Four healthy holiday recipes that just might beat chocolate for breakfast

Christmas morning. If yours is anything like ours, it begins with a stocking containing approximately two mandarin oranges and eight kilograms of chocolate.

By noon you’re buried beneath a king-size blanket-worth of Cadbury wrappers, stretched out on the living-room floor in front of a 40-year-old Monopoly board, and more likely to pass out than ‘pass go’.

It seems that the focus over the festive season has always been lunch and dinner. We either forget about breakfast completely, decide that people can fend for themselves holiday mornings, or stuff ourselves too full of sugar, fat, and Adele to even contemplate breakfast as a possibility.

But even though it’s the holidays, breakfast can still be just as important and delicious as lunch and dinner.

This is the time of the year when the days are extremely eventful – present-unwrapping, socialising,  games, physical activities all often intermingled with a drop or two or three of alcohol. The holiday season requires energy, stamina and mental focus. (especially if you’re looking to become this holiday’s top Monopoly property tycoon, Pictionary genius, Lego architect, Singstar idol or Cards Against Humanity savant)

Breakfast will not only prepare you for the festive chaos and anarchy of a day that is about to unfold before you, but it’s also a great way to gather everyone together to discuss the day’s events and the perfect opportunity to show off your plant-based recipes and cooking skills.

Below are four simple, healthy-holiday breakfast recipes from some of our favourite food sites. We hope they help you start the season off right, get your holiday homies through to the evening, and maybe even make all that chocolate last for a few days instead of just a few hours.

Happy Herbivore’s Gingerbread French Toast

Lindsay Nixon’s Gingerbread French Toast is an oil-free Christmas treat. She’s written five cookbooks and a Guide to Plant-Based Living, and all her recipes are fat-free or low fat with a strong focus on whole, unprocessed plant-based ingredients.

Plant-Based Katie Mae’s Fluffy Gluten-Free Pancakes

From cooking demos to nutrition presentations to individual coaching, Katie’s goal is to support and inspire you along your plant-based journey. These delicious rolled oat and quinoa pancakes are just like all her recipes; 100% plant-based, gluten-free, and more importantly, free of sugar, oil and salt.

Saving 2050’s Banana Bread

This banana bread recipe is based on a old family recipe adapted to be plant based, and to be gluten and refined-sugar-free. For an even healthier loaf, try replacing the coconut oil in the recipe with 1/2 cup of applesauce. Wellingtonians Abby Damen and Bella Ansell of Saving 2050 have created a fantastic resource dedicated to improving our daily environmental choices with an emphasis on sharing tried and true food ideas and learning how small everyday changes can have a big impact. Saving 2050 believes that the best time to live a more ethical and sustainable life for the planet is right now.

Thug Kitchen’s Strawberry Oat Smoothie

In New Zealand, Christmas and strawberries go hand-in-hand. Now they go with oats too. Check out this quick summer smoothie from the controversial and wildly popular Thug Kitchen. These plant-based bad-asses have also just released their second cookbook, which makes a great last-minute Christmas gift or a perfect match for anyone who got a book voucher in their stocking this year.