A healthier oven-baked twist on the traditional full English breakfast. Featuring quick and easy homemade and perfectly seasoned turkey sausage balls, roasted rosemary sweet potatoes, crispy bacon, caramelised onion, crunchy kale, juicy tomatoes, and last but not least eggs and mushrooms baked to perfection.
Hey Friends!
I’m back following a week of absence. Last week was a long tiring week of decorating to get the house in some sort of order before Christmas arrives. Not long now! But thankfully out of all the chaos came this little treasure… the baked HEALTHY FULL ENGLISH BREAKFAST.
Talk about setting you up for the day! I’d certainly call myself a true Brit in the sense that I could happily munch down a full English breakfast every day if I could. If it weren’t for all the calories and all the washing up. I mean seriously, you need so many pans. It’s just too much work?!
UNTIL NOW! All thanks to this baked version and the convenience of just two baking trays. But even better, if you’re lucky enough to have a large oven and giant baking trays, you should be able to get away with only using one. If you have a smaller oven like me, you’ll need two baking trays to make sure the ingredients can crisp up, rather than steam and end up soggy.
POST CONTENTS
IS A FULL ENGLISH BREAKFAST HEALTHY?
A full English breakfast is usually not that healthy. More often than not, the ingredients are fried in unhealthy oils, and portion sizes are enormous, loading your body with more fuel than it actually needs. And, if you’re not careful, a full English breakfast will be packed with its fair share of processed ingredients. Especially if you are eating one in a restaurant and are not in control of buying the whole real food ingredients to make it yourself. Like all things, there will always be some exceptions.
If your aim is to lose weight, then frequently indulging in the classic fry-up will not really help you to achieve your goals. But, with a few healthy swaps, there’s no reason why it can’t be enjoyed as part of a healthy diet.
HOW MANY CALORIES ARE IN A TYPICAL ENGLISH BREAKFAST?
Now, I’m not a calorie counter per se. In fact, I would go as far as saying the whole calorie counting thing drives me crazy.
But I’ll admit, I do find having an awareness of the calories in different types of foods incredibly helpful and beneficial for my weight loss goals. Especially when it comes to making decisions about how I put a meal together for me, my family, and of course, you lovely people.
So, before we talk about roughly how many calories there are in a typical English breakfast, I think it’s important to know what the experts recommend. For example, the NHS guidelines say that women should not exceed 2,000 calories a day and men should not exceed 2,500 a day (Source). They also advise that you aim for a total fat intake of less than 70g (Source).
Okay, so now we have that info locked down, let’s check out how many calories and grams of fat in a typical full English Breakfast.
CALORIES AND TOTAL FAT IN A TYPICAL FULL ENGLISH BREAKFAST
| Ingredients in a Typical Full English Breakfast | Calories | Fat (g) |
| 2 Grilled Pork Sausages | 428 | 32 |
| 1 Fried Egg | 120 | 9 |
| 1 Grilled Slices Back Bacon | 71 | 5 |
| 1 Hash Brown | 205 | 9 |
| 1 Fried Tomato | 57 | 5 |
| 44g Mushrooms (fried in salted butter) | 46 | 5 |
| 75g Baked Beans | 60 | 1 |
| 1 Slice Fried Bread | 176 | 11 |
| 1 Slice Black Pudding | 81 | 6 |
| TOTAL (one portion) | 1244 | 83 |
As you can see, this typical English breakfast contains over half the recommended daily allowance of calories for a woman as well as being 10g OVER the 70g DAILY recommended fat allowance IN JUST ONE MEAL!!! Wowza, that’s a lot!
In truth, eating this type of food every now and then is not going to do you any harm. However, it’s important to be mindful that regular consumption may contribute to weight gain in the long term.
So, let’s look at what happens if you move to unprocessed ingredients, healthy fats, high-quality protein and lots of veggies full of nutrients.
CALORIES AND TOTAL FAT IN A HEALTHY FULL ENGLISH BREAKFAST
| Ingredients in a Healthy Full English Breakfast | Calories | Fat (g) |
| 3 Turkey “Sausage” Balls (made from 100% turkey mince) | 112 | 2 |
| 1 Egg | 63 | 4 |
| 1 Slice Streaky Nitrate-Free Bacon | 92 | 9 |
| 125g Sweet Potato Cubes | 64 | 0 |
| 1 Tomato | 22 | 0 |
| 100g Mushrooms | 22 | 0 |
| 25g Kale | 12 | 0 |
| 1/4 Onion | 11 | 0 |
| 1/4 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil | 34 | 3.5 |
| Seasonings (cayenne pepper, sage, nutmeg, thyme, rosemary, sea salt, pepper) | 1 | 0.5 |
| TOTAL (one portion) | 433 | 19 |
Wow, that’s quite a difference, right?! This healthy version provides a whopping SIXTY-FIVE per cent REDUCTION in calories and also just ONE-QUARTER of the total fat of a typical full English breakfast.
