Plant-Based Breakfasts

Breakfast foods are actually rather limited. If you remove, bacon, sausage, corned-beef hash, eggs, and cheese from the equation, breakfast suddenly seems to have limited options. Oatmeal is always great, and potatoes, but is it something you want to eat every single day?

Fruit Meals/Breakfast Smoothie Meals

A lot of people like to start their day with a fruit smoothie. Here in this tropical paradise, that makes even more sense. When you use only fruit though, it takes about 20 minutes to digest, then you’re hungry again. Let’s ramp up the breakfast smoothie and turn it into a full meal that will sustain you for a few hours.

First, add mild-flavored vegetables so that you can get some of your veggie intake for the day checked off. Spinach, chard, cauliflower, zucchini, and even cabbage can work well. Kale works best paired with pineapple, as the pineapple acid cuts kale’s bitterness whereas other fruits only mask it.

Add some tofu for your protein serving.

You can either add a few seeds/nuts into the blender, or pour the smoothie into a bowl and add the seeds/nuts on top. This gives you your fat serving, and depending on the nuts you choose, EFAs and fiber as well.

Tofu Cream

Tofu is incredibly versatile. The silken variety works well with anything blended, but extra-firm also blends up well; it’s just thicker. Make a tofu cream to top your fruit bowl. Add tofu, a few drops of vanilla, small pinch salt (typical ingredients for desserts), and a very flavorful fruit like mango and/or passionfruit. Use only the fruit as a sweetener or add a couple of dates, or some cane sugar. This is delicious for any sort of creamy topping, for fruit as well as cakes and pies.

Enjoy!

Sweet Breakfasts

Waffles and pancakes, for some people, are the epitome of an excellent breakfast. You can easily make these plant-based by subbing out the eggs for flax eggs (or something else; do a web search) and using plant milk. Make them whole foods by using whole wheat flour. Get a variety of nutrients by mixing whole wheat, oat, and/or some garbanzo or lentil flours. If you use legume flours, you will want to add a lot of cinnamon because of the flavor. With legume flours, remember that they will need much longer cooking times because they’re basically raw beans you’re working with; make these pancakes very thin, almost crepe-like. Turn down the temp to let the insides have time to cook, and cook waffles until very dark on the outsides.

If you’re a French toast lover, look for some recipes on the internet for plant-based French toast. There are certainly alternatives for dipping, besides the eggs.

You can also make muffins, including chocolate, and other baked goods for breakfast. If you need a solid fat, like chilled butter, you can use chilled coconut oil (but not for frosting, as it will melt). You’re just subbing out the animal ingredients with plant-based ingredients. That’s it. There are plenty of options online to help guide your efforts.

Savory Breakfasts

There are some pretty decent prepared sausages available in the freezer sections of our favorite grocers, if you’re really feeling the urge. Bacon, you can sort of re-create with tofu, presented in a previous issue.

Black salt, available at Luferz in San Isidro, has a slight sulfur flavor. This makes it excellent when you really want eggs. You can make a tofu scramble by crumbling tofu into a pan with seared onion and garlic, then seasoning with this black salt. Add some powered turmeric to make it yellow, and even egg-lovers can be fooled, especially if it’s in a breakfast burrito. Sauté in vegetables for a well-rounded meal.

Breakfast burritos, with beans and “eggs”, or “eggs” and potatoes, or whatever combination you like, are also excellent breakfast options. Load them with salsa and fresh avocado before rolling, then grill them. Yum!

Creativity Rules the Day

These are some basic ideas to get you going on starting your day with plants-based foods. Whatever your favorite breakfast is, outside of Cocoa Puffs, get creative and figure out a way to re-create it using only plants. Join some Facebook groups and remember to dig for recipes online. There are a lot of people out there doing a lot of amazing things in the world of plant-based eating today, and they’re sharing their findings online and in Instagram. Eating sooo nutritious can also be soooo delicious!

Michele Poff is a professional writer, instructional designer, investigative researcher, and editor. She has enjoyed living beachside in Costa Rica for 11 years. Michele leads wellness tour retreats in the Brazilian Amazon: paradisefoundretreat.com. She is also writing non-fiction and fiction books, titles forthcoming.