Our Best Breakfast Recipes & Ideas

While I was baking up my second batch of this cheesy corn bake, I realized just how out of control my corn obsession has been as of late. My recipe lineup has recently included creamy corn grits, corn & jalapeno dip, corn & red pepper quiche, corn & heirloom tomato pizza, and a corn & roasted summer squash pasta bake (and some of these items on multiple occasions). Corn much? Despite the corn overload, I couldn’t resist baking up this delicious corn casserole the other day.

The boyfriend adores waffles. They come second only to pancakes in his favorite food department. So when I bought a waffle iron a couple of years ago, it was a sure sign that I was in the relationship to win it. But purchasing the device was the easy part. It was finding the perfect recipe to accompany it that was so hard.So the search began. I pored over cookbooks, food blogs, and magazines, all in search of a great waffle. And you know what? I found it.

My ideal Mother’s Day brunch includes one my very favorite breakfast casseroles: A simple strata of brioche bread, layered with lemon zest and custard, and baked until puffy, golden, and silky smooth inside. This recipe is lightly adapted from one in my recent book, Not Your Mother’s Casseroles. • Not Your Mother’s Casseroles, Harvard Common Press. $11.15 at Amazon. It is so incredibly simple. Just slice any rich, eggy bread, such as brioche or challah.

Ever thought about eating salad for breakfast? Or sushi? No? Here are five unexpected yet surprisingly good breakfasts, gathered from around the world! Salad – Yes, a breakfast salad! I love eating avocado with prosciutto and a little Parmesan in the summertime. Add a poached egg and it’s a seriously nutritious meal. Many Asian breakfasts often include salad, too — why not try it sometime? Miso Soup – Nearly every Japanese breakfast includes miso soup.

After I made this crazy hot pink Valentine’s confection, one of the comments on the strawberry milk required for the cake was, “Why not make your own?” Now that was a great idea! Creamy, smooth and straight from the diner of my dreams, a glass of chilled, pink, and homemade strawberry milk will make your after-school snack gee whiz terrific! While preparing that cake I mentioned, I thought I fell in love with the bottled (eek, super artificially flavored!

Food is always coming out of my kitchen. So it seems most folks are envious of my other half. He must have it pretty good, they assume. But to be quite honest, dating me isn’t always as delicious as it seems. As a food blogger, I have a very strange cooking schedule. Mainly, “dinner” is usually made in the middle of the afternoon, in an attempt to catch the best natural light. And some days can be all dessert, all the time.

This past weekend in San Francisco, the weather forecast was a bold one. Each news station insisted snow was on its way. People dug out their winter coats. Kids prepared for snow-man marathons. And I made a very fine casserole&mdash one with healthy whole-wheat pasta, Swiss chard, and goat cheese. It was definitely a casserole occasion as it hasn’t snowed in San Francisco since the 1970’s.

I happen to own an extensive collection of Southern community cookbooks. My library includes tomes from junior leagues, churches, and schools, and all are equally cherished. Why? Because a community cookbook is like a time capsule. Its year of publication marks what families were cooking and eating and reflects the taste and traditions of a generation.My collection ranges from the early 1900’s to present day.

A sformato is a close cousin to the soufflé. It has all the same creamy custard-y goodness, but without the hassle of whipping egg whites or the anxiety of collapsing domes. It’s meant to be rather humble. This is also an easy dish to make gluten-free, and it works well as the first course for a fancy dinner or as a light lunch with a salad. Like a soufflé, a sformato starts off with a bechamel sauce.

I have to admit that the pairing of grapefruit and cinnamon does not immediately make sense. At least, it didn’t to me. There was something about the tartness of the grapefruit and the distinct spice of the cinnamon — I was dubious. But then I finally tried it, and hello! This is my favorite breakfast dish right now. For a long time I was also dubious about the idea of hot grapefruit. It just sounded… odd. But again, I have been made to see the light.

