Quick breakfasts for busy workdays, ready in five minutes

The quickest breakfasts for a busy workday are the ones that need no cooking or that you set up the night before: overnight oats, a yogurt bowl, eggs boiled on the weekend, toast with a topping that has some protein, or a piece of fruit with a handful of nuts. Each takes five minutes or less in the morning.

The hard part is rarely the cooking. It is deciding what to eat at 7:40 with a meeting at 8, so the real trick is to make that decision the evening before.

What makes a good quick breakfast?

On a workday, a breakfast only counts if you actually make it, so speed comes first. After that, the test is whether it carries you to lunch or sends you to the snack drawer at ten. It also helps to like it, because the best quick breakfast is one you can eat most days without deciding anything.

To last until lunch, most people do better when breakfast has some protein (eggs, yogurt, milk, nuts, cheese, beans) and some fiber (oats, whole-grain bread, fruit). A pastry and a coffee are quick too, but for many people they wear off well before lunch.

If you have diabetes, take medication with food, or have been given advice about what to eat in the morning, follow your doctor's advice over any list of ideas.

Quick breakfast ideas that take five minutes or less

Overnight oats

Put about half a cup of rolled oats in a jar with roughly the same amount of milk (dairy or not), a spoon or two of yogurt and a pinch of cinnamon. Stir, put the lid on and leave it in the fridge. In the morning, add fruit and eat it cold, or warm it for a minute if you prefer. Make two or three jars at once and the next few mornings are already done.

Yogurt bowl

Thick yogurt, Greek yogurt or dahi, with fruit and a spoon of nuts or seeds on top, and a little honey if you like. Frozen berries work well: put some in a bowl in the fridge the night before and they will have thawed by morning.

Eggs, three fast ways

• Boiled on the weekend. Boil a batch on Sunday, cool them and keep them in their shells in the fridge. Food safety advice generally gives them about a week. Peel one or two, add salt and pepper, done.
• Scrambled in a mug. Crack two eggs into a microwave-safe mug, add a splash of milk and whisk with a fork. Microwave in short bursts, stirring between each, until just set. It usually takes a minute or two. Never microwave an egg in its shell; it can burst.
• Egg muffins. Whisk eggs with chopped vegetables and a little cheese, pour into a muffin tin and bake on Sunday. They keep in the fridge for a few days and reheat in under a minute.

Toast with a topping that works

Whole-grain toast with something on it that has protein turns a snack into a breakfast. Peanut butter and sliced banana. Cottage cheese or paneer with tomato and black pepper. Hummus and cucumber. A boiled egg from the batch, sliced. Mashed avocado is good too; add an egg and it will last you longer.

Fruit and nuts

A banana or an apple and a handful of almonds, walnuts or peanuts. It takes thirty seconds and you can eat it standing up. Add a glass of milk or a cup of yogurt and it is a perfectly decent breakfast.

Leftovers

Breakfast does not have to be breakfast food. Last night's rice and dal, a slice of frittata, a wrap, cold pizza on a desperate day. If you are making dinner anyway, make one portion more.

A smoothie

Banana, a handful of frozen fruit, yogurt or milk, and a spoon of oats or peanut butter, blended. Put everything except the liquid in the blender jar the night before and keep it in the fridge, and in the morning it is a pour, a press and a rinse.

A frozen paratha or wrap

A frozen paratha cooks in a hot pan in a few minutes, and a tortilla wrapped around a boiled egg and some cheese is even quicker. Poha, upma and chilla are wonderful too, but they take closer to fifteen minutes, so for most people they are weekend breakfasts.

How long each one takes

These are rough times, and your kitchen will vary. The pattern is the useful part: the less you do in the morning, the more you did the night before or on the weekend.

What breakfast can you make the night before?

A few minutes in the evening buys the calmest mornings. A simple routine:

1. Pick tomorrow's breakfast while you clear up after dinner. Just pick; don't plan the week.
2. Do the one step that needs doing. Fill the oats jar, put fruit in to thaw, load the blender jar.
3. Set out what you need. Bowl, spoon, mug, a banana, all on the counter in plain sight. A breakfast that is already half there is hard to forget.
4. On Sundays, do the batch jobs. A pan of boiled eggs, a tray of egg muffins, a few jars of oats.

If you tend to forget the evening step, put it in the Reminders app on your Mac. Make a reminder called "Set up breakfast", click the info button, add a time in the evening and set it to repeat every day. It turns up with the dinner dishes, which is exactly when it is easiest to do.

Is coffee enough for breakfast?

For most people, no. Coffee takes the edge off hunger for an hour or two, which is why it so often stands in for breakfast on a busy morning, but it is not food. Many people also find that coffee on an empty stomach leaves them jittery, and the hunger it postponed comes back mid-morning, usually just as the vending machine comes into view.

You don't have to give up the coffee. Have it with breakfast rather than instead of it. If you really can't face food early, a milky coffee and a banana is a better start than coffee alone, and a proper breakfast can wait until you are hungry at ten.

Not a breakfast person?

That is fine, and some people simply aren't hungry early. Pack one of the options above and eat it at your desk mid-morning. The aim is not to eat at 7 because a rule says so. It is to avoid running the whole morning on empty without noticing.

Eat it before the inbox opens

The quickest breakfast still gets skipped if the laptop opens first. One reply leads to the next, and suddenly it is eleven and you have eaten nothing. Eating before you open email, and away from the screen, is the simplest protection. Breakfast before email has a full morning order and the Mac settings that help keep Mail closed until you are ready.

A breakfast nudge from Mirchi

Even with a jar of oats waiting in the fridge, some mornings the laptop wins. That is one of the moments Notchpals is built for: a character drops out of your Mac's notch while you are at the keyboard and asks about food. Breakfast belongs to the Meals characters, and Mirchi, a chili with a very short fuse, is one you can pick for your crew. Mirchi turns up once a morning, around the breakfast time you set in Settings, and only while you are at the Mac.

MirchiEggs, poha, toast, I don't care! Just EAT something this morning!

Press Done once you have eaten and Mirchi cools off. If you need to finish a reply first, Later sends it away, and it tries one more time while it is still breakfast time. Notchpals never sees your plate. It knows the time and that you are at the keyboard, and it takes your Done on trust.