I’m not good at breakfast, as mentioned before. Luckily for me, most chilly days, my wonderful boyfriend gets up and makes us epic oatmeal. (Seriously, oatmeal is the one thing R makes better than I do) He adds almonds and walnuts, bananas and apples, flax and cinnamon. His oatmeal is worthy of the label epic. But there are some days I want something more savory for breakfast. This usually ends up with me picking up a bagel if I have time, or simply grabbing a sandwich from Pret on my way to the office, because sometimes it’s just easier to eat lunch for breakfast.

But not too long ago, my friend Paula suggested I make some sort of portable and easy breakfast. She suffers from the same breakfast issues I do – too busy, hit the snooze too many times, or just otherwise unprepared to actually have a healthy breakfast that didn’t come from a pseudo fast-food joint. I took her advice, and decided to make something easy, portable and savory. And thanks to Paula, these mini veggie quiches were born.

What you’ll need:

• 1 large carrot, julienned
• 1 head broccoli, finely chopped
• 1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
• 7 mini portobello mushrooms, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 small jalapeno, minced
• 1 TBS olive oil
• 1/4 cup plain almond milk
• 1 package silken tofu (12 oz)
• 2 TBS nutritional yeast
• 2 TBS lemon juice
• 1 TBS tapioca flour
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• salt and pepper to taste
• 3 grape tomatoes, for garnish (optional)
• cilantro, for garnish (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Start by chopping all your vegetables. I opted to throw everything (except the carrot) into the kitchen ninja – quick and easy. For the carrot, I used a vegetable peeler to create thin strings. It would have been easier and probably the same result had I just put it in the ninja. But I started with the carrot… so there you go. When everything is chopped, set aside.

In a large frying pan or wok over medium heat, add oil, jalapeno, onion and garlic. Cook until the onions are translucent. Add all the veggies to the pan and cook for a few minutes, until the vegetables slightly cooked.

Add the tofu, milk, spices, lemon juice, flour, and nutritional yeast to a blender or ninja and blend until smooth.

In a large bowl, (or wok if you’re using), add all the ingredients together and stir until the all the vegetables are coated with the tofu mixture. Grease cupcake tins (I used a spray coconut oil from Trader Joe’s) and fill the cups until all the batter is evenly distributed. Top with a leaf of cilantro and sliced tomato.

Bake for 30 minutes, or until browned. These were a bit of a southwestern take on a traditional quiche, and you could definitely omit jalapeno and cayenne if you’re not a fan of heat. I packed these for lunch all week and they were filling, healthy and oh-so-easy. How could I not love them? And they were a welcome break from the sweet, yet epic, oatmeal we’ve been having lately.