Recipes

Brown Rice For Breakfast – Our Savory Version (Gluten-Free, Healthy, Yummy, Hearty and Cheap) Like a Breakfast Healthy Fried Rice

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by Cassie on June 11, 2013

savory-brown-rice-breakfast-recipe

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A couple of weeks ago, we shared our brown rice breakfast – the sweet version! It is so good and so healthy for you! But I also mentioned that I will be sharing a savory version, which is actually liked much more than the sweet by my family!

Now I don’t feel like I can emphasize this enough.  We whole-hardheartedly think that every household should have a large stock-pile of rice! Preferably brown rice!

Seriously, take steps now to stock up on this food! Brown rice is super nutritious, gluten-free, hearty (meaning tummy filling), easy and very versatile.

In fact, I am trying to eat gluten-free to see if gluten contributes to some issues I am having.  Brown rice has been so super, duper important! For lunch today, I had a bowl of brown rice with real butter and mozzarella cheese topped with an egg fried in coconut oil (and sprinkled with turmeric, cayenne pepper, real  salt and pepper).  It was absolutely amazing, healthy, hearty (I couldn’t finish it!) and gluten-free! Rice cereals, rice for breakfast, for lunch, for snack, for dinner – it’s all there in one handy dandy place. When we buy it in bulk, we are able to buy 50 lb. bags of long grain brown rice for around $28! This lasts our family of 7, who eats it often, for a few months! A couple of bags of this every 6-9 months would be so great for every household to have! You can read more on our food storage process for the big bulk bags HERE.

But even better, it is easy to stock-up on, cheap, long shelf life and anyone can eat (I haven’t met a person that is allergic to rice!).  So it can feed a lot of people in emergencies too and keep allergies in check at the same time!

If you are not convinced how necessary we feel that it is to stock-up on rice, here’s a few reasons we shared on the Brown Rice for Breakfast Sweet Version post (some repeating what I said above, but I can’t state it enough :) )!

  1. It’s super easy to make, especially with the rice cooker that I think is just as important or more than a crockpot! I love this one that is a 20-cup Aroma Cooker (you can make a little bit or all 20-cups!) by that I have referenced many times as it steams and is a crockpot while having the option to cook rice. 
  2. It’s super cheap.  Whether you choose to get white, brown or even organic! It’s all cheap.  Especially when you compare it to cereals! You can pick up a 1-2 lb. bag of brown rice for around $2.  This small bag will last our family of seven for 2-3 meals (whether breakfast, lunch or dinner). We’re talking very cheap, even for large families like ours!
  3. It’s super healthy. Especially if you opt for brown rice. It contains fiber and the way that we prepare adds extra healthy factors to it!
  4. It’s naturally gluten-free!

So let me share with you our “savory” version of a brown rice breakfast (again, this is the preferred rice by 6 out of 7 of our family members – I am the odd one liking the sweet version best)!

Here’s the ingredients:

ingredients-for-breakfast-rice-savory

  • Chopped veggies.  The picture above shows celery and red onions, honestly because that is what I had on hand.  But shredded carrots, bell peppers, other onions are all good and probably even more options than that.  This is just what we normally use!
  • Breakfast meat of some kind.  I am picky about meat, but I do like the Jimmy Dean Naturals that I buy at Costco (and Sam’s Club) for $7 which will make 7 breakfasts with this meat (read more here about this option).
  • Cooked brown rice (see our recommendations above, not only should you stock-up on brown rice, a rice cooker is a MUST and the one we show above is what we have – affordable, and has many functions!).   TIP:  The dinners that we have brown rice, I cook twice as much so when I get up the next morning to make breakfast, the rice is already cooked!
  • Finally, for about every 1-1.5 cups of cooked rice, I use one egg.  I am typically making a very large batch of this – so figure your ingredients according to your family size.

