17 Breakfast Hacks to Ensure a Smooth Morning With Your Family
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Breakfast before kids was a breeze — you either grabbed something quick to take on the go or made a fancy spread at home (or, let's be real, someone else made it for you at your favorite weekend spot). Breakfast after kids, well, that's a whole other story — a messy story. Trying to get kids to eat is hard enough, but throw in the fact that it's the morning and you haven't had your coffee yet . . . disaster.
If your mornings are a touch chaotic but you want to fill up those little bellies, scroll through for 17 breakfast hacks that will change the way you make the first meal of the day for your family.
Make bacon in the oven.
Avoid splattering grease and cook the strips more evenly by placing them onto a baking sheet and into the oven for about 15 minutes.
Revolutionize Peanut Butter Banana Toast
Rather than create a heavy slice of toast topped with banana slices and peanut butter, make a banana "hot dog" that is easy for little hands to grab and chow down on.
Save an old ketchup bottle for pancake mix.
Make storing already-made pancake batter less of a hassle, and turn the actual pancake-making into an easier feat by putting batter into a rinsed-out ketchup bottle that squirts the batter right out.
Freeze any extra pancakes.
If your family loves pancakes any day of the week, don't go through the hassle of mixing up batter every morning — make a huge batch on the weekend and freeze the extras to throw into the toaster oven during the week!
Cut pancakes with a pizza cutter.
Waffles, pancakes, and french toast can all be cut up for tiny mouths super efficiently by using a pizza cutter.
Freeze banana slices as the "ice" for smoothies.
Rather than water down smoothies with ice cubes, pack in as many nutrients into their morning smoothie as possible by using frozen banana slices as "ice cubes."
Freeze yogurt cups for on-the-go breakfast popsicles.
Bringing a yogurt cup into the car on mornings when you're rushing isn't ideal, but yogurt can still be the ultimate on-the-go brekkie if you freeze a few cups with spoons right in the yogurt to make "popsicles."
Add a half teaspoon of baking soda into the water when boiling eggs.
The shell will slip right off the resulting hard-boiled eggs like a dream and you can avoid having your child chomp down on a piece of shell and being scared of eating eggs for the foreseeable future.
Hull strawberries with a straw.
They don't call them strawberries for nothing! Get the middles and stems out of the way by sticking the straw all the way through — that way, you can make sure none of it goes to waste!
Make eggs in a panini press.
The triangular spaces make perfect sections for eggs of any style, but especially sunny side up!
Bake mini omelets in a muffin tin.
Make a bunch fresh and then freeze the rest to heat up on busy mornings.
Or throw them into a waffle maker.
Never worry about your omelets becoming scrambled eggs when you put your mix into a waffle maker.
And while you're at it, make hash browns in the waffle maker as well.
Frozen tater tots + waffle maker = hash brown bliss.
If you have a cake pop maker, they create the easiest pancake bites for little hands.
Pancake balls dipped in syrup sound like every kid's dream — they'll think they're getting dessert for breakfast!
Remove egg yolks from the whites with an empty water bottle.
Use an empty water bottle as a vacuum to get an egg yolk away from its white counterpart.
Bake oatmeal in muffin cups for easy on-the-go eating.
Who needs bowls when you can eat your oatmeal muffin-style? Whip up a bunch of these and freeze the extras.
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Use the bottom of a muffin tin to make granola "cups."
Spoon in their favorite yogurt and fruit in the morning, and you've got a hassle-free breakfast to keep their little bellies full until lunch.