I'm a fan of bean burritos- perhaps on a rice flour tortilla? You could add seitan or tempeh for some extra texture and even more protein.

Think outside the box when it comes to breakfast. Salads topped with chicken or turkey are yummy. Chicken sausages too. We will often have pork chops for breakfast or leftovers from last night's dinner.

Mollettes! (Did I spell that right?) When I have some leftover French bread, I run it under the broiler for a minute to just lightly toast, then hit it with a tinch of butter, a few spoons of black beans, chipotle Tabasco, and grated cheddar. Add whatever you like--pickled red onion and avocado cubes are my fave extras. Run it back under the broiler to heat it through and melt the cheese.

My favorite high protein breakfast smoothie:

-1 frozen banana
-low- or non-fat milk
-low- or non-fat cottage cheese
-peanut butter
-little bit of cocoa powder
-ice

Blend...

...then add some pasteurized egg whites (if you add them too early, you can end up with beginnings of a meringue!).

It's filling, delicious, and you avoid protein powders, which have been shown to have some nasty stuff in them:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2010/06/protein-supplements-heavy-metal-consumer-reports.html

i like:

whole wheat english muffins with goat cheese and smoked salmon

and

warm quinoa with milk, maple syrup, and fruit

A big pot of lentils or quinoa that will last a few days, with eggs and/or veggies added each morning.

Homemade granola with hemp seeds and almonds to go with the yogurt.

I LOVE making breakfast quinoa... 1/2 c quinoa + 1/2 c milk + 1/2 c water with a little cinnamon cooked over the stovetop. Mix in fruit (fresh, frozen or dried), nuts, nut butters, etc!

This blog really got me into yogurt with peanut butter and a dollop of jam.

Oatmeal with peanut butter (or any nut butter and your sweetener of choice) swirled in. Try it!

Homemade rice pudding with or without egg. I substitute honey for most of the sugar and use less of it.

I also eat oatmeal with milk poured over the top and nuts w/dried fruit - sounds like quinoa would work well for this too.

Almond butter because I don't much like peanut butter and I think it tastes better.

Pb & J muffins - I've heard these work well with gluten free muffins cause the peanut butter helps keep them bound. You use a plain muffin recipe replacing some of the liquid with lots of peanut butter. Put a little dollop of jam on the top after you put them in the muffin tins.

It's not very exciting, but I'm thinking fruit dipped/smeared with peanut butter (banana, apples, etc.) or peanut butter on whole wheat english muffins.

Don't forget that eggs can have many different personalities/tastes. I usually eat a sunny-side-up egg on toast w/ cream cheese but love to eat them many other ways (although not sure how low-gluten these are):
>oven baked over rice & chopped zucchini
>scrambled w/ white cheddar cheese & spinach
>breakfast-burrito style in a wrap w/ tomatoes & jalapeños

Carrie,

I find eggs and low-fat cream cheese (or cottage) the best for breakfast. Have your eggs spices with some mushroom, tomatoes, onions and herbs, and your cheese with some spices, and those "dull" eggs and cheese would become a very pleasant breakfast. Yogurt is great as well, on its own, or with some fruit.

In addition, I would also think of perhaps buying some whey protein. You can make pancakes with them, boost your quaker recipes, or just enjoy a plain milk protein shake, which may be filling on its own, if you will make it with some yogurt and fruit.

My favorite breakfast is tofu oatmeal. I mash silken tofu with milk, and use this as liquid to then cook oatmeal. I use old fashioned rolled oats, and have carefully calibrated my microwave so I can cook it for 8 minutes (2 min high, stir, 2 min med, stir, etc). I can vary the flavor by adding nuts, fruit, etc My favorite is dates, walnuts, and a tiny bit of honey.

For me, this, with lots of coffee, is the most satisfying of all breakfasts.