For the spices: This is our typical list – but have liberty to use any and all that you want and mix it up however you want!

spices-for-savory-rice

  • Butter or coconut oil (or other oils that you may fry in, but coconut oil is a healthy option). We personally love coconut oil.   Any of these are good, but the coconut options add extra layers of health by easily and tastily including them!  We use Tropical Traditions and buy coconut oil when they have their 50% off (or buy one get one free) sales.  It is good quality too!
  • Basil
  • Oregano
  • Garlic
  • Pepper
  • Turmeric (I sneak this into everything – it is a super healthy spice – but it gives EVERYTHING a deep yellow color as you can see from the pictures :) )
  • and then everyone adds soy sauce after cooking to their liking – we don’t actually use soy sauce though, we use an alternative that tastes exactly like it called Bragg’s Liquid Aminos.

Then all you do is this:

sauteeing-veggies-savory-rice

 

  • Throw your butter or coconut oil in a pan and then thrown in your veggies, garlic, spices and saute’ these until they are “soft”.

meat-in-savory-rice

  • Then add your breakfast meat and saute a little more (if raw, cook thoroughly – or if you do what we do and have a cooked supply in your freezer, defrost in the microwave and add to the pan!).

cooked-breakfast-rice-savory

  • Then add your cooked rice and “fry” until it is all coated and reaches the desired consistency you want.  Our family likes it “crispy” which means more frying time.  If you want it softer, then just fry for a shorter time.

whipping-eggs

  • Whip up your eggs while your rice is frying.

well-in-savory-rice

  • After your rice reaches it’s desired consistency, then make a well into the middle of pan.

egg-well-savory-rice

  • Then what I do is pour about 1-2 eggs worth into the well at a time!

mixing-egg-in-savory-rice

  • Then cook, stir and add in this small amount of egg into the dish.
  • Repeat the egg process until all of your eggs are cooked into the dish!

savory-rice-finished

  • Then serve it up and enjoy!

So will you join us and serve your family a healthy, hearty, affordable, and complete breakfast meal in one?

Here’s a printable recipe for you!

Brown Rice For Breakfast – Our Savory Version (Gluten-Free, Healthy, Yummy, Hearty and Cheap) Like a Breakfast Healthy Fried Rice
Print

Recipe type: Breakfast
Author:
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
This is a super healthy, very practical, very affordable way to serve up an all-in-one breakfast!
Ingredients
  • Chopped veggies. The picture above shows celery and red onions, honestly because that is what I had on hand. But shredded carrots, bell peppers, other onions are all good and probably even more options than that. This is just what we normally use!
  • Breakfast meat of some kind. I am picky about meat, but I do like the Jimmy Dean Naturals that I buy at Costco (and Sam’s Club) for $7 which will make 7 breakfasts with this meat (read more here about this option).
  • Cooked brown rice (see our recommendations above, not only should you stock-up on brown rice, a rice cooker is a MUST and the one we show above is what we have – affordable, and has many functions!). TIP: The dinners that we have brown rice, I cook twice as much so when I get up the next morning to make breakfast, the rice is already cooked!
  • Finally, for about every 1-1.5 cups of cooked rice, I use one egg. I am typically making a very large batch of this – so figure your ingredients according to your family size.
  • Butter or coconut oil (or other oils that you may fry in, but coconut oil is a healthy option). We personally love coconut oil. Any of these are good, but the coconut options add extra layers of health by easily and tastily including them! We use Tropical Traditions and buy coconut oil when they have their 50% off (or buy one get one free) sales. It is good quality too!
  • Basil
  • Oregano
  • Garlic
  • Pepper
  • Turmeric (I sneak this into everything – it is a super healthy spice – but it gives EVERYTHING a deep yellow color as you can see from the pictures :) )
  • and then everyone adds soy sauce after cooking to their liking – we don’t actually use soy sauce though, we use an alternative that tastes exactly like it called Bragg’s Liquid Aminos.
Instructions
  1. Throw your butter or coconut oil in a pan and then thrown in your veggies, garlic, spices and saute’ these until they are “soft”.
  2. Then add your breakfast meat and saute a little more (if raw, cook thoroughly – or if you do what we do and have a cooked supply in your freezer, defrost in the microwave and add to the pan!).
  3. Then add your cooked rice and “fry” until it is all coated and reaches the desired consistency you want.  Our family likes it “crispy” which means more frying time.  If you want it softer, then just fry for a shorter time.
  4. Whip up your eggs while your rice is frying.
  5. After your rice reaches it’s desired consistency, then make a well into the middle of pan.
  6. Then what I do is pour about 1-2 eggs worth into the well at a time!
  7. Then cook, stir and add in this small amount of egg into the dish.
  8. Repeat the egg process until all of your eggs are cooked into the dish!
  9. Then serve it up and enjoy!

