Healthy Warm Breakfast Ideas to Help You Get Back on Track for January

Getting out of bed on a January morning isn’t so bad when you’ve got a healthy, warm breakfast waiting for you. With these nourishing, quick-to-make breakfast ideas at your fingertips, it’s easy to kick-start the day, and get back on track for the new year.

What makes for a healthy warm breakfast?

On cold, blustery mornings, you can make jumping out of bed ten times easier in an instant by prepping a comforting, healthy breakfast. To help you start your year on the right foot, we’ve gathered filling, nutrient-rich breakfast ideas that’ll satisfy sweet and savoury cravings, without taking you away from your slimming goals.

Like with any meal of the day, the key to finding balance at breakfast time is in having fun with different flavours, and making the most of scrummy seasonal ingredients. 

From porridge to pancake stacks, our list proves there’s plenty of ways you can use seasonal fruits (like rich, syrupy berries) or store cupboard staples (like a drizzle of honey or a spoonful of Biscoff) to take your go-to warm brekkie up a notch.

This post contains affiliate links. Find out what this means.

Breakfast Traybake

Our Breakfast Traybake is the definition of no fuss. By baking sausages, bacon, eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes and toast in one ovenproof dish, we’ve cut down on the washing-up and made sure all your fry-up favourites are ready at once.

The best part about this recipe is that it’s simple to put your own stamp on it. Try swapping out bacon or sausages for veggie alternatives (just be sure to adjust the calories, if you’re counting).

While it’s delicious portioned out as it is, we love to plate it up with a tomatoey side of baked beans.

Biscoff and Banana Porridge

If you love sweet breakfasts, you need a comforting bowl of Biscoff and Banana Porridge in your midweek rotation. We’ve swirled our creamy oats with a cosy blend of cinnamon and vanilla essence that’s irresistible all year round.

The warm, deeply-spiced caramel flavours in Biscoff are a real treat on a chilly winter’s morning. Thanks to our short list of ingredients, you can prepare a velvety bowlful for just 260 calories.

This one’s also really simple to whip up by the batch. Make some room in your fridge or freezer and you’ll have an easy-peasy, homemade porridge you can reheat in a hurry.

Just be sure to add your toppings fresh each time you serve!

For more slimming-friendly porridge inspiration, take a scroll through our blog.

Breakfast Muffins

A busy morning where you’re on the go doesn’t have to mean missing out on a healthy, warm breakfast. Our Breakfast Muffins are high in protein from eggs, and loaded with flavour with an assortment of tasty ingredients.

We’ve gone for red onion, spinach, diced bacon, cottage cheese and mushrooms, although alternative breakfast bits like red peppers or sausages will work a treat too.

To keep your muffins fresh and fluffy even a day or so later, airtight tupperware containers are a life-saver. These ones are dishwasher safe and freezer-friendly.

Harissa Eggs

Nothing adds fire to a dish quite like our recent favourite slimming-friendly, smoky ingredient: harissa paste! This Harissa Eggs recipe is devilishly simple to serve and ready in 15 minutes.

Don’t worry if you’ve never used harissa paste before, we’ve put everything you need to know in our cooking FAQs blog.

Red or green harissa paste works a treat for this dish, but there’s nothing to stop you using pesto instead for a non-spicy version.

For maximum flavour, crack your egg straight into the pan over a spoonful of bubbling harissa, and then lay it over a tasty bed of toast topped with mashed avocado.

Breakfast Tacos

You’ve never seen a healthy, warm breakfast quite like our Breakfast Tacos! Fun, speedy and scrumptious, we’ll take these flavour-filled tortillas over a bowl of cereal any time.

For a Mexican-inspired twist, we’ve loaded up our soft, low-calorie wraps with a herby pork filling, a zingy homemade salsa and a melty topping of reduced-fat Cheddar cheese.

