
They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It’s certainly the most fun, because it’s the one meal where nobody questions you for filling a plate with donuts, fried chicken, fruit, multiple carbs, and 30 sausages.
But it’s also absurdly tricky to get right—especially on weekdays, when mornings are a whirling dervish of showering, getting dressed, spilling coffee, and feeding yourself and others as you rush out the door. It’s so frantic, in fact, that food—that all-important fuel—often falls to the wayside.
Thankfully, with a couple of tips and tricks, that doesn’t have to be the case. Here are the best ways to ensure breakfast runs smoothly—even when you’re in a hurry.
Use your sheet tray
We love a sheet tray dinner. But nobody really talks about a sheet tray breakfast. That ends now.
Cooking breakfast for a crowd doesn’t need to be overwhelming if you’re relying on a trusty sheet tray.
Use it for scrambled eggs, a large batch of pancakes, sausage, bacon strips, or roasted veggies to bump up nutrition in burritos, tacos, and scrambles. The sheet tray is especially ideal for chaotic mornings because it’s so hands-off: load it up, let the oven do the work, then throw it in the dishwasher.

The freezer is your friend
One of the best ways to make breakfast painless is to have meals already prepped in the freezer. Breakfast foods actually freeze extremely well. You can wrap and freeze muffins, pancakes, burritos, quiche, pigs in a blanket (or, better, Chicks in a Quilt), coffee cake, and biscuit sandwiches. These items typically just need a quick zap in the microwave to bring them back to life.
Prefer a smoothie? Freeze smoothie cubes and, come morning, dump them in a blender (or let them thaw on their own).
Lastly, stock your freezer with simple staples like frozen berries—perfect for tossing into yogurt or oatmeal to boost vitamins and fiber.
Make time to save time
Meal prepping can sound like a slog, but it’s the conduit to an efficient morning. You don’t have to make everything in advance, but washing fruit, slicing veggies, and pre-cooking proteins will inevitably make life easier.
Put simply: make time on the weekend to plan your week. Easy prep-ahead breakfasts include egg bites, overnight oats, chia seed pudding, and burritos. For most of these, you don’t need an all-day cookathon—just throw them together the night before.

Go for low-lift options
Everyone loves a truck-stop breakfast or a proper English fry-up (same story, different sausages/accents), but that’s not usually realistic midweek. It’s okay to go easy and efficient when you need to—and save the extravagance for a weekend brunch.
Simple and speedy options include cereal, instant oatmeal, scrambled egg cups, yogurt with frozen berries, and those prepped burritos and sandwiches.
Get creative
Not every breakfast has to be eggs or pancakes. Drawing inspiration from around the world is a fun way to keep things fresh. Spam musubi from Hawaii and onigiri from Japan are easy to prep and perfect for grab-and-go mornings. Both use simple ingredients—rice, seaweed, and canned fish or spam—and can be assembled the morning of if you prepped rice in advance. A musubi or onigiri press makes them extra neat, and you can mix up the fillings with traditional options (like cod roe) or riffs (like sausage and eggs).
Lean into pre-cooked meats
Protein in the morning is a great way to start the day. Grilling up raw meat before work? Not so much. But cured and pre-cooked meats are a Swiss Army knife in the kitchen.
Ham makes everything better, but naturally we’re partial to the lower-fat deliciousness of our chicken sausage, which works in sandwiches, scrambles, bakes, burritos, tacos, quiche—you name it. You’ll save time too: our Melty Cheddar lets you skip the cheese grater, while Italian Herb brings roasted garlic, basil, and chilis to the table (and your scramble) without requiring you to dice a thing.