Breakfast Ideas in Nigeria

You may be the fan of Italian or French cuisine. You may love sushi or dumplings. But when it comes to the morning food, Nigerian breakfast rocks! It often seems that breakfast ideas in Nigeria are underrated: you can rarely find Nigerian food listed among tasty world breakfast.

Nevertheless, food for breakfast in Nigeria attracts by its diversity and excellent taste. Traditional dishes are perfect to begin your day with. They’ve been tested by millions of our countrymates during ages and passed the test successfully. Here are some of our favourite Nigerian food recipes we can’t help sharing.

Read about: how to make nigerian toast bread

List of Nigerian breakfast

Probably every person in the world prefers a breakfast, which is easy and fast to prepare. Sophisticated and complicated foods are not something you want to start with, at least because you are often busy and limited in time.

One of the options is to eat dinner leftovers. The other option is a cup of tea, coffee, chocolate, or juice with cookies or old bread. Some consider a breakfast just a waste of time and skip it. Meanwhile, there are at least five excellent traditional quick breakfast ideas:

• • Fried yam

• • Sandwich

• • Akara

• • Akamu

• Plantain Moi Moi

Below, you’ll find simple recipes of these dishes and some less traditional breakfast menu ideas.

Nigerian breakfast menu

The researchers proved that eating the same meals every day affects your memory in a negative way. This is only one of the reasons why diversifying your breakfast menu is a great idea. Breakfast variants are enormous. Here are some ideas for you.

• • oatmeal + raspberries + toast with cheese + black coffee

• • tomato chicken roll + fruit yogurt

• • cotton cheese casserole + apple + green tea

• • omelette with feta cheese + black coffee with cinnamon

• • buckwheat with vegetables + meatball + black tea with lemon

• • fried yam + boiled or fried eggs / omelette / tomato fish stew / oatmeal

• • club sandwich + cold refreshing or chocolate drink + fruits

• • Akara + custard / Ogi / Akamu / Agidi / bread

• • Akamu + fried plantain / Nigerian pancake / Akara / fried yam

• plantain moi moi + custard / oatmeal / Akamu / cold drink

Nigerian breakfast recipes

All the meals above are quite easy to prepare. In case you doubt this, below you can find five easy Nigerian breakfast recipes to start your cooking experiments tomorrow.

Fried yam

Ingredients

• • white yam

• • vegetable oil

• salt

Directions

1. 1. You can take as much yam as you can eat. Peel it and cut into discs.

1. 1. Make several cuts across each disc.

1. 1. Place the chils in a bowl.

1. 1. Add salt to taste and toss well.

1. 1. Take a deep frying pan or a pot, pour oil in, and heat to 170°C.

1. 1. Place some chips inside, leaving enough room for flipping them. Fry till they turn golden.

1. 1. Remove and place on a paper towel.

1. Repeat with the rest of chips.

Club sandwich

Ingredients

• • bread – 4 slices

• • egg – 1, hardboiled

• • tomato – 1, preferably plum

• • carrot – 1, medium size

• • cabbage – ¼ of small vegetable

• • sardine – 2 pieces

• butter – 2 tbsp

Directions

1. 1. Prepare the vegetables.
      1. 1. Wash them well.
      1. 1. Scrape and grate the carrot.
      1. 1. Remove seeds from the tomato and cut into tiny pieces.
      1. Grate the cabbage.

1. 1. Cut the egg into tiny pieces.

1. 1. Mix everything with a little bit of mayonnaise.

1. 1. In a separate plate, mash sardine with butter.

1. 1. Cutt of the crusty edges from bread slices. You may buy some bread or find out how to make Nigerian toast bread and make your own.

1. 1. Take one slice, spread the sardine mixture over it, and cover with the other slice. Repeat for the remaining two slices.

1. 1. Take the vegetable mixture and spread it over one of the pieces of bread you’ve got. Cover it with the other one.

1. Cut into pieces.

Akara

Ingredients

1. 1. beans – 1 cup, black-eyed or brown

1. 1. habanero chilli peppers – 2

1. 1. onion – 1, medium-sized

1. 1. salt

1. vegetable oil

Directions

1. 1. Remove the beans coats. Soak the beans in water for 2 hours. Then grind them with the help of blender, leaving as little water as possible. You can grind them at the market when buying.

1. 1. Cut pepper and onions into small pieces.

