The High-Protein Breakfasts I Prep In 5 Minutes To Feel Good All Morning

If you want more energy, better gut health, and fewer cravings, a high-protein, high-fiber breakfast could change your life. But most quick options are ultra-processed, high in refined carbs, and added sugars. So I'm going to show you three high-protein chia puddings you can prep ahead in five minutes to power your busy morning. Prep ahead breakfast saved me every single day, especially since becoming a new dad. And this is one of the most popular recipes on the Doctor's Kitchen app, but my personal favourite is going to be coming up a little bit later. We're starting off by putting chia into a large bowl. Now I'm making three all in one go, because if you're making one, you might as well make more, because it'll last for a few days. And this way, my breakfast is sorted for half the week. We're going to add some liquid to this. One of the most common questions we get is, how much liquid should you be adding to the chia seeds to make it plump and juicy instead of like a concrete block? And the perfect ratio is, drum roll please, between four to one and five to one. We actually tested this in the Doctor's Kitchen studio with the same amount of chia seeds and varying amounts of liquid. Whether you're using water, plant-based milk, whole milk, it doesn't really matter. That sweet spot is between four to one and five to one. And the other thing we get asked about a lot is, how long do you need to soak your chia for? The minimum amount of time is between 20 and 30 minutes. So you can actually make this recipe first thing in the morning if you need to, and rush out the door. And by the time you get to work or wherever you're going, your breakfast is sorted. I prefer to do it the night before, so everything is nice and organised. Lots of different options for liquids. Whole milk is going to give you a little bit more protein. Plant milk, you want to make sure you're going for one that doesn't have emulsifiers and thickeners in. I'm using, what am I using today? It's whole milk. I'm using whole milk, obviously. You can use whatever milk you like. I'm just going to mix this with a fork, trying to scrape these down the side. I should probably use a spoon. Look at that, it's so much better. You might be thinking, chia seeds, aren't they a bit of a fad TikTok ingredient? Are they actually that useful in the kitchen? They are. These tiny seeds are powerful, nutrient-dense ingredients that I really think deserve a place in your breakfast. They have both insoluble and soluble fibre, which means it's great for your gut health. It's providing a rich source of different types of fibres. They're mineral rich, so they contain calcium, magnesium, manganese. When you look at the studies, looking at chia seeds, it's no wonder it potentially has metabolic benefits, cardiovascular benefits, and lowering inflammation when looking at blood markers. To add a little bit more depth and complexity to the chia mixture that we've got here, I'm going to use kefir. Now, kefir has potential probiotic benefits. It's something that is used in traditional cuisines across the Middle East and places like Turkey. I think this is a wonderful ingredient and it's also going to provide a little bit more protein and some calcium too. It's really important to hydrate your chia seeds. One of my pet peeves is on TikTok when people garnish with dry chia seeds. Don't do that. You want to make sure your chia seeds are hydrated. That way, you're actually getting a lot more bang for your buck. And there's no need to go and do these extreme chia seed diets where people down a load of water with chia seeds to fibre max. Fibre maxing is great if you're doing it in a responsible way, and this is a much more enjoyable way of improving your fibre intake every day. And because there's tang and because we haven't added any sweetness whatsoever, I'm going to go in with a little bit of maple syrup. Now, maple syrup has a health halo because it's got a little bit of micronutrients. In the same way, honey has got a little bit of antimicrobial activity, but we use it in the same way we would use a refined white sugar. Biologically, it has pretty much the same effect on your blood sugar. This will take about 20 minutes to rehydrate. We'll put this to one side. Where am I going to put it? Right there. Every chia pudding recipe needs four key elements to make it a complete balanced meal rather than just a snack. A lot of chia recipes and chia pots you find don't have any fruit or at least a meaningful amount of fruit. So we're going to go in with banana. This is going to add some natural sweeteners, some extra polyphenols, but also fibre. Now, the interesting thing about bananas is that when they're more green, you have a lot more resistant starch. These are the types of fibres that your gut microbes absolutely love, and it has this beneficial effect on them. But when you go for a more brown banana, you're getting a lot more of the free sugars, which is why it has a high glycemic effect. I'm not too concerned about whether you use brown or green bananas. If you want the extra sweetness, go for brown. Bananas also have a reputation for being high in potassium, and whilst it does contain potassium, a cooked potato has actually got more potassium. That isn't to say you shouldn't be eating bananas. Bananas are great. Where is my... Oh, I need my fork now. There it is. Save some of your banana for decoration at the end, and we're just going to mash it with the back of a fork. I'm going to do something a little bit unusual. We're adding miso. Before you turn off and you're like, why is he putting this ingredient into a sweet dish? Think of it like salted caramel. It kind of brings out the natural sweetness in banana when you add a little bit of saltiness and umami in the form of white miso. White miso is a fermented product from soybeans. It potentially has some probiotic effects. If you don't believe me, believe some of the comments that we've got on the Doctor's Kitchen app. It is a mind-blowing for a lot of people. We've got our element of sweetness and some polyphenols. We've got our chia that is rehydrated. This is our source of fiber. Most recipes are just this plus this, and they lack a core protein, which is why we're using Greek yogurt. It's a phenomenal ingredient, potentially has