Are you hosting a brunch any time soon? The day after Thanksgiving, perhaps? Well, go easy on yourself with this beautiful yet dead-easy yogurt parfait. We think this is a such clever, impressive idea. It’s so easy! All you need is a big glass bowl or trifle dish, as is shown here. Then layer yogurt, granola, and fruit. It is probably best to do this shortly before breakfast, so that the granola doesn’t get soft. But it would only take a few minutes, so no big deal.

Everyone loves a good casserole, right? The key word here is good. We’ve all had goopy, unappetizing messes inflicted upon us in the name of casseroles, but that really should be the deviation — not the norm. I love casseroles — the good ones. In fact, I just spent a year writing an entire book with 225 recipes for modern, fresh casseroles. This recipe isn’t in the book, but it’s very much in the spirit of things.

Last week I was talking with a new friend (hi Sara!) and she mentioned how much she loves overnight, no-cook oatmeal. I am familiar with this (also known as muesli) but the new thing here was that she said that she especially likes making it with steel-cut oats. Really? I said. They’re so… chewy. Steel-cut oats without any cooking at all?Why yes! And they are delicious. This has got to be the simplest way to make steel-cut oats (and all of us here at The Kitchn love steel cut oats).

Breakfast may be the most important meal of the day, but who has time to cook a hot one before heading out the door? Make a batch of these mini-quiches; they freeze great and reheat in minutes as hot breakfast bites. The lack of crust makes them a snap. A pinch of grated cheese in the bottom of each mini muffin cup forms a shell, and the eggs and filling set inside.

I don’t usually use the microwave to poach my breakfast egg, but it can come in very handy for a lunch egg. Lentils, brown rice, or a salad can be elevated from a side dish to a main dish with a tender, gooey poached egg on top. Here’s how to make a quick, freshly poached egg in the office microwave. Huge caveat, before you try this: Remember that microwaves come in lots of different configurations.

We absolutely love that rich, thick Greek-style yogurt, especially for mid-afternoon snacks and quick desserts. Whether you use regular store-bought yogurt or make your own, it’s ridiculously easy to turn it into Greek yogurt.All you need is a strainer, a bowl, and some cheesecloth. Fold the cheesecloth a few times so it forms several layers and lay it inside the strainer. Set the strainer over the bowl. Pour the yogurt into the lined strainer.

This savory pie from Country Living was one of the options we highlighted in a recent quiche roundup. And since we had a lot of phyllo dough left over from making these, we decided to try it. The entire thing is so easy to put together, and it’s absolutely delicious. Plus, the phyllo re-crisps really well for leftovers.

Yeah, we know. It’s hard to see the raisins. Looks like a plain old grilled cheese. But trust us, they’re there. And they made our cobbled-together lunch a smidge more delicious.It helps that our raisin bread was raisin challah bread, too. It’s sweeter in general than regular bread, so it made a nice foil to our sharp cheddar cheeseRaisin bread isn’t something that’s normally on our radar.

Earlier this week we talked about giving your guests individual dishes of butter for a fancy brunch or breakfast. Here’s a quick look at how to create little molded pats of butter — it’s a tiny, extra-fancy detail, but sometimes we just delight in silly things like these!It’s really simple to make these. All you need is some softened butter (we prefer homemade or unsalted butter) and something to mold it.

What do you get when you cross a biscuit with a dinner roll? Mother’s Rolls from Paula Deen (although secretly we’re calling them Riscuits…or Brolls). The method in which these dead simple quick yeast rolls are made might seem a little obscure, but they’re perfect for holding a few pieces of breakfast meat, making a quick meal to go!

With fall on the horizon, we find ourselves craving something a little hearty that will carry us through the rest of the day with gusto. Oatmeal is an easy and inexpensive option; let us show you how to make your own instant, ready-in-two-minutes version for work, home, or even on the go!

You may have heard about one-ingredient ice cream, one of our all-time most popular recipes here at The Kitchn. It’s a marvelous trick of a treat, made from frozen bananas that have been whipped furiously into a smooth, dreamy dessert. And yes, it tastes (and scoops) just like soft-serve ice cream.

