Blender Breakfasts: Not Just Smoothies!
Unlock your blender’s full potential for special but easy breakfasts from pancakes to omelets and DIY nut butter
Think of a blender and you think of what…drinks, right? Cooling smoothies and creamy shakes.
But when you think of your blender as a cooking tool, it opens up a whole world of options — including ones for breakfast. Most anything a whisk and a bowl will do slowly, a blender will do fast. Poufy Dutch babies, silky hollandaise, and fluffy egg cups are at your fingertips.
With these recipes a high-speed blender such as a Vitamix is useful, but you can make a lot of them with a regular blender. Let's get started!
Jump ahead to:
Blender breakfast tips and tricks >>
Pancakes, waffles, muffins, and breakfast griddles >>
Breakfast spreads and condiments >>
Drinks and breakfast smoothies >>
Note: The Yummly Meal Planner is available to paid subscribers.
Blender breakfast tips and tricks
Bust out your blender to make your morning routine easier and a little more special.
Make no-mess eggy scrambles. Need to beat eggs? Look to your blender. It’ll whip them up to make fluffy omelets and airy scrambled eggs. Add a touch of milk or water, or blend the eggs alone.
Grind fresh oat flour. Though you can buy oat flour, you can make your own in a blender, pronto, then use it in your favorite muffin, pancake, and waffle recipes. Just add a cup or two of dry rolled oats to your blender and blend until a fine powder forms. Some of the recipes below also call for blending rolled oats directly in a batter to save a step.
Mix frozen juice concentrate in a jiffy. For mess-free juice from concentrate, mix it in the blender. Be sure not to fill the blender more than halfway, though, or else you may end up with a juice explosion! Blend the concentrate with part of the water, and then mix in the remaining water once that initial concentrate is nicely diluted.
Make your own nut butters. Make any nut butter you like in your blender! (You’ll need a high-speed blender for hard nuts like almonds.) For the most flavorful nut butters that also blend with less resistance, first roast the nuts in the oven (if they’re already roasted, just warm them). The oils in the nuts liquify better when they start out warm. Some nut butters need a little extra oil added, and you’ll likely need to stop from time to time and scrape down the sides of the container.
Clean up pronto. To clean your blender, fill it a third of the way with water, add a drop of soap, and process. Then spot clean any stubborn spots. You’ll have fewer crusty spots if you don’t let blended mixtures sit in the blender for very long.
Pancakes, waffles, muffins, and breakfast griddles
Make batters in your blender for lightning-quick breakfasts that nourish the body and soul.
Blender Crepes
Crepes are fabulous make-ahead meals. Whir up the batter in a blender. Then, for the most tender crepes, let the batter rest in the refrigerator an hour before griddling the crepes. Cooked crepes keep in the refrigerator a few days, or in the freezer up to 3 months.
4 Ingredient Paleo Pancakes
Almond flour, eggs, a banana, and baking powder (vanilla is optional) are the magic ingredients in these gluten-free, super-healthy pancakes. They griddle up nice and fluffy and are ready and waiting for a good dousing of maple syrup (or, for you non-paleo folks, butter).
Blender Whole Wheat Waffles
Waffles are not renowned for their nutrition. But these waffles use whole-wheat flour and unsweetened applesauce, so you can breathe a little easier. Leftover waffles freeze great, and are easy to reheat in a toaster. Try them with peanut butter for a protein-rich snack.
White Chocolate Raspberry Blender Muffins
Your blender turns regular rolled oats into oat flour! Simply add all the batter ingredients and blend for one minute. These gluten-free goodies are packed with wholesome ingredients like bananas and Greek yogurt, and they’re only sweetened with a touch of maple syrup, so you can feel good about starting your day with a few.
Cinnamon Apple Dutch Baby
Everyone loves it when a Dutch baby kicks off the weekend. Blend the batter and pour it into a skillet. Then arrange the apple slices on top and bake. That’s it!
Savory Dutch Baby
This savory version of a Dutch baby adds fried eggs and veggies on top to make a well-rounded meal…or even a splendid light dinner. The recipe uses almond milk to make it dairy-free, but you can make it with dairy milk and butter, if you like, and even sprinkle some grated cheese over the toppings.
