A guide to a gluten-free breakfast
February 22, 2019 3:12 pm Leave your thoughts
Eating gluten-free? Great – what’s for breakfast?
It’s the first meal of the day and, most dieticians agree, the most important one, setting you up for a whole day of energetic activity and long-lasting nutrition. It can also be one of the hardest meals for a newly diagnosed coeliac, or someone in the early stages of managing gluten intolerance, to get right. No more toast! Porridge – out! Cereals – impossible!
But don’t despair. We’ve got a handy guide here to making your gluten-free breakfast so scrumptious that even people without gluten intolerance will be angling for an invitation to share it.
Gluten-free bread
The best gluten-free bread is freshly made. You might be lucky enough to live near a gluten-free bakery – like Beyond Bread in London (‘my only criticism is that it’s too popular’ says one online reviewer) or the Wildcraft Gluten-Free Bakery in Leeds (‘amazing’). If not, you can always make it yourself. We’ve got gluten-free bread mixes from Orgran, Amisa and Pure (the latter uses teff flour), which come with full instructions. If you’re following a recipe for gluten-free bread – and there are some truly inspirational ones out there – then you’ll probably need some of our vast range of gluten-free flours, along with ingredients like white wine vinegar and xanthan gum.
Gluten-free porridge
Gluten-free oats make wonderful porridge; Naturally Good Food has them in both porridge and jumbo varieties. Oats are naturally gluten-free anyway, but are frequently contaminated with gluten during harvesting, transporting and processing. Our guaranteed gluten-free oats, however, are produced and processed in gluten-free facilities. You can eat them with perfect confidence.
You can also make fantastic porridge from other, gluten-free grains. Our blog I want gluten-free porridge! highlights all of those we stock. Millet, rice, quinoa, buckwheat and amaranth all make delicious and truly sustaining porridge.
We’d also heartily recommend Alara’s Luxury Gluten-free Porridge mix, which includes rice, millet and buckwheat, with added linseed.
Gluten-free cereal
If you’re a cereal fan, you’re spoiled for choice in the gluten-free world. There are puffs and pops, flakes and mixed grains of all kinds and from big names.
We’ve got around 25 branded varieties of gluten-free cereal on our shelves at the moment. If we had to pick out just a few, we’d go for Big Oz chocolate buckwheat flakes with raspberries, Rude Health’s Honey Oat Puffs, Orgran’s Multigrain Os, BioFair Quinoa crunchies, Whole Earth Maple Frosted Flakes and Nature’s Path Mesa Sunrise mix. Put all of those together and you’ve got a five-star hotel-breakfast-buffet gluten-free experience!
These cereals are imaginative and innovative, mixing a range of ingredients to provide the best combinations of taste, texture and nutrition. They’re a world away from cheap, tasteless ‘normal’ cereals: worth a try by everyone, regardless of intolerances.
Gluten-free pancakes
We stock gluten-free pancake mix from Amisa and Orgran, meaning that you can easily indulge in a special weekend breakfast. There are wonderful recipes for gluten-free pancakes online too – and for those, you might again need some of our specialist gluten-free baking ingredients. We like the sound of cinnamon crepes with nut butter, sliced bananas and raspberries or melt-in-the-mouth pumpkin pancakes.
Gluten-free cooked breakfast
There’s no need to avoid cooked breakfasts if you’re eating gluten-free – pretty much all the ingredients will be free from gluten anyway. Do be careful with your choice of sausages, though – these are often made with gluten – and check the ingredients of things like potato scones and hash browns, as these may have been touched up with flour.
Gluten-free breakfast on the go
Sometimes, we don’t quite make it to the table for breakfast. If this happens regularly to you, then you might be interested in this great recipe for a takeaway gluten-free Breakfast Fruit and Seed bar – perfect for making in advance. It comes from TV chef Phil Vickery’s range of gluten-free recipes. It’s a truly delicious way to start the day, giving you plenty of goodness from the seeds and dried fruit.
Ingredients
- 100g sunflower seeds
- 100g sesame seeds
- 100g pumpkin seeds
- 100g semi-dried cranberries
- 100g semi-dried blueberries
- 100g gluten-free porridge oats
- 2 tablespoons soft brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin seeds
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander
- 1 x 397g tin condensed milk
- 150g unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4. Line a 24cm square baking tin with baking parchment.
- Place the seeds, fruit, oats, sugar and spices in a large bowl and mix well.
- Put the condensed milk and butter into a bowl and place over a pan of gently simmering water. Melt together until well blended and hot. This will take about 15 minutes.
- Stir the butter mixture into the fruit and seeds and mix really well.
- Spoon the mixture into the tin and pack down lightly with the back of the spoon.
- Bake for about 20 minutes, until slightly golden.
- Remove from the oven, cool and cut into bars.
Now – what was it you said you were having for breakfast? Toasted coconut amaranth porridge? Cheesy cornmeal muffins with thyme and spring onions? Sweet potato spice smoothie bowl? Sounds delicious – any room for us at the breakfast bar?
Categorised in: Cereals, Flour Gluten Free, Gluten free, Gluten free cereals, Gluten Free children, Grains - Gluten Free, Keep, Oats, Orgran, Packet meals, Quinoa, Rice, Rude Health, Special diets
This post was written by Yzanne