Inside: How to make five healthy breakfast for kids all in under 20 minutes or less.

Eating breakfast starts your day with a clear mind ready to process information and absorb new skills. Without breakfast, your mind is sluggish and not fully awake to process or store information correctly.

It is the most important meal of the day, and junk food isn’t going to cut it. You need protein, sugar, calcium, and nutritional value from your food and so does your child.

Ensure your child eats healthy but in no way, does that mean it should take hours! Here are my five favorite healthy dishes all under 20 minutes to make and serve!

Kid-Inspired Breakfast for Kids Ideas

These are all kid-tested and approved recipes! No of these meal ideas take more than 20 minutes from making to serving. My kids came up with the smiley waffle and the banana cheerios, so I hope you enjoy these healthy dishes!

1. Open-Faced Egg Sandwich

This recipe calls for toasted bread, one cooked egg (however your child will eat it, mine take it over hard), cheese, tomato or ketchup, and salsa. All that’s left is to put it together. One of my children prefers tomatoes to ketchup, so lay the bread down, place the cheese tomato and salsa, and decorate with ketchup, if desired. Make it however your kid wants and serve with a fork.

With this, try avocado and salmon. The richness of those two items might make it a deluxe breakfast for your child. For a healthier sandwich, leave out the ketchup.

2. Smiley Waffle

This requires you to toast a waffle, spread you prefer (one child likes Nutella, and the other likes honey and I prefer peanut butter), and fruits of your choice. We like to use seasonal fruits, so sometimes we’ll use plums, kiwis, mangos, apples, bananas, coconut, and whatever we can find to try! The fun part is trying new fruits to mix on your waffle face!

Sometimes, to check on my kids, I ask them to make a face that shows me how they are feeling. It helps them to know I’m listening.

When using spreads, make sure to check on serving sizes. You don’t want to use too much and lose the nutritional value of an item.

3. Overnight Oatmeal

Overnight oatmeal is one of the easiest things ever, and you can find so many recipes online. There are many types of flavors you can make. In my household, I like the brown sugar apple, while my kids like peanut butter banana.

For this, you will need equal parts rolled oats or instant oats to liquid (for instance: 1 cup of oats and 1 cup of milk, or 1 cup oats, ½ cup soy milk and ½ cup yogurt), and then the additional ingredients. You’ll need vanilla extract, milk of your choice, yogurt if you want it, and then the flavoring you want.

For brown sugar apple, you’ll need about ½ apple cubed and about 2 tbsp brown sugar. For the peanut butter banana, you’ll need 1-2 tbsp peanut butter, and a ½ banana sliced.

Try different combinations to find your favorites; there’s even some out there named brownie batter, fruit parfait, and vanilla almond!

4. Egg Cups

For the egg cups, you will need bread with the crust removed, eggs, and pre-cooked bacon. Cook the bacon. Like a muffin tin with the bread. Crack one egg over the piece of bread in the pan and stick a piece of bacon in each one. Cook for 15 minutes. Serve.

Little bread bowls filled with eggs and bacon. You can add anything to these cups to make for your children. Delicious, easy, and nutritious! These are easy to make, and you can make them in batches and reheated the next day for an easy breakfast on the go!

5. Banana Cheerios

My kids LOVE helping in the kitchen. They also love making messes, eating and leaving without cleaning up. I love them. For this, you’ll need bananas that have been peeled and cut into fourths, peanut butter, and cheerios.

Roll the bananas in the peanut butter on the long sides, leaving the ends clean. It’s easier if you scoop the peanut butter into a bowl. Roll them in the Cheerios next. Enjoy them. My kids also enjoy these when the bananas are frozen; they said they taste like ice cream.

When using Cheerios, make sure your child is old enough for this type of food. You don’t want to give a child a choking hazard.

Breakfast for Kids: The Most Important Meal of the Day

You want your child to eat healthier, but you don’t have to spend all morning in the kitchen. You need simple meals that you can sit down and enjoy with your kids! These are quick ideas that my kids help with or came up with, and we ate a lot of ideas!

Do you cook with your children? What breakfast for kids idea is your favorite?

This piece was written by Shirley. Shirley is the proud mother of two beautiful children. She has been writing informational blog posts for parents for a few years now and hopes she can help with your questions and concerns with parenting. You can visit her blog at Toptenstrollers or follow on twitter @shirley_ttsblog

PS- If you enjoyed this piece, you may also like 10 Ways to Teach Your Toddler Healthy Eating Habits.