 

finished-sweet-brown-rice-breakfast-smSee our Sweet Brown Rice Breakfast HERE.

september-building-better-breakfast-for-less-post-sm

See all of our affordable, healthy and practical breakfasts page HERE for lots of ideas!

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Alex & Cassie
 

Tummy Slimming and Belly Fat Burning Smoothie Recipe and Tips To Make It for Less

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by Cassie on June 6, 2013

tummy-slimming-and-belly-fat-blasting-smoothie

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We have shared our tips for building fruit and veggie smoothies – which is a fantastic way to get the good foods the whole family needs, use up all of your produce and enjoy a healthier life.

We’ve also shared tips on how to get all of those things needed for less, but this post is about one specific recipe that we found and love.

This specific one was actually spotted in a Woman’s Day magazine. They talked about how this smoothie slims your waistline and blasts belly fat.

This is not the first, or the second or even the third time that we have heard about the belly blasting results of these ingredients even on their own!

So it is made of 3 very simple ingredients, which are all very easy to find and we will share tips on how to get them for less!

Here’s the ingredients and why they are used:

ingredients-belly-blasting-smoothie

  • Yogurt – according to their dietician in the article “yogurt is rich in calcium, which targets belly fat.”  It has been shown and proven that yogurt diets whittle the middle quicker than most foods!
  • Blueberries – these have proven to melt fat and increase insulin resistance – and insulin is the thing that tells you body to store belly fat, so we want a different stream of communication with that insulin!
  • Chia Seeds – we’ve talked about these awesome little seeds before and shown ideas to get them for less.  Well, according to this article “chia seeds are rich in Omega-3 fats, which decrease the stress hormones that pack pounds to your midsection.”

Well, I don’t know about you…. but my midsection is my trouble spot! Sure, 5 kids in 7 years all by necessary c-section will cause a problem! So I am always on the lookout for ways to shrink my middle!

And since I have heard about these ingredients over, and over, and over again for shrinking the middle, I happen to have everything on hand and ready to blast my belly fat :)

Plus it takes literally less than 5 minutes to whip up this breakfast!

Here’s how to make it:

  • 1 Cup of Plain or Vanilla Greek Yogurt (other yogurts work too, but Greek is best!)
  • 1 Cup of blueberries (fresh or frozen)
  • 1 TBSP of Chia Seeds
  • Throw it all in a blender and blend until it reaches your desired consistency.
  • You can also add milk, ice, honey or other alternative sweetener to the mix to make it taste like you want

I personally find that vanilla yogurt is just enough “sweet” that I don’t need to add anything extra.

So here’s some tips for getting the ingredients for less:

