10 Vegan Breakfast Ideas: Compilation #68

 Ah, breakfast. The most wildly unpredictable meal of the day. Do we want savory, or sweet? Creamy or crunchy? Veggies or fruit? Everything at once? Do we want to drink our meal, eat it with a spoon, spear it with a fork, or pick it up with our hands?

This compilation is especially unusual, because I'm on my pantry utilization quest. A lot of these are things I would never have thought of without having to find recipes to use my pantry stash. So I realize that I have a lot of "weird" ingredients here. But I had fun trying all these things, I hope you'll have fun reading about them.

1. Spicy Masa Harina Hemp Sausages (Gluten Free, Nut Free, Soy Free)

If you are dealing with a lot of allergies, this sausage is for you! I made it because I am trying to use what I have, and one of the things I have on my list of things to work through is masa harina. The recipe is found at Vegetarian Times. It hydrates masa harina in a homemade spicy liquid, then combines that with mashed pinto beans that have been simmered in that same spicy liquid and hemp seeds. After refrigerating this mixture overnight, you form it into patties and pan fry. These are not the texture of any other sausage I've ever had--more like a firm tamale--but the flavors were all gloriously complementary and they made for an amazing, plant-based protein-infused breakfast alongside some green bean fritters (you saw those in the last breakfast compilation).

2. Sesame Chocolate Rye Breakfast Cookies (Soy Free)

I used JUST Egg and vegan butter to veganize this recipe from The Vanilla Bean Blog. It had to be done; I was able to use two things on my to-use list in this, rye flour and poppy seeds! But there is so much more in these cookies, which have more ingredients than almost any I've ever made. There is rye, of course, but also all purpose and whole wheat flours, oats, sesame seeds, flax, chocolate, fruit (finely chopped dried cranberries in my case), pecans, and poppy seeds alongside your usual suspects of butter, two kinds of sugar, vanilla, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. I wish I'd had the jammy bits the recipe calls for, because I was intrigued by the concept, but we're using what we have and therefore we are not getting distracted by shiny things like jammy bits when we can use something else. I didn't have English muffin rings, either (this felt like a very British recipe), but followed the instructions provided for that, and also followed the suggestion someone had in the comments of blitzing the pecans in a food processor to make them more uniform and give the cookies a better texture. I'm glad I chopped the cranberries, too. I appreciated the more uniform experience one had with these cookies that way, aside from the bits of chocolate here and there.

These are delicious, but not a complete breakfast, in my opinion, so it's important for me to have them with a protein boost. Fortunately, they go great with a glass of soy milk!

3. Cinnamon Roll Oatmeal

Sometimes, meals look like sludge but taste amazing. If I'd had appropriate fruit for a garnish, I would have used it, but sometimes you have to just do what you can manage. The recipe is from The Big Man's World, and it has all the flavors of a cinnamon roll without having to spend very much time. I really enjoyed this breakfast.

4. Avocado Pudding (Gluten Free, Nut Free, Soy Free Option)

Not that I would know unless I was told, but apparently, this is a Kim Kardashian thing. But I suspect that she did not invent it. It's pretty straightforward: Blend avocado, milk (I used soy; you can use whatever strikes your fancy), and sweeteners (I used a mixture of vegan honey and granulated sugar, following the ratios in a recipe from Salty Side Dish). I prefer this to chocolate avocado pudding, because this one still tastes like avocado. I had this with some toast with tofu spread and cucumbers and some hot herbal tea to round out the meal.

5. Banana Buckwheat Quinoa Pancakes (Gluten Free, Soy Free Option)

For these, I veganized a recipe from Simply Quinoa using soy milk and JUST Egg. Not only did it use some buckwheat flour (one of the things in the pantry utilization quest), but also quinoa flakes (another of the pantry utilization quest foods). Plus, it used some overly-ripe banana. I enjoyed these pancakes with some non-dairy yogurt (Siggi's, which has a lot of protein) and some stewed frozen berries.

6. Spirulina Cacao Energy Balls (Gluten Free, Soy Free)

I found a recipe at Naturya that used a lot of the somewhat unusual ingredients in my cupboards--spirulina, maca, goji berries, cacao nibs, etc.--as well as nuts and dates. I substituted cocoa powder for cacao, though I still had cacao nibs so I didn't change the name. They ended up looking very dark and maybe even slightly scary, but they still tasted pretty great! I had them with some fruit, a slice of toast, and a soy milk-based latte to round out the meal. 

7. Marmalade Farina (Nut Free)

Have you had my marmalade farina yet? It's lightly spiced and delightfully sweet and tastes amazing with some vegan butter. I adore farina, and this is one of the best ways to have it.

8. Spicy Spirulina Spinach Hummus Toast with Cucumber, Roasted Red Peppers, and Pickled Onions (Soy Free, Nut Free)

Spirulina has a deep green color that didn't show up in the cacao energy bites, but it's really evident on this toast! The hummus recipe is also from Naturya. To me, it wasn't very hummus-like, but more of an Indian-inspired chickpea spread, but it was still delicious! For color and texture contrasts, I added sliced cucumber, roasted red peppers, pickled red onions, and black and white sesame seeds. Two of these make for an excellent breakfast for me!

9. Bran muffins (Nut Free)

Hear me out. We left a lot of things in the 20th century behind, but sometimes, a bran muffin hits the spot. It was time to bring back the bran. So this recipe from Veg Kitchen was calling to me. Most of the muffins I make these days are more like cupcakes, but these have the nostalgic flavor of childhood to me. We used to think that healthy things were more or less fat free, and these, true to form, are oil free. With applesauce, wheat bran, and flax seeds, they're a wholesome breakfast option to have alongside a latte and some fruit. And unlike those more decadent muffins I have more often now, I can eat more than one of them in the morning without feeling stuffed!

10. Blended Sweet Potato Pecan Baked Oats (Gluten Free, Soy Free Option)

I had some leftover mashed sweet potato, so this meant, obviously, sweet potato baked oatmeal for breakfast! This is a recipe from Wake Up and Kale, and I made it with soy milk and the optional vanilla protein powder. I topped my oats (not pictured) with some pecan praline nut butter and a splash of soy milk. This was a deeply satisfying meal.

I may be stocked for an apocalypse, as I'm discovering, but at least I'm having fun!