What are some non-sweet options for vegan breakfast?

Question

While I find following a vegan diet really easy to adapt to, ever since I stopped eating cheese and eggs, I have almost run out of my usual breakfast choices and all of the ones I've been left with are sweet ones.

Various vegan recipe sites do not seem to offer much help in this regard because while all of those vegan pancakes and muffins look great, I am desperately in need of something non-sweet, if not outright salty.

As of now, my usual breakfast is either cereals with vegan milk/yoghurt, bread with some jam or just some fruit. Could anyone point me to some non-sweet vegan breakfast options?

Answer 1

• tofu scramble

  • get some extra-firm tofu and fry it with green/spring onion, turmeric (for colour), and yeast extract, nutritional yeast or soy sauce for flavour.
  • serve on toast etc

• savoury pancakes

  • mix chickpea/gram flour with your favourite vegan milk and some salt and herbs to make a batter.
  • Fry in a little oil on both sides.

• avocado on toast

  • mash up a ripe avocado with yeast extract or soy sauce and spread on toast
  • sprinkle with chilli, herbs, toasted coconut, or a bit of grated extra dark chocolate or non-sweet cacao powder

• bubble & squeak

  • if you have some cooked starchy leftovers (traditionally potato, cabbage and peas, but anything with beans or root veg and greens works great), mash them up a bit mix them with a bit of any flour to bind together
  • fry in a pan like a frittata and serve with your favourite condiment (chutney, ketchup, mustard, etc)

Answer 2

As you are looking for some non-sweet recipes, Indian recipes are a good option for you. Most Indians prefer not to have sweet foods in their breakfast (although they do at lunch or supper)

Below are some easy breakfast recipes:

1. Dosa

   

   It is a thin crepe made out of soaked rice and skinned black gram. Dosa is one of the famous south-Indian breakfast recipes. There are various types of Dosas based on the ingredients used in addition to rice and lentils.

   Here is the basic recipe for most of the Dosas:

   To make Dosa, soak rice and lentils for about 4-6 hours. Then grind with water and make a thick batter and allow it to ferment. This fermentation enhances the nutrition and makes the end product tasty. This batter is latter spread into a hot griddle and cooked for a short time until it gets golden brown colour and becomes crispy.

   Here is a detailed recipe for dosa. This is best served with coconut chutney and sambar.

2. Idli

   

   Idli is also a popular south Indian breakfast. They are soft savoury steam cakes. It's a simple recipe and its ingredients are also easily available. Idli can be made through two ways. One is using the rice batter and the other is using semolina. The only difference in the rice batter between Dosa and Idli is that Idli batter is slightly thicker than Dosa batter. We can add chopped vegetables like carrot, beetroot, leafy vegetables and spices of our choice into the batter for better taste. This is best served with Coconut chutney and sambar just like Dosa.

   Here is a detailed recipe for Idli.

3. Upma

   

   Upma is also a famous Indian breakfast. It is cooked as a porridge using semolina or coarsed rice flour. Seasonings and vegetables of individual choice can be added. It can be cooked in 15 minutes. You can substitute semolina with Vermicelli too.

   Click here for a detailed recipe.

4. Oats Upma

   

   If we think of a breakfast with Oats, we usually think about Oatmeal. But there is another option you can chose. That is vegetable Oats Upma. This recipe is same as Upma, but oats replaced the semolina or coarsed rice. It takes 15-20 minutes to cook. It's healthy as well.

   Here's a step by step recipe for vegetable oats Upma.

There are other recipes like Vada, Puri and many more dishes.

If the dishes have ghee in their recipes, you can substitute with oil.

Answer 3

• Toast with hummus. You can even make a creamier spread with avocado and cucumbers.

• Open a tomato, add stuffing and bake it, it's delicious. Here's a recipe (of course, don't add the cheese).

• Garlic bread. Recipe is so simple I don't even need a link: mix vegetable oil ^{(don't use coconut, though, the smell kinda ruins it)} and smashed garlic on a frying pan, then heat it for 3 minutes. Spread it over bread, then broil it until the bread starts darkening. It's ready! For extra flavor, add a few sprinkles of olive oil and oregano.

Answer 4

Porridge (oatmeal) is a great Scottish staple. Cheap and convenient. You can make it fairly quickly on the stove or faster in the microwave with water or plain unsweetened soy/almond/rice milk. Fresh fruits are a healthy topping in moderation but seeds are also an option for something less sweet.

Answer 5

A typical Israeli breakfast can easily be made vegan: Israeli salad (finely chopped cucumber, tomato and onion with some olive oil and a bit of lemon), a few slices of bread and a savory spread (hummus, tahini, baba ghanoush, mashed avocado, olive tapenade, pesto, sun-dried tomato spread and so on).

Answer 6

I know I'm late to the party, but I've thought of a nice little curveball.

Sushi! (Which does actually mean 'rice'.)

For example, there's kappamaki, a type of sushi consisting of:

• nori* (a kind of seaweed)
• sushi rice
• strips of cucumber

It's named after a kind of water-dwelling 'demon' called a Kappa that tries to snatch and drown children. This is because for some inexplicable reason Kappa love cucumbers.