some probiotic benefits if you choose ones that are made with live cultures. It's also a rich source of protein, particularly casein, that slowly releases over the day and will keep you full until lunch. I always opt for full fat dairy because the milk fat globular membrane that surrounds dairy fat is actually beneficial for things like your immune health and your gut health. Plus it just tastes better as well. Now we have these elements, we can start building our jars. I'm starting off with the chia layer. This is going to be the foundation of our breakfast. A layer of that banana miso providing sweetness and extra fiber. Greek yogurt is our protein anchor and to top it off we're going to give it a polyphenol boost with one of my all-time favorite kitchen ingredients, cacao. It's full of flavonols as well as being rich in amino acids. This has been shown to boost blood flow, which can be good for heart health and brain health. For extra crunch and texture I'm going to go in with any nut, but flaked almonds work really well with this recipe. I saved a little bit of that banana for a nice topping. This is purely aesthetic, you don't need to do this, but I think it looks pretty pretty. Cacao nibs are the raw shells from the cacao beans. They're really high in polyphenols but they are bitter, so if you don't like the bitter notes then don't worry about putting this on top. I personally love them. To take the thinking out of my week, the biggest hack I have is adding it to the shopping list function on the Doctor's Kitchen app, and you can do it too. But if you want your breakfast to help you potentially live longer, when I say live longer I'm just adding matcha. I should have said this earlier, if you don't like the texture of chia for whatever reason, you can actually mill it and use the same liquid to chia ratio and it has a much smoother texture, which might be a bit more appealing to certain people. We use a milled chia in our prebiotic jam that people rave about. It's on the Doctor's Kitchen app. I highly recommend you try that as well. The star ingredient is obviously chia matcha. Now you're probably seeing matcha everywhere. It is an ingredient that I think is worth the hype. It comes from the same plant as green tea, but it's grown under specific conditions under shade to make sure that it boosts these polyphenols, one of which is EGCG, a powerful anti-inflammatory that's been linked to a number of different benefits. We're going to add that to chia. We're going to mix this so it combines with the chia, so when we add the liquid it'll combine nice and homogeneously. Using a 5 to 1 ratio, we're going to add some plain water. Sweetener of choice is maple syrup, but you could use honey with this as well. We're just going to give that a mix first, just to get the process of the seeds rehydrating started. We're doing something a little bit different in this recipe. I'm going to add half the Greek yogurt that we're going to be adding for protein, as well as all those other benefits to your gut health, to this mixture here. When you're in a rush, you can add the whole lot. It doesn't matter. The fruit I'm using for this chia recipe are strawberries. You can use any berries. I love berries. BBGs every day, baby. The more berries you have in your diet, the lower your risk of all different conditions. It is one of these foods that I think is really worth the investment, and if you're looking for a cheaper, still effective option, go for frozen. I'm going to use strawberries today because they're in season in the UK, and they have this lovely tart, but sweetness as well. I'm actually keeping the greens. No, you don't have to take these off. They're perfectly fine to eat. Do you think this is weird? Yeah. Really? Does no one else keep the greens off? Do you eat the greens? No. Oh my gosh. Maybe it's just me. Time to build our jar. I'm doing something slightly unusual by creating a couple of layers. Again, purely for aesthetics. I want you to look at this and think, I want to have this for breakfast tomorrow. To finish off, I'm going to use one of my favorite ingredients, shelled hemp seeds. A great source of not only healthy fats, but also fiber and protein. This keeps you fuller for longer, and it's a nice way to round off this chia pudding. I've saved my favorite chia pudding until last, fig and hazelnut chia pudding. It tastes like a dessert, but it's a fantastic start to your day. Start off with chia. We're going to rehydrate our chia first. This is a good opportunity at this stage to add extra polyphenols. Think cardamom, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon. Oh, my spoon. Oh, I nearly forgot my maple syrup. A little chia seeds. I'm going to have a bath. Just like we did in the previous recipe, I'm going to add half the Greek yogurt. All right, whilst that's hydrating, we're going to make a fig compote. This one requires a little bit of extra prep, which is why it's more of a weekend recipe for me. Chop these fig. Fig? Is it fig? Or figs? Figs. Chop these figs. People commenting on my English. Just a rough chop. These go into a pan. Splash of water. We're going with ground cinnamon. It's going to give that natural sweetness that's going to pair beautifully with the earthiness of the fig. We actually have a number of different studies that show cinnamon can reduce inflammation and increase your own antioxidant defenses. Whilst these are stewing down, I'm just going to roughly chop some hazelnuts. This is going to be our source of healthy fats. The extra texture is going to encourage chewing, and that chewing is going to signal to your brain that you're going to be satisfied. This is what we're working with. I'm going to use a fork to mash it down. We've got all of our elements. It's time to build. To make this look pretty, completely unnecessarily, I'm adding slices of fig in the center layer, filling that with a little bit of compote, another layer of chia, a final layer of Greek yogurt, and topping it with more compote and hazelnuts. That way, every single bite is perfect. It takes a little bit more time, but it's a great weekend treat. This is the kind of breakfast you want when you want to say sorry to your partner. If you want to try other high-protein, high-fiber breakfast options that you can prep ahead, I'll show you some of my other favorites in the next video.