They always said breakfast was the most important meal of the day if you want to be healthy. Then they always sat me down to a plate of food that totally wasn’t—cheese-stuffed omelets, grease-stuffed meats, butter-soaked toast, and a pile of fried potatoes the size of a Mini Cooper. You could rock that plate for sure. But I don’t think you’d win any wellness awards.
A lifetime of smoothies, steel-cut oats, yogurt bowls, and fruit plates later, I’m still looking for the better breakfast, and I think I finally found it.
Two words: Breakfast salad.
It’s a counterintuitive contradiction in mutually exclusive terms, and sounds completely loco, I know. But it looks insanely crave-able, and I think this could really be it—the one that looks good, feeds you right, and satisfies the soul doing it. The real breakfast of champions. Check it out:
- 1/4 cup orange juice
- A glug of maple syrup
- 2 tsp. balsamic vinegar
- Salt
- A bunch of kale, chopped with ribs removed
- Olive oil
- 4 bacon slices
- 1 tart apple, cored and sliced
- 1/4 cup grated cheddar cheese
- 4 eggs
- Black pepper
Mix the juice, maple, balsamic and 1/2 tsp. salt. Massage the kale and toss it with the dressing.
Cook the bacon, drain and chop.
Drizzle olive oil over the kale. Add the apple and cheese. Toss and split among 4 plates. Top with chopped bacon.
Fry eggs sunny-side up, put 1 egg on each salad. Sprinkle with ground black pepper and salt.
Voila! The breakfast that may just get me out of bed and psyched about it in the morning. Because kale. And apples. Add some berries and swap in some veggie bacon (turkey bacon if your inner carnivore is howling) and low-fat cheese, and it’s healthier still.
Either way, I’m primed to cook this one. I’m not saying it’s going be my go-to on mornings when I’m rushing around like a maniac. But if I’ve got time for a sit-down, I’m sitting down to this one if only because science has finally figured out how to serve kale for breakfast, and that’s progress we shouldn’t ignore.
