ideas I’m excited to try. Here are a few that I found:
Apple Pie Breakfast Cookies from Leelalicious
French Toast Sticks from Stockpiling Moms
Cinnamon Rolls from Good Cheap Eats
Banana Breakfast Cookies from Spend with Pennies
I know this takes some prep work, but it has saved my sanity on so many levels. My husband is very grateful and reminds me when his favorite meals are gone. My kids love the fact that they can have a McDonald’s breakfast and not hear about the cost. I love that I don’t have to worry every morning if my family is getting good food.
I hope you will take some of these ideas and try making breakfast for your family!
Amy also recommends…
Sara says
Thank you! Will definitely be trying these out! How do you bake the eggs for the sandwiches and burritos?
Samantha says
I spray a cookie sheet and then pour the scrambled up eggs in it. Bake at 350 for 10 to 15 minutes. That gets it done in our oven.
Sara says
Thanks!
kc says
we do eggs in the crock pot on “WARM” and cook overnight.
1 dozen eggs
favorite cooked meat (we do sausage, ham or bacon)
shredded cheese
s & p
secret ingredient 1/4- 1/2 cup cottage cheese * no rubbery eggs!
Serve it with burritos for super fast breakfast burritos!
Angie says
That is an amazing idea! I will be trying this… thank you!
Samantha says
I never thought about using cottage cheese. I will have to try it in my crockpot. I’m all for making things easier. Thank you for sharing.
Jackie says
I love, love this list, and am eager to implement some of the things I learned from it. Mornings are my most hectic time at our house! I did want to share with you a homemade pancake mix that I found that our family loves as much as the packages. I have tried several different recipes, and either they were not fluffy enough, or I had to add too many ingredients at the time of mixing and it just wasn’t convenient. But this one my husband actually says he likes *better* than the store mixes (!), it is healthier because I use 50% whole wheat flour, and all I have to add is water and a splash of oil or butter. Here is the recipe, in case you are interested 🙂
8 C. flour (I used 50% whole wheat/50% unbleached flour)
6 T. + 2 t. baking powder
4 t. salt
1/2 C. dry egg powder (I get mine at a bulk food store)
2/3 C. sugar
1 1/3 C. dry non-instant milk powder or 2 2/3 C. instant milk powder
(I used 1 c. buttermilk powder and 1 2/3 c. instant milk powder)
Mix dry ingredients together WELL (and make sure your baking powder is still good!) and store in an air tight container.
MAKING PANCAKES FROM THE MIX
2 3/4 C. pancake mix
2 1/4 C. water
1/3 C. butter oil (or bean puree) (I adjusted it down to 2 Tbs., and then I fry the pancakes in raw coconut oil, which makes them plenty moist 🙂 )
May add 1 c. frozen blueberries, not thawed
Mix ingredients together until smooth. Pour onto pre-heated griddle (cast iron makes the BEST pancakes! 🙂 ). Flip pancakes when bubbles form. Serve with real maple syrup. Delicious!
Samantha says
We eat pancakes about once a week. This will definitely be something to try.
Andrea says
This is an excellent post with a plethora of great ideas! Thank you so much! I like Pinterest, but it overwhelms me and makes me nervous. You have done all of that for me and posted it here – and I am grateful. Now to put this into practice…
Samantha says
This is one of my favorite things to do. I have a couple of more posts like this over on my blog. The key to Pinterest is to remember it is a Search Engine like Google. The post has a link to my blog if you want to check it out.
Josi says
I saw this chef’s knife for kids on America’s Test Kitchen and thought it was pretty cool:
https://www.americastestkitchen.com/equipment_reviews/1560-chefs-knives-for-kids
Samantha says
I have never seen those knives until now and am very interested. I need new ones, as most of mine are from when I got married 21 years ago.
Crystal Tucker says
For the Egg sandwiches that are frozen, are you using egg mcmuffins/bagel, or bread? And how are you reheating them and for how long? Would love to try this with my kids!
Samantha says
We prefer the small bagels you can get from Aldi. The kids just reheat them in the microwave.