16 Easy, Healthy Grab-and-Go Breakfast Ideas

These easy, healthy grab-and-go breakfast ideas will give you some new delicious foods to help fuel you on busy mornings! Includes everything from oatmeal and muffin recipes to egg-based dishes you can take on the go.

So, I am not headed to the beach as planned this morning. Thanks a lot, Hurricane Florence.

My friends and I actually relocated our trip to the mountains because of the storm, but then even the mountains here in N.C. are expected to see flooding, mudslides, etc., so we decided to cancel our trip altogether and hunker down at home.

Better safe than sorry, for sure, but I am bummed to be missing my annual girls weekend. On the other hand, there are much bigger things to worry about with this storm, so I’m trying to keep some perspective. Anyways… on to the breakfast fun today!

So, I seem to have evolved into a morning person over the years.

In high school and college, I was a late-night owl all the way.

But ever since I graduated, my jobs as a writer and now editor have required early morning start times for work. Like 5:30 and 6:30 a.m. start times.

And sometime over the past 10 or so years, I’ve become someone who just wakes up earlier and churns out work in the morning.

So I guess I’m a morning person now. 🤷‍♀️

What hasn’t changed though is my need for healthy grab-and-go breakfast ideas.

I need them for me to have when I’m in the middle of deadlines and can’t be bothered to stop and put something together.

I need grab-and-go breakfast ideas for work to send with my husband if he’s running out the door. (Or as I used to be doing as well when I didn’t work from home.)

And I also need grab-and-go breakfast ideas for school for my kids, who start at different times. I also use them as a morning snack to send in with my daughter for school snack time.

So today I’m sharing 16 of our favorite ideas to get in a healthy breakfast on the go and start your day off right, no matter where you are heading.

(You can also check out my 5 easy make-ahead egg breakfasts if you’re an egg lover like me!)

A lot of these are make ahead grab-and-go breakfast ideas, and those are perfect for prepping at night or over the weekend or whenever you do your meal prep.

Confession: I don’t do a ton of meal prep since I do work from home and can fix things throughout the day, but breakfast is one area where I definitely make things ahead of time.

That way, I’ve got food ready to go in the morning when I’m already up and working and the kids are complaining about how starving they are when they come downstairs.

They can be a bit dramatic, especially about their food. 😂

Others in this list are breakfast ideas that you can throw together in 5 minutes or less. Cause that’s often all we’ve got, right?!

Don’t worry, we’re also not doing all carb-loaded muffins and toasts. (Though we have some of those, to be sure!) This list includes some high protein breakfast ideas that will help give you plenty of energy to tackle your day.

I also included a free printable of these ideas in case you want to have it on hand so you don’t get stuck in a breakfast rut! I know I have that problem…

Without further ado, here you go!

16 easy healthy grab-and-go breakfast ideas:

Muffins or scones
Baked oatmeal
Breakfast cookies
Pancake mini muffins
Homemade egg McMuffin or other breakfast sandwich
Make-ahead breakfast wraps or quesadillas
Freezer breakfast burritos
Mini egg cups (with veggies, sausage, bacon, etc)
Slice of frittata or breakfast tart (warmed up or served cold/room temp)
Breakfast casserole/baked omelets
Pancake sandwiches (with peanut butter, cream cheese and jam, Nutella, etc.)
Waffles or waffle sandwiches
Granola (as a snack or with an individual yogurt container)
Granola bars or fruit or nut bars
Overnight oats in a jar
Smoothie (green, fruit, nut butter, etc.)

Feeling inspired? Ready to put some of these ideas into action?

Let’s do it!

I’ve included some specific recipes below to help get you started.

Oatmeal breakfast recipes:

Overnight oatmeal jars (base recipe + 3 flavors)
Strawberry overnight oats (2 ways)
Chocolate overnight oats
Breakfast oatmeal squares

Baked oatmeal recipes:

Breakfast cookie recipes:

Healthy granola recipes:

Healthy muffin recipes:

- Banana blueberry muffins
- Mini oatmeal raisin baby muffins
- Apple cinnamon quinoa breakfast muffins
- Healthy granola muffins
- Healthy PB & J muffins
- Pancake mini muffins (so much easier than flipping pancakes!)
- You can also go check out ALL of my healthy muffin recipes

Egg breakfast recipes:

Freezer breakfast burritos (so many ways to customize these)
Homemade egg McMuffin (make ahead or takes 5 minutes. I made these for my kids yesterday morning!)
Vegetable frittata
Tomato breakfast tart

(Oh, and if you love fried eggs like I do, you can make that and sandwich it in a wrap, toast or egg McMuffin. But they can be drippy, so it might not be as portable as these other options.)

There you have it folks! Tons of easy, healthy grab-and-go breakfast ideas that will get you going on the right foot in the morning and help fuel your day!

Last tip: Keep some easy containers on hand to make this all run more smoothly in the morning.

Everything from plastic cups to small plastic containers to just some aluminum foil are helpful. We use these small glass jars for overnight oats and parfaits a lot. You can also get reuseable snack bags, too, for things like granola, bars and fruit.

Or use these ideas for healthy breakfast snacks on the go if you need a mid-morning pick-me-up. I call it second breakfast. 🙌

Also, here’s that FREE printable of the 16 ideas above in case you want to save it to have on hand. (It’s a PDF.)

You can also pin this post to save it for reference later or to come back and check out some of the recipes. 👍

Enjoy!

XO,

Kathryn

P.S. Leave me a comment below and let me know your favorite healthy on-the-go breakfast or any that I may have missed here!

16 Easy, Healthy Grab-and-Go Breakfast Ideas