Often times people shy away from food prep because they assume that it means you’ll need to cook every component for every meal for the week and that it’ll cost you an entire day of your life time-wise. If that has been the case for you, erase it from your memory and try again with a more practical approach. We encourage clients to start by prepping just 1-2 items – at anytime of the week that makes sense – with the prep being related to your biggest pain points. For many, including protein and produce at breakfast and snacks is a constant struggle, so one prep tip to help with both is to make these easy veggie egg muffins!
Macronutrient Balance at Breakfast
If you’re the type to workout in the morning, hit snooze, get distracted with chores, or have kids who need you to get their life together in the morning, you’re more likely to eat an inadequate breakfast or worse, skip it. In these cases, you’ll benefit from focusing your food prep on breakfast items. As we often mention, there’s a standard checklist we use with our clients to guide meal balance most of the time. Try to include: protein, fiber rich carbohydrates, fat, color, and flavor. This combination sets you up for physical and mental satisfaction, longer term and more steady energy to start your day, and the nutrients you need for continuous muscle recovery.
Nutrients in Veggie Egg Muffins
These easy veggie egg muffins check off protein, fiber and antioxidants in a single item. Eggs obviously provide protein and are also a good source of choline. Choline is an essential nutrient that does not get enough attention for it’s role in supporting brain health as well as muscle function. They also offer 11+ essential vitamins and minerals as well as lutein, which plays a role in eye health. And don’t worry about the cholesterol – in 2015 the United States finally dropped the recommendation to limit dietary cholesterol to 300 mg/day since research shows it does not directly impact blood cholesterol.
Vegetables of any and all kinds provide vitamins, minerals, a variety of phytochemical antioxidants, and fiber. This recipe suggests broccoli, spinach and roasted red pepper since they are easily stored in the freezer (and peppers in a jar in your pantry) for use even when you haven’t made it to the grocery store lately. In general, it’s important to aim for a variety of colors in produce throughout the day, but just getting consistent with veggie intake may be your starting goal.
What to Eat with Veggie Egg Muffins
Maybe you’re a creature of habit and will actually enjoy the same thing each day. If that’s you, have your favorite whole grain bread and toast it while you heat up a few of the egg muffins you prepped. If not, we recommend pairing 2-4 muffin cups with different items each day, such as:
- whole grain bread or an english muffin with cheese or a non-dairy cheese spread
- bagel with cream cheese, hummus, or avocado
- small corn tortillas for breakfast tacos (break up the eggs) or a larger tortilla
- banana
- pre-cooked breakfast potatoes or sweet potato
- a single serve yogurt smoothie
You can also split up the veggies while prepping one recipe whether that be to include variety for yourself or include favorite veggies for someone else in your home. You can use anything from thawed frozen veggies to sauteed fresh veggies, to leftovers of what you roasted the night before.
If you want more breakfast prep ideas, check out these posts:
Easy veggie Egg Muffins
These protein rich, easy veggie egg muffins are the perfect grab and go breakfast or snack to fuel your busy lifestyle.
- 8 eggs
- 8 ounces frozen broccoli thawed and chopped
- 4 ounces frozen spinach thawed
- 4 ounces roasted red peppers diced
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp ground pepper
Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Add all vegetables to a mixing bowl and stir well before beating in the eggs and seasoning.
Pour into a standard size muffin tin, filling just above 3/4 to the top.
Bake for 20 minutes.
Once cooled, store in a sealed container in the refrigerator up to 5 days, or in a sealed container in the freezer.
