Quick And Easy Breakfast Ideas For Kids

Breakfast just got a little easier and faster. I’m here to give you a ton of breakfast ideas for kids that are easy, simple, and affordable to make. I’m throwing in some dairy and gluten free breakfast ideas as well. Enjoy!

How To Make Breakfast For Kids Easy In The Mornings

Mornings are all about the hustle and bustle during the school/work week. From waking up early to getting dressed, fed, and out the door all by 7AM I often feel like I ran a marathon by the time I drop our kids off to school.

The early morning routine is for real a rat race at times. Some mornings I’m super women and some mornings I’m pouring an extra cup of coffee. Saying a prayer I don’t get caught in my pjs, slippers, and bed head dropping the kids off to school all while yelling out the window “love you have a good day!”

One thing I want is my kids to get some good nutrition on their belly’s before they head off to learn! I’ve got a pretty good routine down for us that I feel pretty good about. A couple things that help make breakfast easy for us:

• Picking a “heathier” cereal day (Thursdays)
• Frozen waffle day (Fridays)
• Picking fruit that I can just throw on the plate and not have to cut up (like berries, precut apple slices, chopped cantaloupe)
• Batch cooking on Sunday (a set of muffins or pancakes/waffles) so I just pull out and they are ready
• Boiling a few eggs on Sunday (All I have to do is pull the egg out and cut, sprinkle with a little sea salt and pepper)
• If your kids are older you can have a “kids make breakfast” day

Breakfast Ideas For Kids

These ideas are mainly for kids (to make your life as a parent easier) but they can easily be eaten by anyone, including adults, in the family. After all, we want to be good role models and model healthy eating habits for our kids so anything I post usually adults can enjoy too.

I look through Pinterest or other sites to get ideas then I often feel overwhelmed because it’s a long recipe or takes time to make. Or maybe because I’m stuck with what to offer with that one item that was recommended. Do ya’ll ever feel like that?

I’m going to help ya’ll out here because that’s what we do in the south! I’m going to not only give you ideas but I’m also giving you some actual meal ideas for breakfast.

Mini, Regular, Gluten Free Bagels Or Toast

So many good breakfast ideas for kids can be made with mini bagels. You can top with so many different items and/or make as mini breakfast sammys. Some ideas are listed below:

• Top with cream cheese (organic or dairy free (we love Kite Hill brand) and sliced strawberries or blueberries
• Top with cream cheese, sliced cucumbers
• Top with chocolate, snickerdoodle, or pumpkin pie hummus (found at grocery stores in produce section), chia seeds and mini chocolate chips or just with the flavored hummus
• Top with honey and sesame seeds
• Top nut butter (or sunbutter) with mini chocolate chips, sliced bananas, chia seeds
• Top with nut butter and a drizzle of honey
• Top with organic  or DF cheese and/ tomato (we love the Daiya American Style DF cheese slices found at Target)
• Top with choice of cheese with nitrate free ham or bacon

Waffles or Pancakes

Waffles or pancakes are super easy. You can use frozen or make your own. Honestly it takes about 5 minutes to make your own out of a mix or with simple recipe. I often use Bobs Red Mill GF pancake/waffle mix and add ground chia and flax to it.

Then once it’s mixed I’ll pour into a large mason jar so I have for the week. You can also make the night before and just heat in the microwave.

• If you are buying frozen I tend to like Vans, Natures Path, Simple Truth Brand (all DF/GF) at HarrisTeeter.
• You can top with pure maple syrup or use as a dip so your kids can dip into the syrup.
• Top with honey and sesame seeds
• Top with chia seeds and mini chocolate chips
• Top with nut butter of choice. I like to sprinkle some chia or flax seeds on the waffle or pancake first then top with nut butter
• Top with nut butter and sliced fruit of choice (sliced strawberries, blueberries, bananas, etc)
• Top with cinnamon/sugar mixture
• Make a waffle sammy with choice of cheese, ham, nitrate free bacon or ham OR BLT with waffle as bread
• You can also buy plant based sausage patties to use
• Pour pancakes into mini cupcake pans with fruit or leave plain. Bake and you have pancake muffins.