  1. First, you can get  yogurt of all types quite inexpensively from the grocery store by combining the sales with coupons.  When one of these sales hits, use coupons if you can, and then STOCK-UP! Yogurt freezes well, and I actually prefer frozen yogurt to throw in my smoothies anyway as it makes it colder without needing to add ice.  Also, watch of yogurt mark-downs and stock up! As you can see in our picture, we got some great deals on mark-downs and they freeze just as nicely! Finally, if you can’t find mark-downs or sales with coupons – the next best place is Costco (and probably Sam’s Club, but we haven’t checked there personally) as Costco has some good yogurt prices on bigger tubs!
  2. For the blueberries – first, we are heading into the heart of blueberry and other berry season! This is a perfect time to stock-up and freeze your own blueberries so that you have them all year, but buy the for the “in-season” price! We actually watch of Whole Foods to have their blueberry sale and then we call them and order a few cases at this “on-day only” sale price.  Also, even just this week, I showed how I bought, 12 containers of blueberries for $17.50, which is a really, really good price where we live. Blueberries are very easy to freeze, just throw them in a ziploc unwashed and then freeze them.  By doing it this way, they will not stick together and you can freeze a whole bunch in a gallon size bag (as you can see from our picture) and just take out what you need.  Just then wash them before you use them! You can also get great prices on frozen blueberries at Costco and Sam’s Club – even frozen blueberries are cheaper than fresh in the grocery store – so that will yield a little bit of savings easily everyday.  Finally, grow your own! I am actually planning to do this this year. I have been discouraged from local garden shops to plant a blueberry bush in our garden as it will not be very fruitful as our soil is alkaline and they need acidic soil, which is very difficult to maintain.  BUT… I found a way that I am going to try – container blueberries! I found a site that sells them in a container kit and they grow and stay this way so that if you don’t have the right soil, you can still grow them! I can’t give testimony to it yet as it is literally on it’s way to me now, but I am hopeful :)   You can also see our post on 30 Ways to Save Money on Produce” for even more ideas!
  3. Finally, Chia Seeds! This is the most expensive ingredient, however, one bag lasts FOREVER! We did this post a couple of years ago about the best places to get them after Dr. Oz recommended them for your brain health.  Most of those deals are not longer applicable. So,  best place to get them right now is either Vitacost (use this link HERE for a FREE $10 off coupon with orders of $30 or more for even greater savings!) or Amazon with the sale options HERE. 

With these money saving tips, you can easily stock-up on the three needed ingredients and have enough supply to make them for many months! Wahoo!

 

Tummy Slimming and Belly Fat Blasting Smoothie
Print

Recipe type: Breakfast or Side
Author:
Prep time:
Total time:
Serves: 1
Here’s the secret to a belly blasting recipe and visit this link: to get tips on how to get ingredients for less!
Ingredients
  • 1 Cup of Plain or Vanilla Greek Yogurt (other yogurts work too, but Greek is best!)
  • 1 Cup of blueberries (fresh or frozen)
  • 1 TBSP of Chia Seeds
Instructions
  1. Throw it all in a blender and blend until it reaches your desired consistency.
  2. You can also add milk, ice, honey or other alternative sweetener to the mix to make it taste like you want
  3. I personally find that vanilla yogurt is just enough “sweet” that I don’t need to add anything extra.
Notes
The original recipe with pictures can be found at thethriftycouple.com.

Here’s some other great and similar posts:

Smoothie Recipes and How to Build Fruit and Veggies Smoothies with anything  you have on hand and how to make them taste good every time

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Alex & Cassie
 

How To Turn Grits Into Cornmeal and Corn Flour (One Product, But 3 Uses)

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by Cassie on June 4, 2013

how-to-make-cornmeal-and-corn-flour-from-grits

If you like this idea, please “Pin” it to Pinterest!

A while back, I shared how we buy many things in bulk and the process that we go through for storing and using.  We run through our bulk food quite frequently and the super nice thing is that it is much simpler, healthier, cheaper (even far cheaper than coupon shopping) and gives us a supply for emergencies too!

But sometimes it can be a challenge to learn and train yourself to use it frequently, or often enough to justify all the things I mentioned above.

honeyville-50lb-grits-sm

Well, we have a lot of bulk grits – I mean like 100 lbs. worth on our last trip to the bulk food store – and we paid just over $20 per 50lb. bag! THAT IS CHEAP!  We do use our grits often, but then I also had corn flour and cornmeal in my pantry for a while that I bought in bulk (not 1oo lbs. worth, but a few pounds :) ) and just ran out of.  Well, I do use these too!

So I am looking at my grits and wondering what exactly they are??  After running across a few websites, grits is cornmeal and corn flour – just a more coarse -less ground version.

So, you know what?  I decided to grind my grits to a cornmeal consistency and even further for a corn flour consistency and that was the ticket!