Naturally you can create your own mixtures.

Some veg*n sushi ingredients:

• Avacados
• Shiitake mushrooms
• Bamboo shoots
• Lotus root
• Spinach
• Carrot
• Pickled radish
• Pickled plums (umeboshi)

Alternatives for seaweed include thin omelette, soy paper or shisho leaves (ironically known as the "beefsteak plant").

Also, add soy sauce and wasabi to flavour.

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* Other kinds would probably be fine too. Get whatever you believe is least disruptive to wildlife, or perhaps substitute with something similar, like a savoury leafy vegetable.

Answer 7

Hashbrowns are one of my favorites. They are just shredded and fried potatoes. My wife likes to steam the potatoes the night before and refrigerate them before shredding them, but it's not really necessary.

Grits works too, if you are into food from the South Eastern US. You can eat them sweet or savory.

I also love biscuits and gravy. And yes, though sausage gravy is traditional, you can make it vegetarian with soy milk, and oil instead of butter. Veggie sausage is optional.

Answer 8

For breakfast I often use non-sweet spreads, smoked and sliced tofu or even vegan sausage. So my breakfast is not so different from my non-vegan times, except from cheese - there's nearly no edible vegan cheese around so far. :)

Answer 9

My non-sweet breakfast is black beans and a tomato sandwich with olive oil.

Answer 10

Vegan Fry Up/Vegan English Breakfast:

(you can thank me later - this is what I have pretty much every weekend)

Ingredients I usually use:

- Beans in tomato sauce
- Sliced mushrooms fried in olive oil and garlic or one whole portobello mushroom
  grilled with a little bit of olive oil sprinkled on top
- Vegan sausages
- Hashbrowns
- Spinach (fried with olive oil and garlic)
- A slice of bread

Of course you can go all in and add more stuff i.e. tofu scramble, vegan bacon etc. (Pro tipp: look for all organic ingredients.)

Actually I found a recipe here, I haven´t tried it out myself yet but it looks pretty decent (including tofu scramble and vegan bacon) - Ultimate Vegan Cooked Breakfast

Also - this sort of breakfast is probably not for everyday, it is more a weekend thing, at least for me. It takes a while to prepare and it is a bit heavy but will keep you full for the day. The trick when cooking is, to have everything ready and hot when you serve it. Enjoy

Answer 11

Clearly you're not British ;-)

Marmite

Marmite is a savoury spread which goes well on toast. If you're looking for something salty instead of sweet to have for breakfast, this is a great option. For variety, you can also have grilled marmite: put it on a piece of bread before it goes under the grill.

The only problem with this is that it's not easy to find outside of the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and maybe some other Commonwealth countries. However, your profile description says you're in the UK, so you should be able to find Marmite in any major supermarket:

Answer 12

If you want to have an easy solution in the morning and are not super-awake to cook and fry a lot yet ( like me...) then you could buy or prepare your own spreads. I don't know where you live but in my area bread-spreads are getting really common (e.g. hummus, but also other kinds of spread). If you want to prepare your own spread then there are plenty of options and you can store them hygienically in jars.

This spread can be kept upt to two weeks in the fridge and has a nice savory taste.

Another tip: If you can get smoked salt or smoked parika powder then you can add a savory taste (probably umami) easily to many dishes.

Answer 13

A few more indian-style options, that are often found recommended as great for breakfast in indian recipe collections:

• Lemon rice. Cooked rice, which can be day-old if you are observing food safety recommendations about refrigeration but not cultural prohibitions against using leftover food, is refreshed with a tempering of urad dal (might want to soak them a bit if they get too crunchy), a few hot peppers, hing, turmeric, curry leaves, and optionally some nuts and/or peanuts (store bought salted peanuts work great). Then, lime juice is added to taste. While not 100% traditional, coconut oil works great for the tempering. Adding the rice to a big hot pan in which you set up the tempering, then sauteeing the whole for a minute or two works great - avoid cooking the life out of the lime/lemon juice, add it in the very end.

• Other cooked rice + tempering based dishes. Be aware that different rice types have very different glycemic index, which could make a big difference in breakfast suitability.

• Poha (pressed rice flakes) with whatever addins and spices you like. Has the advantage over normal rice that no lengthy cooking and resting is required.

• If you want something reasonably heavy and protein rich: Besan ka cheela, savoury chickpea flour pancakes. You can add finely chopped vegetables and ground seasonings (kitchen king masala works well, some ajowan works well, as should curry or sambhar powders).

• Flatbreads (like roti) - the dough can be stored pre-balled a day or a few in the refrigerator, and once you have them rolled and in a hot pan (no oil, no nonstick pans!), they cook in a minute or two each. Great with chutneys, yoghurt (non-dairy works, but do try several brands - some work great, some don't - with or without veg/spices added), some achar, some fresh veg, or even non-indian style pickles (eg olives, diverse middle eastern style cold condiments...)