Buckwheat is used a lot in vegan cuisine. So what is it, and why is it so popular? Obviously for allergies you have to be careful, but one reason why it’s popular is that it’s naturally gluten-free, so often used as an alternative to wheat in certain recipes. It’s also related to rhubarb (it’s a seed) and also used to make couscous, popular in Middle Eastern cuisine. Homemade Buckwheat Flakes (Full of Plants) is a nice homemade breakfast recipe. These are gluten-free, oil-free and low in sugar. Serve with your favourite plant milk (they stay crunchy for a long time).
Naturally organic to grow (deer will snack a whole field of it if they see it!), this Asian crop dates back thousands of years. Used to make bread, pasta and noodles, you can also find buckwheat flour for vegan baked goods. Bees also love buckwheat, so it’s great to grow to bring back native pollinators. It’s also quick to grow, being harvested within 3 months. However once ground, only buy enough to last a month or so. Rich in minerals, it’s also a complete protein, so ideal for vegans as it contains all the essential amino acids, as well as soluble fibre.
- Just Natural Organic Buckwheat is thoroughly inspected to produce a quality item. Roasted buckwheat is made with toasted groats, rather than raw. It’s crunchy, ideal for soup or noodles.
- Amisa Organic Buckwheat Flour is ideal for cooking, baking or thickening sauces.
- Amisa Gluten-Free Buckwheat Crispbread is made in a gluten-free bakery and regularly batch-tested. In handy snack packs, these are good for lunchboxes.
- Doves Farm Wholemeal Buckwheat Flour is milled using the traditional stoneground process. This flour is great for pancakes, noodles and specialist pasta.
French Toast with Lemon & Raspberry (Crumbs & Caramel) is a lovely breakfast or dessert, to serve with vegan powdered sugar and vegan cream. The custard bottom is delicious alone, and the lemon and raspberry give lovely fruity flavours for a delicious brunch.
Silken tofu is the key ingredient in this recipe. It looks like custard, and much softer than conventional tofu. Used mostly for desserts, choose a sustainable brand, to protect the rainforests. You can even buy tofu made with soybeans grown in Europe.
Vegan French Toast with Cinnamon (Plantiful Bakery) is an American breakfast, despite the name. This recipe is made with plant milk and day-old bread, using chickpea flour as the egg replacer and flaxseed to thicken the batter. Sweetened with maple syrup, it’s fried in palm-oil-free vegan butter.
Serve your French toast with your choice of toppings, from vegan butter with maple syrup, to coconut whip cream, vegan yoghurt, fresh fruits or nut butter.
Morning Light is a beautiful e-book by a popular vegan recipe blogger, with tips on how to make your morning more mindful, along with 15 vegan breakfast recipes. You’ll learn how to help sync your body’s internal clock with the rise and fall of the sun, make the mornings your own, increase healthy habits, and fuel your body with balanced breakfasts.
All the recipes included in the e-book are vegan and free from gluten and refined sugar. Each recipe has been thoughtfully developed to maximise your mornings, and make your tummy happy too!
Remy runs Veggikins, a beautiful lifestyle blog that also features dozens of healthy vegan recipes, all with pretty photography. Based in NYC, she is also a health and wellness writer, yoga/meditation teacher, mindfulness coach and holistic nutritionist. She loves browsing farmers’ markets, travel and watching sunrises. She became an ethical vegan after healing from anorexia and self-harm, and now uses her passion for healthy food and cooking, to help others (often influenced by her Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese heritage).
These are vegan versions of those cornflake recipes you likely had as a child, where you would cover cornflakes in chocolate. They are not the healthiest breakfast, but good as a snack and is a good way to get some calcium-rich plant milk into tummies that won’t eat healthy cereals. Keep chocolate away from pets.
- Vegan Chocolate Crunch Bars (Nadia’s Healthy Kitchen) is a quick and easy recipe to curb cravings, yet get some nutrition in. These bars require no baking, children will enjoy making them with you.