Eggy scrambles and bakes
Eggs are hearty and healthy — and with your blender, they’re ready in a snap!
Pop’s Double-Stuffed, Double-Fluffed American Omelet
There are two basic parts of omelet anatomy: the omelet itself, and its filling. A blender gets the egg mixture nice and frothy so the omelet is puffy and light. The filling here is hearty and diner-style, but if you prefer something lighter, do a quick saute of sliced mushrooms and spinach, or just go au naturel and serve it perfectly plain.
Vegetable Omelet Cups
Egg bites are terrific grab-and-go breakfasts, or even lunches or snacks. You can use this as a master recipe and tweak it to work with the fresh vegetables you have on hand. And you can add cheese if you like, too. Refrigerate up to four days.
Foolproof Blender Hollandaise Sauce
For special occasions or just a fabulous weekend brunch, blender hollandaise makes eggs Benedict totally doable at home. It’s also about five times faster than making it on the stove, and there’s less risk of the hollandaise breaking. Make the sauce up to an hour in advance and keep it warm in a thermos or a bowl set over a pan of warm water.
Breakfast spreads and condiments
Your blender can crank out wholesome, homemade extras like butter, jam, and nut butter.
Almond Butter
Yum! Almond butter on toast is about the simplest and most delightful breakfast out there. Sure, you can buy almond butter, but for a quick DIY project — and the option to add cinnamon, vanilla extract, and maple syrup — grind your own. You’ll need a high-powered blender for this one. Start by toasting raw almonds. Then grind them warm from the oven for the creamiest almond butter (this saves a lot of processing time, too).
Raw Raspberry Jam
Make quick no-cook jam and thicken it with chia seeds. It’s sweetened with dates only, so you’ll feel virtuous smearing it all over crispy toast or plopping it onto plain yogurt.
Apricot Honey Butter
It can be hard to find fresh apricots except in the height of summer, which is why this recipe, which starts by simmering dried apricots in water, is suited for all seasons. Add crystallized ginger, honey, and lemon juice and zest for a full-flavored topping for scones, toast, or yogurt.
Homemade Vegan Butter
Plant-based butter can be expensive, and it’s often made with palm oil, which isn’t always grown sustainably. Making your own vegan butter in a blender with coconut oil gives you an affordable option with tons of flavor, thanks to a little apple cider vinegar and nutritional yeast. You can make a batch and freeze some for later. It’s terrific not just for topping toast, but for baking, too! Be sure to use refined coconut oil, since the taste of unrefined is too overpowering for vegan butter.
Drinks and breakfast smoothies
Okay, okay…we couldn’t help but add a few healthy breakfast smoothies in here. Blenders have been go-tos for years for fitting fresh fruit and veggies into morning routines.
Strawberry Oatmeal Breakfast Shake
If you loved mixing up powdered breakfast shakes as a kid, you probably look back as an adult and cringe at all the sugar they have. This shake is made with real fruit and boosted with ground flax seeds. (Feel free to customize it with a scoop of protein powder, if that's your thing.) The recipe is not quite as instant as the other stuff, but it’s even more satisfying.
Blood Orange Green Smoothie
This morning smoothie is a tropical explosion, with lime, coconut milk, pineapple, and frozen banana. Blood oranges sure sound great, but you can use regular oranges, too. A few handfuls of the greens of your choice add the namesake color and health-boosting nutrients.
Mango Lassi
Start with fresh or frozen mango to make this favorite creamy Indian treat. Since it’s breakfast and not dessert, you can reduce the honey or sugar, if you like. Regular dairy yogurt and milk add some calcium, but you could use coconut milk and plant-based yogurt to make the smoothie recipe dairy-free.
Homemade Bloody Mary Mix with Fresh Vegetables
When your crisper is exploding with fresh veggies, put a dent in the abundance and blend a batch of Bloody Mary mix. Tomatoes, celery, carrots, and cucumber go into this easily customizable combo (leave out the horseradish or Worcestershire, if you aren’t a fan). Freeze extras for later. Don’t drink alcohol? Just sip this like homemade V-8 juice for weekday-friendly mornings full of fresh vegetables.
More tips and tricks for your blender
Want more blender tricks? We have additional articles and recipes to take you beyond a yummy breakfast!