12 Breakfast Ideas to Make Every Morning

The recipes in our series “Homemade Gourmet” take the thought and time out of cooking without sacrificing their flavor or gourmet appeal. These 12 breakfast ideas will help you start the morning off right. It’s the most important meal of the day after all…

The history of breakfast foods in America reflects dishes whose ingredients range from simple to sublime. In early colonial days, hearty porridges (a template for our modern-day instant oatmeal) dominated the morning meal. By the turn of the 20th century, however, recipes like lamb chops and hominy grits, beefsteak pie, and oysters and celery on toast pulled from a 1901 cookbook entitled 365 Breakfast Dishes, signaled that breakfast was a full-on feast.

Decades later, the advent of television and advertising, the heightened importance of convenience, and feeding kids a quick meal — all coinciding with women entering the workforce — changed the breakfast landscape again. Pastries, pre-mix pancakes, and boxed cereals became de rigueur.

In honor of the first — and, some might say, most important — meal of the day, we’ve lined up a dozen fantastic breakfast ideas that we think have big flavor, ease of preparation, and a feast for the senses.