HERE is one of our favorite sheet pan pancakes to make for breakfast. This is definitely one of the most fun breakfast ideas for kids.

Yogurt Parfaits

Yogurt is super easy and healthy and one of the simple go to breakfast ideas for kids. You can use dairy or dairy free yogurt. If you haven’t tried dairy free then I would highly recommend trying it. It is yummy, and decreasing dairy can help decrease your child’s congestion, constipation, ear infections, and other issues too like eczema.

We like the Kite Hill, SILK, Chobani, So Delicious brands for dairy free. But guess what? SO many other companies are catching on and are making dairy free options too. I just saw Go Gurt now makes a dairy free option.

Pick your favorite granola or make your own with THIS simple recipe. Pick fruits that your child likes and possibly some new fruits with similar characteristics to try. For example trying different flavors of red apples, apples cut in different ways, then pears and so forth.

Pick some nuts that your child may like. Or you can definitely add some peanut butter to the yogurt or granola if they enjoy peanut butter. I love adding in pumpkin seeds, cashews, and almonds because they are high in magnesium which is a natural stool softener and calms the central nervous system. For more on relieving constipation read my latest post HERE.

So let me give you some fun breakfast ideas for kids so you have one less thing to think about!

• Granola, yogurt, blueberries, granola, yogurt, blueberries, top with granola
• Sliced strawberries, yogurt, granola with pumpkin seeds, strawberries, yogurt, granola with pumpkin seeds
• Sliced bananas, granola with cinnamon sprinkles, yogurt, bananas, granola with cinnamon sprinkles, yogurt
• Raspberries, blueberries, yogurt, granola, raspberries, blueberries, yogurt, granola
• Yogurt, banana, peanut butter, yogurt, granola on top
• Yogurt, blueberries, peanut butter, yogurt, granola (peanut butter jelly parfait)
• Yogurt, mixed fruit, granola, yogurt, mixed fruit, granola and coconut chips
• Yogurt, mixed fruit, yogurt, and choice of healthier cereal like Kashi, Love Grown, or Cascadian Farms GF Berry Puffs

Healthy Toppings For Yogurt Parfaits

Dairy Free yogurts, Greek Yogurt, Kefir, or plain yogurt

Granola

Fresh or frozen fruit

Chia or low sugar jam

Peanut butter or Sunbutter

Roasted apples, pears, or peaches

Seeds/Nuts such as Chia, Ground Flax, Hemp Seeds, Coconut Chips, Pumpkin Seeds, Slivered Almonds

Dried fruits such as craisins, raisins, dried blueberries

Add crunch for kids: crushed Annies GF cinnamon bunnies, cereal such as Love Grown, Cascadian Farms GF berry puffs, Kashi, Granola, mini chocolate chips (we like Enjoy Life Allergy Friendly)

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Healthy Breakfast Ideas For Smoothies

We love smoothies and they can be made all sorts of ways. Let your kids help pick the ingredients and start very simple for them. One thing that really helps keep me on track and making these is to prep. I take five zip lock bags and fill with ingredients. For quick breakfast ideas for kids it’s all about the prep work.

Prepping lets you have more time in the morning because all you have to do is pull a bag out of the freezer and pop into the blender with your choice of milk.

How To Make A Smoothie

Pick a base (I usually do frozen mixed fruit, frozen banana, or frozen cherries.

Pick a green. This can be whatever you have on hand. Some common ones are sprouts, kale, spinach, power greens, bok choy, or romaine lettuce. At the end of the week take any greens that are going bad and stick them into the freezer for your smoothies the next week.

Pick a protein. I like to use our plant protein and superfood mix. You can also use a nut butter too. Even Silken tofu works.

Pick a healthy fat. I like to use an avocado. Costco has a great deal on a bag of frozen chopped avocado. It lasts awhile too. Nut butters are healthy fats as well.

You can also add in seeds like Chia, Hemp, and/or ground flax for extra fiber, plant protein, and omegas.

Pick your liquid. This can be water, Plant Milk, Coconut Water, etc.

