Want to supercharge your porridge? Here’s how to build the healthiest bowl

Start your day right with our healthy breakfast recipes, smoothie recipes and high-protein breakfasts. Check out our baking recipes using oats, plus read 10 health experts’ morning tips to get your day off to a perfect start and see our high-fibre breakfast recipes.

If you're looking for a healthy breakfast that's filling, versatile and cheap to make, porridge is the answer.

At its most simple, it's made with oats, water, a little milk and a drizzle of honey. You can cook it slowly on the hob, bake until golden in the oven or leave to soak in the fridge overnight.

You can scale the toppings up and down, depending on how indulgent or wholesome you'd like your bowl to be. A quick scroll of porridge recipes on Instagram shows people adding everything from cream, brown sugar and poached fruit, to peanut butter and fresh berries with seeds and yogurt.

Read on below to find out how to supercharge your porridge and build a healthy, filling and delicious breakfast bowl.

Is porridge healthy?

Oats are a nutritional powerhouse – they provide slow-release energy and help reduce bad cholesterol, and are a great source of vitamins, minerals and gut-friendly fibre. In fact, oats contain a type of fibre called called beta-glucan, which helps balance blood sugar levels and keeps us feeling full.

How to make the healthiest porridge bowl

What you add in terms of toppings or flavourings may significantly impact the nutritional contribution of your porridge.

A few healthy ideas include:

• Use a mixture of half milk and half water to keep it lighter and lower in calories
• Swap sugar for honey for natural sweetness
• Instead of ultra-processed peanut butter, use a minimally processed one
• Top your bowl with protein-rich yogurt or gut-friendly kefir
• To benefit from protective antioxidants, add berries or good-quality dark chocolate
• Ramp up the fibre by adding figs or prunes
• Sprinkle a mix of seeds on top to get closer to your 30 plants a week target
• To power up for a workout, add energising banana and peanut butter for protein
• For a breakfast wild card, opt for savoury porridge to avoid the sugar spikes and crashes
• Add sweet-tasting veg like carrots to get a wider range of nutrients

Try these healthy porridge recipes

Get a dose of good fats, try tahini, date and toasted almonds

Chopped medjool dates add a touch of sweetness, while tahini makes this porridge bowl super-rich and creamy. A scattering of toasted almonds ups the protein, too.

Boost your intake of plant foods with berry and nut butter porridge

Up your intake of plant foods (you should be aiming for 30 a week to support your gut health) by adding frozen berries to a bowl of cinnamon-spiced porridge for breakfast. Almond butter and chopped almonds provide protein and count as another plant food.

Fuel up for a workout with protein porridge

Boost your protein levels and feel energised all morning with this porridge made with a scoop of protein powder. Load with your favourite toppings – we used granola, banana, chocolate chips and seeds.

Mix up your grains with quinoa porridge

Start your morning with this warming chocolate, coconut and raspberry quinoa porridge packed full of goodness. Quinoa is a great source of protein, and by swapping out your regular oats, you'll hit another of your weekly plant points.

Pack in the fibre with overnight oats

This simple overnight oats base is made with oats, milk and chia seeds – these are impressively high in fibre and contain a good amount of omega-3 fatty acids, as well as bone-healthy calcium. Customise with your choice of fruit, nuts, seeds and other tasty toppings.

Start the day strong with an energising breakfast bowl

Get closer to your daily quota of colourful fruit and veg with this bowl of overnight oats, which also helps support your immunity.

Ditch the dairy with vegan overnight oats

All it takes is four ingredients to make these vegan overnight oats. Finish with grated apple for a fibre hit, coconut yogurt and maple syrup for natural sweetness.