If you’re feeling brave, jalapeños or chopped fresh chillies will turn up the heat nicely. Whatever you do, don’t forget to add a squeeze of lime!

For the full recipe, turn to pages 22-23 of our newest cookbook, Pinch of Nom: Express (they’re part of our ‘Quick Cook’ chapter).

Bacon and Maple Blueberry Pancakes

Getting back on track for January is far easier with Bacon and Maple Blueberry Pancakes on the menu. Our take on a sweet and savoury breakfast classic, we’ve brought the calories down without compromising on comfort by replacing flour with a surprise ingredient: Ready Brek.

Its fine, fluffy texture is ideal for rustling up pancakes, and it’s high in filling fibre that’ll see you through until lunchtime. You can use other porridge oats for this recipe, after blitzing them in a food processor.

Your stack will be flippin’ irresistible once it’s topped with savoury bacon, juicy blueberries and a lip-smacking drizzle of maple syrup.

Breakfast Burgers

These Breakfast Burgers might not look or sound like a typical healthy, warm breakfast, and yet they come in at less than 500 calories each.

Ideal for a cold January weekend, we’ve piled our homemade pork patties high with bacon, eggs, mushroom, and tomato. It’s basically all the best bits of a Full English Breakfast, in one butty-sized bite!

Hearty enough to tuck into for lunch or ‘brunch’, you’ll only need to set aside 20 minutes to get everything ready from scratch.

This one’s yummy without sauce, especially if you’re a fan of a runny egg, but you can always add a squeeze of shop-bought ketchup for an added 13 calories (or 8 calories per tablespoon with our homemade version).

Nutella Baked Oats

Just imagine digging your spoon into the warm, chocolate centre at the heart of our Nutella Baked Oats. One of the more indulgent healthy breakfast options on our list, we can promise it’s well worth planning into your calories for the day – especially if you’re a chocolate lover!

To make this dessert-like breakfast, you only need oats, fat-free yoghurt, vanilla extract, sweetener, eggs and (of course) Nutella spread.

While it’s rich and comforting to begin with, a dash of cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg will stave off the January chill. 

To make this one lighter, and stretch one batch into more servings, why not halve your portion sizes and serve it up with yoghurt and fruit?

Breakfast Bakes

Gloriously cheesy and warming, just one look at our Breakfast Bakes is all the motivation we need to get back on track for January.

Our recipe makes the most of eggs, baked beans, lean bacon medallions, mushrooms and reduced-fat Cheddar, but you can always mix things up a bit. Vegetarian sausages make a great swap for bacon, if you’re trying to eat less meat for Veganuary.

Serve it up in these adorable, colourful, individual-sized baking dishes, and everyone at the table can have their very own, personalised bake.

Marmite Mushrooms on Toast

Start the day with a savoury bang with our Marmite Mushrooms on Toast recipe. It might look and taste luxuriously velvety, yet we’ve made our infamous sauce with slimming-friendly, reduced-fat cream cheese.

Even if you don’t love Marmite, we’re confident the glorious, savoury richness in this recipe will change your mind (and maybe even make you want to try more).

Add in any mushrooms you like and serve on a slice of golden toast – with a sprinkling of chives on top, of course! 

This recipe is so easy to adapt for a variety of diets; use gluten-free bread or dairy-free cream cheese.

Which January breakfast recipe will you warm up with first?

Please don’t forget to share your photos of any healthy, warm breakfasts you cook up! You can tag us in your story on Instagram (@pinchofnom) or upload your creations in our friendly Facebook group (there’s almost 1 million community members waiting to encourage you, or answer any questions you might have).

Visiting our Gallery is a great way to find out what everyone else is cooking at the minute. You’ll want to sign up to a free website account to upload and share your photos (it’s really easy – we’ve got a step-by-step guide you can follow here).

If you liked this article, there’s more where that came from. Explore our blog to browse for recipe ideas, kitchen equipment recommendations, money-saving tips and more.