3 Healthy Breakfast Ideas for Walk to School Week
Published on 12 May 2023
The school run is already hard enough. Wrestling kids into clothes. Forcing them to sit still and eat. Keeping your cool as they spill milk on the dog. Weaving through traffic. And after all that, standing in your PJs in the school carpark, feeling like you’ve missed something.
It’s your kid. They’re still at home watching TV.
Then there’s Walk to School Week. Teachers want what now? Get your kid to school alive and healthy? It might sound idealistic but it’s possible. What’s more, a morning walk and a healthy breakfast could not only help your kid's development, but also your wellbeing.
Make a few portions of a brain-boosting food for student success or a simple breakfast for weight loss, for example, and you’ll also have a healthy breakfast for work. Focusing on them also helps you. All you need is an easy-access workspace and a few go-to recipes.
Get a Breakfast Dresser
Your workspace might seem irrelevant when looking to build a positive habit. However, it’s important to start here because, as positive-habit-building expert James Clear once said:
“Before you try to increase your willpower, try to decrease the friction in your environment.”
Creating a space that’s dedicated to an activity – that you never need to set up or fight to access – reduces the friction required to do that activity. In this case, a Masterclass Breakfast Dresser is optimised to help you make nutritious breakfasts and, so, provides that frictionless experience.
Designed to replicate five-star-hotel-room luxury, this breakfast cupboard helps middle-class families experience a taste of upper-class living at home on a realistic budget. Including space for a coffee machine and a tea-making station, it sparks joy at breakfast time while freeing worktops of clutter.
High-Protein Breakfasts
Once you’ve fixed the workspace predicament, next comes the meals. What’s healthy and filling? A high-protein breakfast. After all, protein is the most satiating macro-nutrient. Often, the problem is finding high-protein breakfasts for picky-eaters. We have a solution, however: air fryer egg on toast.
Uncomplicated and full of child-pleasing ingredients, this dish doesn’t take long to make, fills your little cherub and is unlikely to encounter an upturned nose. Even including a wholemeal bread element goes well because the toasting process makes it more palatable.
Ingredients (One Serving):
- One slice of wholemeal bread
- One egg
Instructions:
- Set your air fryer to 200°C on air fry mode.
- Create a pit in the bread slice with your fingers.
- Crack an egg into the bread pit.
- Cook the bread in the air fryer for six minutes.
Simple – and while the bread gives short-term energy for the school run, the egg will keep everyone feeling full for longer, which is ideal for classroom focus. Serve the meal at a compact kitchen island, complete with island barstools, and you can even turn the experience into a bonding opportunity.
Sweet Healthy Breakfasts
Next up: summer porridge – a strong alternative for those who prefer sweetness and fresh flavours over umami at breakfast time.
Packed with satisfying oats and seeds, plus antioxidant-rich fruits, which help the body stave off disease, this option is both delicious and healthy, particularly the blueberries, which nurture a good memory.
Ingredients (One Serving):
- 150ml of almond milk
- 100g of blueberries
- A quarter of a tablespoon of maple syrup
- One tablespoon of chia seeds
- 50g of jumbo oats
- Half a kiwi fruit (cut into slices)
- 25g of pomegranate seeds
- One teaspoon of mixed seeds
Instructions:
- Blitz the milk, blueberries and syrup in a blender.
- Mix the chia and oats in a bowl with the blueberry milk.
- Soak for five minutes, stirring occasionally, until the oats and chia absorb the liquid.
- Stir and pour the result into a bowl.
- Arrange the remaining fruit on top amidst a sprinkle of mixed seeds.
Admittedly, this recipe has a few more ingredients than most breakfasts. However, the variation is great for gut health. Plus, it still only takes ten minutes to prepare. Storing your ingredients is no hassle, either, if you invest in Tupperware tubs and fit your kitchen with a Hathaway kitchen pantry.
Essential for keen home cooks, this storage feature is available in multiple widths from 400mm to 1,200mm and comes with a selection of shelves, drawers and pigeonholes to help your stay organised.
Veggie Breakfasts
Today, many of us eat far fewer greens than the ideal diet requires. Our societal habit of limiting vegetables to evening meals exacerbates the issue. Yet, there’s nothing stopping you from creating a high-fibre breakfast that’s full of greens.
A simple green smoothie is beneficial, not to mention easy to introduce to your kid if they can’t stomach chewing food at breakfast but need a pick-me-up that will keep them feeling full in class.
Ingredients (One Serving):
- 250ml of almond milk
- Two handfuls of spinach
- Two bananas
- One tablespoon of peanut butter
- Two ice cubes
Instructions:
- Blend all ingredients in a blender until smooth.
- Add more fruit / ice (to thicken) or water / milk (to thin) until consistency is just right.
- Pour into a glass and serve.
Sure, studies suggest that chewing your food is the healthiest way to consume it – blending accelerates oxidisation, which reduces nutrient richness in foods – but, as the old idiom goes, “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.”
Greens are still greens, even at half capacity. So, if your child enjoys drinking a simple vegetarian breakfast more than chewing one, don’t stop them. Giving them an 80%-healthy breakfast they prefer will only make them more likely to view vegetables favourably and continue eating well as an adult.
Keeping the Habit
At first glance, you might think you and your kid prefer a quick TV breakfast and car commute. The truth, though, is that kids value time with their parents and they mimic adults’ habits. So, if you have a flexible-enough lifestyle and want to enrich your mornings long-term, make a habit of preparing a healthy breakfast and walking your children to school beyond Walk to School Week.
Optimising your kitchen for parent-child bonding is a good way to cement the change. If you need more help working out how to make this happen, find your nearest Masterclass showroom and book a consultation slot, or become a Masterclass Insider for free. As Masterclass Kitchen Insider email subscriber, you’ll get exclusive design tips, plus welcome guides and resources.