I now use my super cheap bulk grits for it’s intended purposes in some absolutely fantastic recipes, but now I can use it for my recipes needing cornmeal and corn flour (which is gluten-free too!).  They have been a great replacement and I have just eliminated the need to buy two of the things on my list and move through my grits just a bit faster.  I will also share a number of recipes using all three things if you want!

I am pretty sure that most all of you will be able to find a bulk supply of grits for cheap in your are or online.

So here’s a very simple infographic on how to turn your grits into cornmeal and corn flour as shown above!

And here’s your results!!

corn-meal-corn-flour-sm

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Alex & Cassie
 

Brown Rice For Breakfast – Our Sweet Version (Healthy, Yummy and Filling)

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by Cassie on May 20, 2013

finished-sweet-brown-rice-breakfast

If you like this idea, please “Pin” it to Pinterest!

A while back, I mentioned that we eat rice for breakfast.  In fact, we eat rice for breakfast A LOT! Why? Well for SEVERAL reasons.

  1. It’s super easy to make, especially with the rice cooker that I think is just as important or more than a crockpot! I love this one that is a 20-cup Aroma Cooker (you can make a little bit or all 20-cups!) by that I have referenced many times as it steams and is a crockpot while having the option to cook rice. 
  2. It’s super cheap.  Whether you choose to get white, brown or even organic! It’s all cheap.  Especially when you compare it to cereals! You can pick up a 1-2 lb. bag of brown rice for around $2.  This small bag will last our family of seven for 2-3 meals (whether breakfast, lunch or dinner). We’re talking very cheap, even for large families like ours!
  3. It’s super healthy. Especially if you opt for brown rice. It contains fiber and the way that we prepare adds extra healthy factors to it!
  4. It’s naturally gluten-free!

So we’ve had a few people that thought it was quite strange that we eat rice for breakfast! But if you think about it, it’s quite an optimal and practical breakfast!

So let me share with you our “sweet” version.

  • The first thing you need is to fry your rice in something.  Butter is a good option.  We personally love coconut oil or coconut creme concentrate (this one is like a coconut version of butter).  Any of these are good, but the coconut options add extra layers of health by easily and tastily including them!  We use Tropical Traditions and buy coconut oil and coconut creme concentrate when they have their 50% off (or buy one get one free) sales.  It is good quality too!
  • The second thing you need are toppings! Honestly, you can add ANYTHING! In fact, consider the toppings we have included in our printable list of 88 Oatmeal Topping Ideas HERE.  Any of those would work beautifully for this too!  We personally almost always use Craisins, shredded coconut and cinnamon.  When it became a perfect combo for us, we see now reason to change, but rarely!
  • Oh yeah, I just about forgot :) … the third thing is the rice! You will need already cooked rice whether you cook it on the stove or rice cooker!

Then all you do is this:

  • brown-rice-coconut-oilMelt your butter, coconut creme concentrate or coconut oil in your pan.  Use as much or little as you want!

frying-brown-rice

  • Then add your cooked rice and “fry” until it is all coated and reaches the desired consistency you want.  Our family likes it “crispy” which means more frying time.  If you want it softer, then just fry for a shorter time.

brown-rice-breakfast-toppings

  • Then add your toppings and mix up! Some of your toppings can be added after cooking too.  We add our favorite three and cook for another couple of minutes.

finished-sweet-brown-rice-breakfast

  • Then serve it up and enjoy! Here’s our daughter’s hearty bowl of delicious nutrition and give her a super jump start to her day!
  • Note: one fabulous add-in is nuts of any kind.  These will also add some healthy proteins.  We have deadly peanut and treenut allergies in our home, but it would be fabulous! For our protein, we just add an egg on the side or something :)

This is our “sweet version.”  We also have a “savory version” which is sorta like a breakfast fried rice – again healthy and that one adds a bit of protein too! We will share that one soon!

In the meantime, get creative with rice for breakfast!

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Alex & Cassie
 

Cooking Bacon on George Foreman Grills Means Quick, Easy and Healthier – In Other Words – PERFECT

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by Cassie on March 12, 2013

If you have been reading our site long, you may know that I (Cassie) am not a bacon, pork, sausage fan.  I will eat it on occasion, but it isn’t something I do real often.  However, my family loves bacon and sausage for breakfast.