- Peanut Butter Crunch Bars (The Big Man’s World) taste better than a candy bar. They only need 5 ingredients and take 5 minutes to make. Crispy and crunchy and gluten-free too.
- Peppermint Chocolate Crunch Chocolate Bars (The Big Man’s World) only need 6 ingredients. They are loaded with seeds and a hint of peppermint. Free from sugar and nuts.
- Chocolate Homemade Fudge Crunch (Green Smoothie Gourmet) use granola, puff cereal or quinoa. You choose, then just put the recipe together in minutes, using just 3 ingredients.
The Ultimate Vegan Breakfast Book is a lovely publication by a couple who are Germany’s most popular vegan food bloggers. If you think that Germans live on schnitzel and sausages, you’d be wrong. By ratio, it has more vegans than anywhere (Berlin is the most vegan-friendly city on earth). Here there is a very strong culture of health food (naturopaths have the same status as medical doctors). And there are even vegan supermarkets everywhere. Recipes include:
- Tofu Omelet with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes
- Breakfast Burrito with Mushroom Chickpea Scramble
- Nana Nice Cream with Overnight Oats
- Power Waffles with Breakfast Sausage
- Tempeh Bacon & Mini Breakfast Burgers
- Tropical Green Smoothie Bowl
- Super Antioxidant Shake
- Glazed Baked Donuts
- Pesto Bread
- Fresh Nut Butters & Jams
- Blueberry Blondies
123 Yummy Vegan Breakfast Recipes
123 Yummy Vegan Breakfast Recipes offers lovely food for the most important meal of the day. Jumpstart your day with a tall pile of pancakes on a sunny weekend, or a quick breakfast-on-the-go for busy weekdays. Recipes include:
- Crepes
- Granola
- Rice Pudding
- Bran Muffins
- French Toast
- Overnight Oats
- Smoothie Bowls
Easy Vegan Breakfasts & Lunches
Easy Vegan Breakfasts and Lunches is a gorgeous book with half the recipes being for lunch (hence the cover picture, unless you want a burger for breakfast!) and the other half being healthy breakfasts. Chef and photographer Maya Sozer is super-talented and offers 80 meals (with stunning photos) including:
- Vanilla Sky Apple Pie Smoothie
- Fresh Banana Bread
- Day Dream French Toast
- Peanut Butter Banana Pancakes
- Overnight Chocolate Rawnola
- Quinoa Porridge
A full English vegan breakfast gathers all the usual suspects (baked beans, fried mushrooms, toast, orange juice) but replaces other items like scrambled egg, meat sausages, bacon and black pudding (made from pig’s blood). Here are a few ideas to get you started. Orange juice and fresh pots of tea or coffee are obligatory too.
You can make many kinds of vegan scramble, many are based on tofu. And it’s really easy these days to find vegan sausages though you may wish to not bother with black pudding alternatives (the only one found contains palm oil). Keep these meals away from pets, as most faux meats and eggs contain toxic ingredients like garlic, onion, mushrooms etc. For some strange reason, many recipes add avocado (you can leave this out if wished, as there are ethical concerns over harvesting, or at least choose ones from small-scale organic farms).
The Edgy Veg offers a full English consisting of vegan sausage, bacon and eggs, along with baked beans, and fried tomato, mushrooms and bread.
This full breakfast pile-up for hangovers is from Matt Pritchard’s book Dirty Vegan.
This full English breakfast recipe is from Aimee Ryan’s book Great British Vegan.
Chocolate Hazelnut Breakfast Mix (Full of Plants) is easy to make up. One recipe makes 6 servings, just mix with warm plant milk for an instant breakfast. The recipe uses oats, cocoa powder, vegan chocolate chips and coconut sugar, with optional vanilla powder. You then process roasted hazelnuts to make your own hazelnut meal, to complete the recipe. You can sub out the milk for coconut milk powder, for more creaminess.
This breakfast tastes a bit like Nutella in a bowl. Jar nutella is made by a big corporate company and has few hazelnuts, but lots of refined sugar, milk and palm oil. This is much nicer and kinder to animals, your heart and your teeth!