How do you fry an egg? Do you do it fast, with a smear of butter? Or all bubbly, with lots of olive oil, like the Spanish do? Here’s one basic way to fry an egg — it’s simple and foolproof. Want more smart tutorials for getting things done around the home? See more How To posts We’re looking for great examples of your own household intelligence too! Submit your own tutorials or ideas here!

For a long time we avoided poached eggs out of a misplaced impression that they were extra-difficult or tricky. But they are not! A perfect poached egg is quick, simple, and foolproof. Here’s how we make poached eggs now. Want more smart tutorials for getting things done around the home? See more How To posts We’re looking for great examples of your own household intelligence too! Submit your own tutorials or ideas here!

What are you drinking on Valentine’s? (Or, for that matter, Chinese New Year, President’s Day, or Fat Tuesday?) A little later today we have a roundup for you of creative and delicious Valentine’s Day cocktails. But first, let’s consider breakfast. Why not start the day off with a spiked mocha? Here’s one recipe that looks so good; we’d love to curl up with a hot mug of mocha on this snowy weekend!

Yesterday, we showed you our favorite recipe for light and fluffy pancakes, and several of you shared some great tips and recipes of your own. Now that we have the basics out of the way, let’s move on to the fun stuff – the toppings. Pure maple syrup is never a bad choice, but we’ve grown to love this simple blueberry maple syrup recipe that’s made with just two ingredients. Can you guess what they are?Yep, it’s blueberries and maple syrup. No big mystery there!

A couple weeks ago Amanda Hesser’s Recipe Redux column in The Times Magazine had a recipe for some very unusual pancakes. They flipped the usual pancake recipe ratios upside down and called for two cups of sour cream, four eggs, and only a scant handful of flour to hold it all together. They sounded unusual, and tricky, but Hesser called them “feathery, creamy, tangy.” How could we not try them? A first batch of Heavenly Hots: predictably smushed.

We have been thinking a lot about muffins this week; we often neglect to make muffins, and we wonder why! They are quick, easy, and simple to clean up. They are great little snacks during the day, and they are awesome for grab-and-go breakfasts too. So we were really pleased when reader Elise sent us this tip about a pumpkin chocolate chip muffin recipe.Elise says: I found this delicious recipe for Pumpkin Bread/Muffins at thefreshloaf.com that I wanted to share! They have such a great texture.

I am not exactly sure what most people eat for breakfast on Christmas morning. There is often a lot of talk about dinner: roasts and hams, traditional side dishes, and glittering desserts. But the day has to start somehow; you can’t dig through stockings and unwrap presents on an empty stomach. And it’s Christmas, so it better be special. That means no bowls of cold cereal or skimpy slices of toast.

Did you make Ivy Manning’s Apple Cornbread Dressing with veggie sausageWe aren’t usually fans of vegetarian “meat” products, but we took Ivy’s (and at least one commenter’s) advice and tried the sausages from Field Roast Grain Meat Co. in our stuffing. They were delicious! We used the Smoked Apple Sage variety – perfect flavors for Thanksgiving.

This recipe has been on my mind for a long time — over a year, in fact. It was published right here on The Kitchn as part of a kitchen tour: Devesh and Tara’s Spice Pantry. It just looked so good, bright, and fresh — comfort food for spring. I had to try it myself!I made it for Easter, along with a spiced lamb roast and a creamy cucumber salad. It’s an extremely easy dish to make. In fact, it only takes about 20 minutes from start to finish. (A true breakfast dish!

Here is a very, very last-minute food gift that takes literally five minutes to make, and yet everyone you share it with will love it (and you). Too good to be true? No — it’s just chocolate-dipped pretzels.The other very nice thing about this pretzel project is that it is quite inexpensive. All you need are pretzel rods, chocolate chips or another chocolate good for melting, and some sprinkles or coarse sugar.Here are a few tips for making these salty-sweet treats.

