One of the main dilemmas holding people back from switching to Paleo is the issue of what to eat for breakfast. If you can’t have cereal, a bagel, toast, or croissant, then what the heck can you have? Guess what? There are hundreds of meal ideas for breakfast, none of which contain grains. Sometimes you just have to readjust your way of thinking when it comes to the types of foods you’ll have in the morning.
If you’re a meat eater (and really, we hope you are), then you have so many options available to you for morning foods! What’s easier than re-heating some meat? Actually, in some cases, you don’t even have to heat it up if you don’t want to, depending on the meat. Things like ham and sliced chicken or turkey can be eaten cold no problem, or even smoked salmon and other smoked fish.
It might seem strange at first to eat leftover meats for breakfast, but in no time you’ll wonder how you ever got along without it. The amount of protein in a good hunk of meat helps keep you full and gives you energy to get through your morning. You won’t have any mid-morning crashes when you eat meat for breakfast!
Love Paleo breakfast recipes? Get our free breakfast recipe cookbook here!
Check out our ideas for a killer Paleo breakfast below.
Chicken Breasts
One of the easiest ways to prepare a large amount of chicken in advance, besides roasting a whole chicken and portioning it out for the week, is to buy a bunch of boneless, skinless breasts and poach them. Put them in a pot, cover with water, and bring to a boil. Once the water is boiling rapidly, turn off the heat, cover the pot, and let it sit for about 30 minutes. After that, you can do a lot of different things with the breasts like eat them whole, cut them into strips for fast stir fry, or cube them for throwing into “pasta” or soup. If the white color bothers you, simply sauté for a couple seconds on each side to give them a browned look. It’s super easy to use these for any of your meals through the week.
It’s also pretty easy to get perfectly grilled chicken from frozen to prepare for the rest of the week.
Meatballs
Meatballs are another easy meat to cook, store, and eat. They are good hot or cold, and go with a lot of different foods, particularly if you use your imagination when it comes to seasoning and ingredients. If you normally cook up a pound of ground beef into meatballs for dinner, double your batch and refrigerate or freeze the leftovers. These are also great to take for a quick and easy lunch at work.
Ground Beef
If you use a lot of ground beef for dinners, cook up some extra next time and set it aside. You can stir grass-fed ground beef into scrambled eggs or sauté some mushrooms and onions to mix in. Ground beef is great with stewed tomatoes, cilantro, and eggs. Add some grated cheese if you do dairy and you’ll have a delicious breakfast in just a few minutes.
Steak
Who hasn’t had steak and eggs for breakfast? It might be hard to leave some of that steak as leftover but if you deliberately cook too much this might work out well for you. Just slightly undercook the steak so that when you heat it up it doesn’t get overcooked. A quick sear in a cast iron pan works really well to heat it up; do this while you cook your eggs as you like them. For a delicious and decadent breakfast, whip up some béarnaise sauce to pour over your eggs and steak.
For those who want a more in-depth look, we’ve got a guide on how to cook the perfect steak every time.
Meat on Salad
You can top a salad with any kind of meat! Smoked salmon, ham, shrimp, grilled chicken, ground beef, bacon, and even steak are all delicious on some nice mixed greens. You could make a vinaigrette dressing, a homemade ranch dressing, or even a homemade Caesar dressing, whichever you like.
Sausage
Turkey sausage, breakfast sausage, spicy sausage…you name it, and it’s great for breakfast. The next time you’re barbequing up some sausages, throw a couple extra on the grill. You can eat them with eggs, sliced on top of salad, or by themselves. These are another great meat that you can eat hot or cold.
Bacon
Ahh, of course. Bacon. What would breakfast be without it? If you actually ever have bacon leftovers (who does?), then of course you’ll want it for breakfast. You can wrap it in some lettuce with some avocado and tomato for a great Paleo BLT wrap or mix it with tomato sauce topped with eggs.
Salmon
Fish for breakfast might sound weird, but it’s really a great choice. Smoked salmon is great with eggs, or with some fresh fruit, grilled asparagus, or other green vegetable. If you’re buying smoked salmon, watch out for the sugar content.
Alternatively, you could bake salmon in foil.
Roast Beef, Ham, or Turkey
If you’ve done up a big roast, turkey, or ham for a weekend dinner and have lots of leftovers, you have a ton of options when it comes to breakfast ideas. Ham chopped into omelets, turkey shredded into salad, roast beef topped with horseradish with a side of sautéed cabbage…the list is endless. Roast beef is great in lettuce wraps, too!
Soup
Soup is another one of those breakfast foods that might make you hesitate for a minute. Once you get over that, though, you’ll realize soup has some great potential. You can put pretty much anything into a soup, if you have chicken or beef stock as a base already. All you need is one quart of stock, a cup of shredded/diced/cubed meat of your choices, two or three vegetables of your choice, some salt and pepper, some sautéed onion, and you’re ready to go. Let it all simmer for a few minutes and you’ve got soup. Add the seasonings of your choice to flavor it up how you want it.
Of course, you can also turn your leftover turkey or chicken carcass into chicken stock overnight, strain off the solids, and make soup for the rest of the week with that stock. Alternatively, just drink the stock as a fantastic nutritional beverage.
Conclusion
All in all, once you get out of the mindset that you need to eat “breakfast” foods in the morning, you’ll realize that you have limitless options open to you. Meat and vegetables, soup, or meat and fruit are always a good choice that will get you through to lunch without a big sugar crash. [author_bio name=”yes” avatar=”yes”]
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