The combination of changing the cooking method from fried to baked, and using more unprocessed ingredients, healthy fats, as well as adding extra vegetables has transformed this meal. This is food you can feel really good about eating.
The added fibre from the vegetables, healthy fats from the olive oil and also the high-quality protein from the turkey will help you to feel truly satisfied, provide the feeling of fullness and keep you feeling fuller for longer. All critical factors in the war against overeating, unnecessary snacking, and of course, the urge to binge.
Now, if you’re sitting there thinking, well Cheryl, that’s still more fat than I would ideally like to consume in one meal. I get it. But, if you are craving a full English breakfast, this is the answer. The way I see it, just adjust the fat content of your lunch and dinner, so you’re not over-consuming fats over the entire day.
Furthermore, let’s not forget a critical role those healthy fats play in your body, by helping to absorb the fat-soluble vitamins from the meal, including vitamin A, D, E and K (Source).
Do you fancy tucking into this Healthy Full English Breakfast tomorrow morning? If the answer to that question is yes, and you give this recipe a try, I’d love to know what you think. Get in touch in the comments section and let me know.
Are you looking for more breakfast recipes? Why not check out these ideas…
HOW TO MAKE A HEALTHIER FULL ENGLISH BREAKFAST
Healthy Full English Breakfast
Ingredients
- 400 g Turkey Breast Mince
- 1½ tsp Sea Salt
- 1 tsp Cayenne Pepper
- 1 tsp Dried Thyme
- 1 tsp Dried Sage
- ⅛ tsp Nutmeg
- 300 g Sweet Potatoes Scrubbed and chopped into 2cm cubes
- 1 Large Red Onion Peeled and quartered
- 1 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil Divided
- 1 tsp Dried Rosemary
- ½ tsp Freshly Ground Black Pepper
- 100 g Kale Washed, patted dry with kitchen towel, woody stalks removed.
- 4 Salad Tomatoes Washed and halved
- 400 g Button Mushrooms Brushed clean
- 4 Rashers Streaky Bacon Sugar-free, nitrate-free
- 4 Medium Eggs
Instructions
- Gather and prepare your ingredients. Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 5.
- In a medium bowl add the turkey meat, one teaspoon sea salt, cayenne pepper, thyme, sage and nutmeg, and mix with your hands (or a fork) until combined. Then, roll the mixture into 12 individual meatballs.
- Take the first baking tray and spread out the sweet potato cubes and onion wedges over one half. Brush with ½ tablespoon of the olive oil, sprinkle with rosemary and season with a pinch of salt and pepper. On the second half of the baking tray spread out the turkey meatballs. Now place the tray in the oven and bake for 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile, on the second baking tray spread out the kale, tomatoes and mushrooms. Brush with the remaining ½ tablespoon of the olive oil and season with the remaining salt and black pepper. Keep to one side.
- Remove the first baking tray from the oven and lay the bacon over the sweet potatoes. Place the tray back in the oven on the top shelf. ALSO, put the second baking tray of kale, tomatoes and mushrooms on the lower shelf. Bake for a further 10 minutes.
- Next, remove both trays from the oven and carefully scoop the kale, tomatoes and mushrooms onto the first tray with the sweet potatoes. Gently mix everything up so all the ingredients are evenly distributed on the tray. Create 4 small wells amongst the ingredients and crack an egg into each well. Bake once again for 6-8 minutes until the egg whites have set and the yolks are still runny. Next, serve and enjoy!
Nutrition
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2 comments
I have a question,Cheryl.
Is this recipe interesting for meal prep? Like, for freezing or just making ahead for the week?
If yes, for how long can it be kept in the fridge and what would be the best way to store it?
Cheers from Brazil!
Hiya Robin,
Thanks for getting in touch! You can absolutely use this recipe for meal prep. It will be fine in the fridge for about 3-4 days when stored in an airtight container. I usually portion it out into 4 separate glass containers, so I can grab and go when I need them. You may find the kale loses some of its crispiness, though. Also, I personally prefer fresh eggs to refrigerated baked eggs, so I’d probably leave them out of the recipe and fry up some eggs on the day I want them. Alternatively, if time were an issue, I’d probably batch-cook some boiled eggs to serve with it. You can also freeze this recipe for about 4 weeks before the kale starts to turn. But, I don’t recommend doing that as you will lose some texture and quality from the food. Hope that helps. Cheryl.