Twenty-three breakfast bowls in four groups, running from the frozen-fruit end to the ones with beans in them.
Five are ours. Three of the others contain feta or honey, and we have said so on each one with what to do instead.
Smoothie bowls
All of these are frozen fruit and a blender. The trick is less liquid than you think, so it comes out thick enough to hold a topping.
1. Raspberry Banana Smoothie Bowl
Ours. Frozen raspberry and banana, and nothing else doing the sweetening.
Use the banana frozen or you get a drink rather than a bowl.
2. Acai Smoothie Bowl
Frozen acai with mango, kiwi and blueberries, topped with chia and almond slivers.
Ten minutes for two at 327 calories. Acai comes in frozen packets and that is the only form worth buying.
Get the recipe from Ooh La La It’s Vegan.
3. Watermelon Smoothie Bowl
Frozen mango, pineapple and banana with a cup of spinach that you cannot taste, served in a watermelon half.
Ten minutes, serves two. The watermelon bowl is a party trick, and it works.
Get the recipe from Yum Vegan Lunch Ideas.
4. Kiwi Smoothie Bowl
Avocado, frozen raspberries, banana and squash, with no liquid added at all. That is what makes it thick enough to eat with a spoon.
Seven minutes for two. Raw squash in a smoothie sounds wrong and disappears completely.
Get the recipe from Yum Vegan Lunch Ideas.
5. Ultimate Creamy Nice Cream
Frozen banana with carrot, dates, oats, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. It tastes like carrot cake and it is a blender and five minutes.
Serves three. The oats are what give it body rather than just cold.
Get the recipe from Refresh My Health.
6. Pink Nice Cream
Banana and avocado with frozen blackberries, chia and hemp seeds. The avocado is doing the creaminess, not the banana.
Ten minutes, serves three. Cacao butter in the original, which you can leave out and lose only the setting.
Get the recipe from Refresh My Health.
7. Carrot Banana Smoothie
Mashed purple sweet potato and banana with cinnamon and vanilla, topped with flax and chia.
Five minutes for one. Cooked sweet potato in a smoothie makes it far thicker than fruit alone.
Get the recipe from Sunglow Kitchen.
8. Purple Sweet Potato Yogurt Bowl
Coconut yogurt with cooked purple sweet potato stirred through, which is where the color comes from rather than anything added.
Five minutes if the sweet potato is already cooked. Gluten-free and nut-free.
Get the recipe from Strength and Sunshine.
Oats and hot cereals
The warm end. Two of these are savory, which is the version most people have never tried.
9. Baked Oatmeal with Blueberries
Ours. It bakes into a tray you cut into squares rather than a bowl you eat straight away.
Warm on the day, cold from the fridge for three or four after.
10. Quick Creamy Chocolate Oatmeal
Also ours, and the six minute one. Cocoa stirred through oatmeal on the stove.
For the mornings when breakfast needs to feel like a treat and there is no time to arrange one.
11. Overnight Oats with Frozen Fruit
Frozen fruit goes in with the oats and thaws overnight, releasing its juice into the whole jar as it goes.
428 calories. It says yogurt of choice, so pick a plant one.
Get the recipe from Sunglow Kitchen.
12. Creamy Millet Porridge
Millet cooked in water and plant milk with a cinnamon stick and six dates, which do all the sweetening.
Serves three at 240 calories. Millet is cheaper than oats and holds its grain instead of going to paste.
Get the recipe from The Breakfast Recipes.
13. Sweet Potato Oatmeal
Roasted sweet potato mashed into oatmeal with coconut whipped cream on top.
Serves four at 672 calories, which makes it the biggest breakfast on this page. Bake the sweet potatoes with dinner the night before.
Get the recipe from Ooh La La It’s Vegan.
14. Pizza Flavored Savory Oats
Oats cooked savory with basil, marjoram, oregano and garlic, finished like a pizza. It is a strange idea that turns out to make sense.
Twenty minutes, serves two, 235 calories. Start here if you have never had oats savory.
Get the recipe from Fit Liz Kitchen.
15. Vegan Cheesy Grits with Crispy Chickpeas
Stone-ground grits with a nut-free cheese sauce and three cups of roasted chickpeas on top.
Thirty-five minutes and it makes six servings. The chickpeas are what stop it being a bowl of oatmeal.
Get the recipe from Zardy Plants.
Savory bowls
Tofu and beans, for the mornings when sweet is the last thing you want.
16. Quick Curried Tofu Scramble
Ours. Curry powder takes tofu somewhere quite different from the usual turmeric route.
About ten minutes from fridge to plate, on toast or in a bowl.
17. Easy Tofu Scramble with Veggies
A block of tofu with pepper, mushrooms and turmeric, ten minutes, four servings at 152 calories.
The lowest-calorie savory bowl here and the one that scales to feed a table.
Get the recipe from Zardy Plants.
18. Butter Bean Scramble
Butter beans mashed and cooked like a scramble instead of tofu, with onion, broccoli and pepper through it.
Fifteen minutes, serves two, 268 calories, and written oil-free from the start.
Get the recipe from Fit Liz Kitchen.
19. High-Protein Vegan Breakfast Bowl
Tofu with quinoa, oregano and cumin, twenty minutes, serves two at 625 calories.
Built to be assembled ahead and reheated, which most scrambles are not.
Get the recipe from Kitchen Treaty.
Grain bowls
These are lunch-sized, and all four work cold. Cook the grain the night before and they take minutes.
20. Healthy Quinoa Breakfast Bowl
Ours. Quinoa instead of oats, which gives more chew and more protein for the same effort.
Cook a pot of quinoa on Sunday and this becomes a five minute assembly job.
21. Vegan Fajita Bowls with Tempeh
Tempeh with peppers, onion and mushrooms over quinoa. Fifteen minutes, serves two at 518 calories.
Tempeh takes marinade better than tofu because it is drier to start with.
Get the recipe from Melissa Traub.
22. Southwest Quinoa Salad
Quinoa with black beans, corn, avocado, red pepper and a lot of cilantro. Thirty minutes and it makes six.
The dressing uses four teaspoons of honey. Maple syrup goes in at the same quantity and nothing else changes.
Get the recipe from Let Us Munch Lettuce.
23. Greek Quinoa Bowl
Quinoa with chickpeas, cucumber, kalamata olives, roasted red pepper and mint. Thirty minutes, serves four at 333 calories.
It finishes with half a cup of feta, which is not vegan. Leave it off and the olives and mint carry it, or crumble in some marinated tofu.
Get the recipe from A Cedar Spoon.
Building a bowl without a recipe
Every one of these is the same four parts. A base, something with protein in it, something raw and crunchy, and a sauce.
Cook the base on Sunday and the other three take five minutes on the day.
And, always, seek health consciously.