1. 1. Pour some oil into a frying pan (at least 3 inches deep) at heat it.

1. 1. Add some onions and pepper, salt to taste, and stir well.

1. 1. Put some bean puree in, as much as you can fry in one go. Use a tablespoon for this.

1. 1. Fry until brown, then flip into the other side.

1. Remove and place on a paper towel. Repeat till you’re done with the beans.

Akamu

Ingredients

• • wet corn starch / smooth corn flour

• • water

• • evaporated milk

• sugar

Directions

1. 1. Put the starch in a bowl and crush the lumps. Keep in mind that it is going to rise, so use a bigger bowl.

1. 1. Add a little bit of water and mix well to medium consistency with no lumps.

1. 1. Boil water in a kettle. Pour hot waste into the bowl slowly, meanwhkle mixing the starch slowly in circular motion. Continue till the mixture is set. Add some more water in case it is too thick.

1. Add evaporated milk and sugar to taste and stir well.

Plantain Moi Moi

Ingredients

• • plantain – 2 pieces, overripe

• • plantain flour – 100 g

• • palm oil – 2 spoons

• • onion – 1 piece

• • pepper

• • salt

• • Knorr – 1 cube

• uma leaves

Directions

1. 1. Prepare uma leaves.

1. 1. Mix the flour with some water to get the mixture of medium consistency.

1. 1. Wash and peel plantain, cut into small pieces.

1. 1. Cut onion into small pieces.

1. 1. Blend the pieces of plantain with the flour, onions, and Knorr.

1. 1. Pour into a bowl. Add salt and Palm oil, mix well.

1. 1. Boil some water and place the base for wraps in a bowl. Use foil or stainless steel stand for this.

1. 1. Take uma leaves and scoop the mixture in.

1. Cook the wraps for 20-25 min. Cool before serving.

Nigerian breakfast for weight loss

Some people decide to skip breakfast, believing that this will help them to become slimmer. However, it is a huge mistake! On the contrary, you should have breakfast to boost metabolism and switch on digestive processes inside your organism. You can use these breakfast ideas for your weight loss plan.

Oatmeal with fruit and nuts

Ingredients

• • water – ½ cups

• • soy milk – ½ cups

• • oatmeal flakes – ½ cups

• • fruit – a handful, any

• • nuts – 1 tbsp

• maple syrop – 1 tsp

Directions

1. 1. Mix oatmeal flakes with water and soy milk.

1. 1. Cook on a low heat till ready.

1. Add fruits, nuts, and syrup.

Egg taco

Ingredients

• • egg – 1 piece

• • egg white – 1 piece

• • black beans – 2 tbsp

• • tomato – ¼, sliced

• • onion – 2 tbsp, cut into pieces

• • spinach

• • avocado slices

• • salsa – 1 tbsp

• • salt, pepper

• taco base – 1

Directions

1. 1. Fry the egg and egg white with the black beans, tomatoes, and onion.

1. 1. Place the spinach on the taco base, then place the fried mixture, avocado slices (or cubes).

1. Add salsa, salt and pepper to taste.

Hardboiled egg and smoothie

Ingredients

• • egg – 1 piece

• • carrot – 2 pieces, cut into slices

• • banana – ½ pieces

• • spinach – 2 cups

• • soy/almond milk – 1 cup

• • protein mixture – 3 tbsp

• • raisins – ⅛ cups

• • cinnamon

• nutmeg

Directions

1. 1. Mix all the ingredients in blender.

1. Cook the egg.

Nigerian food time table for a family

Family food timetable is highly individual thing, which completely depends on your daily routine. When making up the daily timetable, you should take into account your planned activities, working schedule, your kids’ activities etc. All foods are usually divided into 5 meals: breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, and evening snack.

The perfect time for breakfast is 30-60 minutes after you wake up. Here are some useful tips for planning the food timetable for the family.

• • The diapasone of calories is between 300 and 400.

• • Carbs should make up 40-45% of the breakfast.

• • Exclude products that contain too much sugar.

• • Use wholegrains.

• • Proteins should make up 15-20% of the morning meal.

• • Include eggs, dairy products, soy milk, nuts, and seeds.

• • Fats should make up 30-35%. You can get them from olive oil, nuts and seeds, and avocados, bacon and cheese (but do not eat too much of the latter two).

• • Do not forget to include fiber: berries, peaches, apples, green vegetables.

• Portions should not be too small.