If you use frozen fruits and veggies it will make your smoothie extra creamy. If it’s not frozen you will need to add ice.

For some great recipes for smoothies check out my post HERE.

Oatmeal

Oatmeal is perfect to make on a Sunday afternoon. You make a big batch and then you can have for the week. I like to use Bob’s Red Mill GF old fashioned oats but you can use any brand of oats that you like. Bonus points for if you use steel cut or add a little steel cut oats into your old fashioned oats.

Pour oats into a pot on the stove and start to cook as directed on the package. I usually make for about four cups. Then add in 1 tbsp brown sugar or pure maple syrup, walnuts, diced apples, 1 tsp ground cinnamon. Cook until oats are done.

It’s great to top with fresh fruit as well. Then you can keep in a container or pour into mini mason jars (the jelly jar size). Once ready to heat up, just pop the mason jar in the microwave (lid off of course).

If you are introducing your kids to oatmeal you may want to start with flavors they prefer already. The brown sugar and cinnamon oat packets from Trader Joes work well too.

I heat those up and as I’m heating them I add in about 1 tbsp ground flax, 1 tsp chia seeds. Then top with blueberries and a little pure maple syrup.

Oats are also a great because they will fill you up and are a great source of plant protein and fiber. Use a handful or two to mixes like pancakes and waffles.

Combos For Healthy Breakfast Ideas For Kids

Scrambled or fried egg, fruit, and toast with  preserves and chia seeds (use a sprinkle of chia seed in the jelly then spread)

GF, Sourdough, 100% whole wheat or whole grain toast with vegan butter (Earth Balance), cinnamon/coconut sugar combo, chia or ground flax seeds, choice of fruit, and yogurt

Boiled egg and fresh fruit

Egg Muffins and fresh fruit

Pancakes, nitrate free sausage, and fresh fruit

Sheet Pan Pancakes with any nuts/seed and/or fruit you like

Apple Cinnamon muffins and fresh fruit

Oatmeal with fresh fruit

Grits, fried egg, apple sammys (sliced apples with peanut butter in the middle)

Cut bell peppers with cooked egg inside (cook peppers and egg on the stove together), fruit

Breakfast sandwiches (can mix and match any toppings your kids like) with fresh fruit

Pancake or Waffle topped with nut butter (or sunbutter) and chia seeds with fresh fruit

Healthier Packaged Options For Those Busy Mornings Plus Easy Breakfast Ideas For Kids To Make

You know, often times we think we have to be Super Mom and whip up a homemade breakfast every morning for our kids. Society kinda makes us feel this pressure too but if we’re all keeping it real a homemade breakfast is not happening every morning and that’s okay. If you are up and making homemade breakfast recipes everyday then give yourself a pat on the back and keep on cooking, Mama!

I think we all want the same for our kids. We all want our kids to be healthy and happy, right? Don’t beat yourself up if you have to throw some cereal together one morning because trust me, there are bigger fish to fry. I want to give ya’ll some healthier packaged options.

On those days where you’re in a hurry or those days where you want to make it easy here are some options for you that will leave you feeling a little less stressed.

Brands Of Healthier Packaged Options For Quick Breakfast Ideas For Kids

Love Grown Cereal (Made from three different beans. My kids like the Chocolate O’s and Sea Stars)

Made Good Granola Bars (throw in some fresh fruit and call it a day)

Kind Bars (Nut and Seed)

Garden Lite Muffins

Garden Lite Spinach and Egg White Frittata

Vans GF/DF waffles

Natures Path GF/DF waffles

Daves Killer Bread (toast or bagels) These are not gluten free

Udi’s or Canyon Bakehouse Bagels (GF/DF)

Yogurt packs (Dairy Free or organic regular)

Purely Elizabeth Vibrant Oats (just heat up)

Bob’s Red Mill Premade Oat Cups (just heat up)

Amy’s Organic black bean burrito (dairy free but not gluten free)

Mama Chia Chia Squeeze (perfect for grab and go for toddlers)

If this list helps give you some yummy and healthy breakfast ideas for kids then make sure to check out my mega list of healthy snacks for kids (and adults) right HERE. 

 

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