After 51 weeks of reaching for that favorite breakfast cereal, Passover week can throw one off kilter in terms of daily eating rituals. Egg and soldiers? Buttered croissant? French toast? Avert thine eyes! Usually, by day 2 or 3, despite starting off well with peanut-buttered and jammed matzah (and with deep apologies to our ancestors who ate unrisen bread and wandered the desert for 40 years) I tend to hit a rut in terms of ideas for the kids’ lunchboxes or breakfast.

Dinners seem easier. Kids can have fish fingers (coated in matzah meal) and vegetables and the whole family is happy with any combination of salads, veg and meat, or (kosher for Sephardis over Passover) rice noodles and tomato sauce. Indeed, anyone who’s been waiting for a good time to kickstart their New Year diet, this is your good time! Go wild on a low-carb regime, for you’re forbidden to eat most tasty grains anyway. Keep your eyes and mouths trained, instead, on the easy (and nutrition-rich) stuff – the fruit, veg and protein.  This freedom of not thinking about carbohydrates altogether may allow you to focus more pointedly on the suffering of our forefathers.

Those needing their starch, meanwhile, may have their fill of potatoes. Hash browns and egg for breakfast, baked potato and tuna salad for lunch, sauteed potato, fish and salad for dinner.

That’s if you’re worried about overconsumption of the blissfully fiber-free matzah over the course of the week. I quite like matzah. With butter, peanut butter, charoset, Nutella, marmalade, hummus, and, not least, lemon curd. And although I normally only ever eat wholegrain bread or crackers, I make an exception in matzah’s case as it’s hard to tell the box from its wholegrain cousin!

Planning ahead of time can make planning Passover meals a lot easier.  Here are 13 breakfast ideas.  Please adjust them according to your own needs, as some may follow Ashkenazi traditions, which exclude not just the BROWS (my pnemonic for barley, rye, oats, wheat, spelt), but any other so-called kitniyot, which may resemble the former grains, such as legumes and lentils. Sephardi traditions exclude BROWS, but allow rice, corn, peanuts, legumes and lentils. And if all this grainy talk is turning your brain to couscous, fear not. Just reach for the boxes and packages labeled ‘kosher for Passover.’

Check out my Passover label for other meal ideas over Passover 🙂

Breakfast

1. Smoothies

These make an easy and filling breakfast (add powdered soy for protein if needed) and start the day off with plenty of fiber for all that matzah munching later in the day!

2. Matzo brei

French toast, basically, made with matzah instead of bread. To make it, soak some matzah in hot water, squeeze it dry once softened. Whisk, in a separate bowl, some eggs, add a pinch of sugar and salt, 1/2 tsp of cinnamon and a dash of milk, if you like. Soak matzah and pan-cook as with French toast. Serve with jam, fresh fruit, baked apples or charoset, or sprinkled with sugar. Check out my children’s own favorite, Grandma Mike’s Bubelach, here. 🙂

3. Fresh fruit on its own, or with yoghurt

Or a mix of fresh and dried fruit and crystallized ginger and yoghurt. Add nuts if desired. Or a kosher for Passover cereal, in the style of this. 

4. Pancakes

Here’s a recipe for soy and cornmeal pancakes. Try these Bananagram pancakes, but substitute the 1/2 cup wholewheat flour for matzah cake meal. Or try these ricotta ones: Separate 4 eggs, 8 oz ricotta, 2 oz each potato starch or soy flour and ground almonds. Mix yolks with the other ingredients, add pinch salt and sugar and zest of a citrus fruit. Whisk whites separately till stiff peaks form. Gently fold into yolk batter. Ladle onto pre-heated pancake griddle. Serve as you please!

5. Apricot and Banana Soy Muffins

See this recipe. 

6. Sponge cake French toast

That’s French toast using Passover sponge cake as the vehicle for the egg/milk mixture. Very naughty but very yummy too!

7. Passover granola

With dried fruit, apples, bananas, cinnamon, OJ, honey, nuts, coconut, raisins. Add what you like and add crumbled matzah if you like

8. Waffles

Substitute two parts rice flour, 1 part potato flour, per cup of your usual flour.  Or make adjustments to this recipe.

9. Omelettes or frittatas

Add grated or diced vegetables – leek, spinach, tomatoes, zucchini – and cheese, as per your preference

10. Eggs and toasted matzah

Boiled, soft-boiled, poached, or fried. Serve with toasted matzah (watch closely so they don’t get overdone)

11. Cereal (kosher for Passover ones) with milk and fruit

Those following Sephardi guidelines can have their pick of corn and rice cereals

12. Scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, or eggs hollandaise on matzah toast

13. Smoked salmon and matzah with cream cheese