Our home is mostly GF (my husband has Celiac disease), so breakfasts in our home consist of a lot of GF oatmeal, quinoa with cinnamon and fresh fruit (berries are great with quinoa), soy protein shakes, etc. We also make Finnish pancake once a week (usually weekends, but sometimes on Fridays) which lasts us a couple days for breakfast. We eat it with a little syrup (maple for me, cane syrup for him--I'm north, he's south) or with some candied bacon or homemade sausage (I'm not really a meat eater either, so I don't always have meat with mine). We do a lot of Greek yogurt with granola (homemade GF granola for him) and fruit and agave nectar or cane syrup. We occasionally get ourselves together enough to make breakfast burritos with black beans and panella cheese. A lot of times, we just make what we call farmer's breakfast, which is really just a scramble of hearty breakfasty things: eggs, potatoes, onion, cheese, sausage (it actually works great with veggie sausage), whatever herbs or spices you're feeling (we usually throw in some fresh thyme or parsley), something to make it spicy (sriracha is a house favorite, but we also use chile flakes or good old Texas Pete if we need a change), and a dollop of something cool like sour cream or Greek yogurt. It's a great way to use up little bits of leftovers.

On heavy protein item I remember enjoying when I was growing up was toast with smashed peas. We would just mash leftover peas with a little salt, pepper, butter, and cheese (whatever was on hand) and spread on toast.

There's a great recipe I got from The Formula book (a 40-30-30 diet book):

Cook 1/3 dry oats according to oatmeal instructions
Mix in 1/3 cottage cheese (preferably 1%-2% fat version)
Add 2 t chopped almonds, 1 t fructose, splash of milk

Mix & eat.

Another favorite is oatmeal with an egg whisked in at the end of cooking. Add a few nuts, and you'll end up with a nice dose of protein.

i'd recommend buying dry TVP and cooking it like oatmeal (either with milk, soy milk or water) with some cinnamon and sugar and perhaps a dollop of peanut butter. it tastes amazingly like oatmeal and it is super high in protein.

Perhaps you can experiment with new breakfast hummus flavors to spread on toast or have with eggs. Or maybe normal hummus flavor is delicious enough :-)

Also, if you want a new protein source for your smoothies, try silken tofu (the really soft stuff, not the extra firm stuff used for stir frys). It will blend right up and is pretty mild in flavor. Maybe some kind of ginger and mango flavor would be nice?

Tofu scramble with lots of dark leafy greens and some watery veggies like mushrooms, summer squash, or tomatoes.
Usually I have sauteed mushrooms, black kale, garlic, and a splash of tamari and lemon. Add beans or lentils of you like. Serve over sprouted seed toast, topped with hemp hearts, sesame seeds, nutritional yeast, and some sprouts, avocado, cherry tomatoes, whatever. Sauteed mushrooms+greens+healthy seeds on toast is the idea, you can use what you have/ what's in season.

This idea is definitely not the norm, but I don't like sweet foods for breakfast. Check out the recipe for Red Lentil and Brown Rice soup at 101cookbooks.com. I garnish with low-fat feta and often make it lightly curried by cooking it with turmeric, cumin and garam masala. A large pot cooked on the weekend lasts all week and quickly reheats in the microwave on weekday mornings. Sometimes I'll even top with a poached egg.

I love Ina's herbed baked eggs which are fairly quick.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/herbed-baked-eggs-recipe2/index.html

And for mornings when there's more time for chopping, migas are great and Pioneer Woman's photos of cooking migas are simply inspiring.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/09/ree-drummond-migas/

Lentils are good source of protine. You can soak them overnight. Grind them with ginger chillis,salt and make it like panckae/crepes. It taste yumm and healthy too.

you can blend yogurt with some mango, 2 spoons of sugar - you have a mangoo smoothie ready :).

I love me some eggs, but after a while my sweet tooth kicks in and I crave something more like granola. Try my recipe for Crockpot Granola below:

http://thealchemistblog.wordpress.com/2010/10/08/slow-cooker-granola-a-jillion-different-ways-or-i-swear-i-didnt-intend-for-this-post-to-be-about-drug-paraphernalia/

It's easy to make it GF and up the protein by using milled flax seeds, extra nuts and seeds, GF oats, etc. etc. Since my recipe incorporates fruit puree, it's also really easy to customize to your tastes. I enjoy it as a high-protein breakfast, or a snack, this way:

Spoonful of organic peanut butter in the bottom of the bowl. 1/2 cup (two handfuls?) of that luscious granola on top. Then pour on some almond milk (yay, more protein!), and swirl it all around with a spoon. Just had this today, actually, and it knocked my PB lovin' socks off, so I had to share!

http://thealchemistblog.wordpress.com
http://twitter.com/genevievecharet

I've been trying to eat more protein, so along with more eggs and maple chicken sausages, my go-tos are the following:

Similar to the peanut butter shakes above, I do ice, peanut butter, some kind of sweetener (I like condensed milk) and silken tofu (milk optional, but I like it).