I do have a great option for breakfast sausage by buying the Jimmy Dean Naturals at Costco (Sam’s Club has it too) and I am able to pre-cook and brown 7 packages of sausage and freeze them for breakfast ease and affordability and the simple ingredients in this exact package fit my 2013 food goals.

Well, on the flipside, I rarely by bacon.  I am very picky about Sodium Nitrates (found in most lunchmeats, hotdogs, processed cheeses and pork products).  But there are a couple of bacon types that don’t contain them and are a more natural processing.

One of them is the Hormel Naturals.  I will only buy this one and ones like this.  Yes, it is more expensive than other bacon, but that is why we increased our grocery/household/personal products budget from $75 a week in 2012 to $125 a week in 2013.  You can read all of the details on why we decided to do this for 2013 on our previous post HERE.

So I bought this bacon because it was a good price and I knew my family would be thrilled to have bacon for breakfast.

But let me be brutally honest…..I totally stink at cooking bacon!! I burn and ruin it every time.  I never mastered it and so it was another reason to kick bacon to the curb except on rare occasions because well….I couldn’t cook it!

So I got myself in a bind when I bought it and the kids saw it and wanted it for breakfast. I dreaded cooking it.  I have tried numerous ways, stovetop, grill pan, oven, microwave, etc. The best was the oven, but I still managed to burn and make a mess out of it.  I know many of you like the oven because we asked on Facebook and an overwhelming majority said that they cook it in the oven.  But the problem was that everyone was cooking it at a different temperature and different times.  I still don’t know what is the best way, temperature or time after even trying it myself a few times.

So I had used the George Foreman grill for quesadillas for lunch the previous day and it was still sitting on my counter. I thought to myself….. I wonder if I could cook the bacon in that because it is really hard to mess the food up and it cooks a bunch of the fats off!?!?

I hadn’t heard of anyone doing this and after asking on Facebook, most of you do use the oven, but a couple of you did use the Foreman Grill and loved it!

So I decided to give this a try and to my amazement…..it was easy, healthier, less messy and came out perfectly and so this is now my “go-to” bacon cooking method!

So here’s how I..someone who burns and ruins bacon every time, made a perfect batch of bacon!

First, you just need to plug-in your grill.  You don’t have to guess on temperatures or anything, just plug it in!

Then I use my kitchen scissors to cut the package of bacon in half to cook up half slices.

By the way….I have four pairs of these kitchen scissors.  I use them to cut meats and chicken (even partly frozen), slices of pizza, some veggies…many, many things that you would use a knife for. They are sold at Dollar Tree for only $1 and they still sell them there and have been selling them for well over a year.  It is one of the best and most versatile kitchen tools.  I would head over to Dollar Tree and grab several pairs. They are in the kitchen tools section!

Then just place your half strips on your grill and close the lid! I have a small one that we got as a wedding gift and after nearly 14 years, we still use it.  We probably should buy a bigger one now that we are a family of 7, but it works for now :) If you have a bigger one, you can probably cook the whole package at once!

Close the lid and cook for about 4-5 minutes until desired done-ness is reached!

Then serve however you would like! On our small grill, it took 3-rounds too cook the full package.

The kids enjoyed it with scrambled eggs and toast.  I wanted to try it, but disguise it a bit more, so I made a yummy breakfast burrito on a whole wheat tortilla!

High quality bacon does taste better :)

So seriously…..If I can cook perfect bacon (which I thought would be two words that would never be associated with me in the same sentence) then you can too!

Also, if you don’t own a George Foreman grill yet, I would recommend it! We use it a lot for lunches of grilled cheese, quesadillas, chicken, hamburgers and now bacon!

Amazon has a bunch of them in different sizes and styles on sale right now HERE. 

The one we have is this one (but in white) and it is on sale for $21 HERE with free shipping with Amazon Prime or a $25 or more order.

What is your flawless method for cooking bacon?

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Alex & Cassie