I was sick with a bad cold over the weekend and although I was raised a WASP in midwestern USA, when I’m down for the count I usually cook up a big pot of congee, perhaps one of the most ubiquitous of all Asian foods.In my experience, there’s nothing simpler and more comforting than congee, which is basically rice cooked with a lot of liquid until it forms a soft and creamy porridge.

We’re not exactly going to win a medal for figuring this one out, but still. We’ve eaten this simple, creamy, peppery dish several times at Cafe Gitane in New York City (for breakfast as well as an appetizer at dinner) and finally made it at home…We don’t know the restaurant’s exact preparation, but the bread is always a thick, nutty whole grain and there’s a kicker — a big sprinkling of red pepper flakes over the top of the mashed-up avocado.

You may remember our last attempt at this jam, when it turned out a wee bit hard. But because the flavor was so good, and because we were determined not to let the jam win, we gave it another try…This time, we made a couple of changes. We peeled the peaches, making the jam a little paler than our last batch.

Okonomiyaki is a savory Japanese pancake-like dish that is very easy to prepare at home, and makes a good “ clean the fridge” meal as many different types of meat, vegetables, and seafood can be added to it.The “base” ingredients for okonomiyaki can be found at your local Japanese grocery store or online.

At the Alemany Farmer’s Market right now we’re seeing a lot of cardoons in season. Cardoons are closely related to – and taste very much like – artichokes. Why is this vegetable not well-known, then?Cardoons are high-maintenance vegetables. They look like very large hearts of celery, but have thorns in the stalks, so handle with care. The stalks are not solid like celery, and are semi-hollow and stringy.

During the week, I’m often too busy to cook breakfast, but as the weekend approaches, I start making mental menus for Saturday and Sunday morning. Freshly brewed coffee, fruit salad, toast with jam, fresh-squeezed juices, frittatas, pancakes with maple syrup, crabcakes Benedict with hollandaise …Hollandaise is one of my most favorite sauces ever, and it is ridiculously easy to make.

Photo by Allen of Eating Out LoudWe love spaetzle and we often make our airy, tender Ricotta Spaetzle for dinner. We’ve never thought of them as breakfast food, but now we suddenly do…Spaetzle are tiny German dumplings – not much more than flour, eggs, and water. They can be made orzo-tiny by pushing the batter through a ricer or special spaetzle-maker. Or they can be made, as we prefer them, by pushing thumb-sized lumps of batter off the end of a teaspoon.

Plums are in season, and we have been busy thinking up more ways to use them. We were inspired by Heidi Swanson’s Rosewater Plum Compote a couple weeks ago, and we set out to make our own plum sauce. We love tea and plums together, so we played around with an Earl Grey concentrate and sweet-tart red plums until we found a combination we liked. The tea gives the sweet plums undertones of tannins and herbs, and these deep flavors ripen as it sits.

Eggs on toast are go-to comfort food, a meal to be eaten alone on a spring evening, standing up in the kitchen, or on the couch with a book. When all else fails, there’s always eggs and buttery toast. Here’s one of our favorite ways to spruce up the old standby with a smattering of grownup flavors – briny, juicy capers, fragrant rosemary, and a dash of Romano cheese.

We made pancakes last weekend, a hearty Saturday brunch for a crowd. We are great fans of maple syrup, but we also love the chunky fruit toppings found in diners and family restaurants like Bob Evans. You can buy these industrially pre-packaged in jars, of course, but it is just too easy to make your own. You don’t even need fresh fruit; frozen does just as well, and bags of organic frozen peaches and blueberries are easily available from Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods.

It is finally snowing here in New York City! And Florida grapefruit are at their peak now. This is the perfect morning to pucker up, keep warm in front of the oven, and make yourself a sunny broiled grapefruit for breakfast.

Jam looks intimidating – boiling and canning and sterilizing and botulism all rolled into one specter of potential food poisoning. But while canning itself is much easier than it looks, you don’t need to mess with that for just one or two quick jars of jam. An hour or two will give you a jar of jam that can be frozen for up to six months or refrigerated for a month with that taste of summer fruit locked inside.