Muesli with yogurt. I defrost some frozen berries, sweeten a little (I use agave syrup or turbinado sugar) and add to plain nonfat yogurt, then cover with all manner of nuts, sunflower seeds, flaxseeds, coconut and perhaps grains you can tolerate (I usually include some oat bran and rolled rye, plus granola and "Heritage Flakes" from WholeFoods for crunch).

The toast with mushed peas above made me think of beans on toast, which is also one of my favorites, but perhaps too carby for your purposes...

i add protein powder to my oats (at the end only or else it will clump) and also make "protein cakes," which can be microwaved:

http://theactorsdiet.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/lynn-420/

what does 75% gluten free mean?

Banana + silken tofu + soy milk + fage fat free yogurt + honey (or truvia) + dark cocoa powder + almond or flaxseed :)

I also like Guatemalan refried black bean + scrambled eggs with small dollop of sour cream or cheese

I'm a fan of savory breakfasts, and one of my favorites is cold tofu that I've stir-fried the night before. I usually just cube it and cook it with a little nonstick spray until brown, then deglaze the pan with soy sauce and a good dose of Sriracha. Best breakfast ever!

in a similar vein as commenters above, how about homemade pudding made with silken tofu? i've made chocolate pudding this way and it's very tasty. i personally would cut down on the sugar recommended in recipes as it's a bit too sweet for me. i wonder if you could experiment with vanilla and other flavors. might seem a bit indulgent for breakfast, but why not give it a go!

Congee is a very popular breakfast food in asian countries. 1 cup of rice will yield enough congee for a week. You can add proteins like fish, egg or chicken to it each morning as you heat it up.

One quick breakfast with protein (cold, so good for summers) is cottage cheese and fruit (I love it with pears). You could maybe add some nuts, too.

I don't know how you feel about fish (or whether you consider them "meat"), but sardines with a poached egg, yogurt, a bit of rice, and cilantro is delicious.

I am Asian American so my fav breakfasts are non-Western. You could try bean thread noodles (which cook up with just some hot water poured over the top), rice noodles, or korean sweet potato noodles with some savory broth, vegetables, and tofu. Personally, I love a big bowl of soupy noodles with veggies, rich broth, a drizzle of soy sauce and sesame oil, white pepper, and maybe an egg broken over the top if I am in the mood.

More protein? Easy answer. Eat more bacon.

I'm also in the savory breakfast group - steel-cut oats with sauteed greens (you can use leftover veggies from the night before), cooked in stock and finished with olive oil drizzled over the top is a favorite in our household. You can also add baked/fried tofu or an egg on top for an extra treat.

I also like rice mixed with a little sesame oil and soy sauce and topped with an over-easy egg.

Lots of good suggestions!

I'm a fan of savory breakfasts, but I also love smoothies. So I combined the two into breakfast soups. In a blender, I combine zucchini, spinach or other leafy greens, (basically whatever vegetable I have on hand), miso paste, warm water and salt. Voila! Okay, maybe that doesn't have enough protein, but it's nomsy.

I love muffins made with almond flour, high protein, great fat, lots of fiber =perfect storm! Elanaspantry.com has tons of recipes. I'll do a blog post with one of these recipes soon.

I see both of my ideas mentioned here, but I *love* love beans for breakfast: make a big pot over the weekend and then you can work through it for lunches and dinners and--breakfasts! Beans & toast, beans & cheese, beans & scrambled eggs--yum. (I like both sweet-ish bake-y beans and spicy taco beans for breakfast.)

Only if you eat fish: I'm reading the new Annie Murphy Paul Origins book and she mentions having sardines on buttered toast for breakfast while pregnant. I'm adventurous, and tried it yesterday with some boneless canned in tomato sauce, and it was surprisingly good! Protein plus Omega-3's, can't beat it.

Try raw rolled or steel cut oats (Oats are awesome because they have a high amount of protein for a grain), with greek yoghurt, blueberries a small scoop of protein powder and a teaspoon natural honey.

I have this 5/7 breakfasts.

How about miso soup with a scoop of brown rice, some diced tofu, scallions and quartered hard boiled egg. Another favorite is garlic fried rice with sambal sauce and a poached egg on top, or vegetarian refried beans w/ some melted cheddar cheese, salsa, avocado slices, and a poached egg on top.

Definitely avocado toast — I'm obsessed, but it appears The Kitchn readers are too. I believe there's a long post/discussion on the subject. I prefer to mash half an avocado with a drizzle of olive oil, sea salt, black pepper and red pepper flakes (sriracha if I'm feeling spicy). I usually put it on a toasted whole grain English muffin, but I'm sure you could adapt it to be gluten-free. The avocado is pretty filling. I ate it this morning, almost four hours ago, and I'm still feeling great!

Everyone seems to be suggesting that if you do oatmeal, you add in extra protein, but I think it's important to note that an 1 cup serving of oatmeal contains ~11g of protein... approximately the same as TWO hard boiled (large) eggs (~12g).

Try oatmeal with peanut butter, or avocado toast with a slice of cheese.

thanks to everyone for their comments! i didn't see the answer to my question until today, and i can't wait to try out some of these creative and delicious-sounding suggestions.

also thank you to the kitchn for posting!

carrie
masteroffineeats.blogspot.com

It just occurred to me that for the past week I've been eating gluten free pumpkin cheesecake for breakfast - quite high in protein, I would imagine. I guessed and eyeballed everything, but to try to recreate it, I'd do the following:

The crust is about 1/3 each buckwheat, ground flaxseeds and almond meal, plus salt and sugar to taste, plus enough melted butter to hold together when you press it into your cheesecake mold.

The filling was assembled in the blender: a package of low- or nonfat cream cheese, a butternut squash (peeled, seeded and microwaved for 3 minutes and mashed - maybe 1-2 cups?), some big dollops of nonfat yogurt (or sour cream), 4-6 eggs, a generous pour of sugar and pumpkin pie spices (or just cinnamon) to taste.

I put it in the oven at 350 or so for something shy of an hour. Couldn't believe how yummy it turned out.

i throw a scrambled egg on top of about 1/4 cup of black beans almost every morning - add some hot sauce and it's SO good.

supplementing my breakfast with a slice of peanut butter toast is easy too :)

I like to keep morning simple, so I've been adding sunflower seeds to oatmeal,
putting almond butter on wholegrain toast and drinking whey (from powder) to add protein to my mornings.

My new favorite breakfast ups the ante on Greek yoghurt and tastes more like dessert. Just spoon a good portion of fat free, plain Greek yoghurt on toasted whole wheat bread or crisp bread, top with halved figs or berries, and sprinkle with almonds for extra protein or drizzle with honey if you have a sweet tooth. Actually just blogged about this! http://thesquidinkgazette.blogspot.com/2010/10/quick-tip-dessert-for-breakfast.html

i do a tofu or egg scramble with whatever veg i have on hand and wrap them in little corn tortillas. breakfast tacos!

but often, i just eat whatever's leftover from dinner for brekkie :)

My favorite breakfast lately has been this smoothie:

2 frozen bananas, chopped
1 C almond milk, give or take
2 T tahini (6 grams of protein!)

I also do a raw version with raw tahini, fresh spinach, 2 frozen bananas and water. Yum!

I add two different things to as many recipes as possible: quinoa (whole or ground to a flour) and high-protein Greek-style yogurt: and the best combination of the two is pancakes!

I've eaten quinoa for years. I just started flavoring it as a cereal with raisins, cinnamon and almond milk etc. I don't know how I waited so long to try this protein packed breakfast option. I'm also a fan of smoothies with frozen fruit and a bit of vegan protein powder.