Bake one big tray on a Sunday and you’ve bought yourself two completely different breakfasts — no second effort required. It’s creamy, lemony, gently sweet from banana and apple rather than sugar, and it holds beautifully in the fridge. Warm and cosy on day one, a cold coconut parfait on day two that genuinely tastes like dessert.
Who it’s for: anyone who wants breakfast handled for half the week in one go, without eating the identical thing two days running.
- 1½ cups dry millet, rinsed well
- 2 cups milk of choice (almond, coconut or dairy) + 1½ cups water
- ½ cup coconut cream
- 3 eggs + 300g Greek yoghurt
- 2 ripe bananas, mashed + 2 apples, grated
- Seed & nut mix: 2 tbsp chia, 2 tbsp ground flax, 3 tbsp almond meal
- To flavour: 1½ tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp vanilla, zest of 1 lemon, pinch of salt
- 1–2 tbsp maple syrup (optional)
- 1 tbsp butter or coconut oil, for the dish
- Heat oven to 180°C fan and grease a large baking dish.
- Tip in the millet, milk, water, coconut cream, mashed banana, grated apple, cinnamon and salt. Stir, cover tightly with foil, bake 40 minutes.
- Meanwhile, whisk the eggs, yoghurt, vanilla, lemon zest and the whole seed & nut mix in a bowl.
- Pull the millet out, stir it, pour the yoghurt mix over and stir through.
- Back in uncovered 25–30 minutes, until just set but still soft and creamy in the middle — not dry.
- Rest 15–20 minutes before serving (it firms up as it sits).
Two breakfasts from one tray
Day 1 — warm and cosy. Serve warm with 150g Greek yoghurt per adult (this is what takes it to around 30g protein), a dusting of cinnamon, toasted pepitas or sesame, sliced banana, and a tiny drizzle of maple if it needs it.
Day 2 — cold coconut parfait. Completely change the feel: eat it cold or barely warmed, layered in a glass — millet, then Greek yoghurt, then fruit, then more millet, yoghurt, and toasted nuts or seeds on top. Finish with fresh lemon zest. It tastes far more like a dessert than leftover breakfast, and nobody will guess it’s the same tray.
A third way (this one’s for Laura). If you want a savoury-sweet edge, scatter over a quick toasted topping: nuts and seeds in a dry pan with a drizzle of maple and a proper pinch of salt, tossed till golden and sticky. That salt-against-sweet note turns the whole thing from breakfast into something you’d happily serve as dessert — my French client Laura’s trick, and now yours.
The apple-grating shortcut (and other time-savers)
Grating two apples by hand is genuinely annoying, so don’t. Three faster options: use the grater disc on a food processor (ten seconds, no knuckles), don’t peel them — the skin softens completely in the bake and adds fibre, or skip grating altogether and stir in 1 cup of unsweetened applesauce instead (fastest of all, and you’d never know). Same goes for the banana — the riper it is, the less mashing it needs; a properly spotty banana breaks down with a fork in seconds.
Why millet (and how to keep it creamy)
Millet is naturally gluten free, gentle on the stomach, and bakes into something creamy rather than claggy — think a lighter, fluffier baked oats. The eggs and yoghurt set it just enough to slice, the chia, flax and almond meal add staying power and quietly lift the protein, and banana plus apple mean you barely need any added sweetener. The one rule: pull it out while the middle is still soft and creamy. It firms as it rests, so a bake that looks perfectly set in the oven will be dry by the time you eat it. One more thing worth doing properly: rinse the millet well before it goes in. Un-rinsed millet can taste faintly bitter, so tip it into a fine sieve set inside a bowl, run cold water through and scrub the grains against the mesh with your fingers — the bowl lets you see the cloudy water clearing, and you’re done once it runs (almost) clear. Thirty seconds, and it’s the difference between nutty and bitter.
Make it ahead & freezing
This is built to be made ahead — it keeps 4–5 days covered in the fridge and arguably improves by day two. To freeze, portion it once fully cooled and freeze up to 2 months; thaw overnight in the fridge and warm through, or eat as the cold parfait. Add the yoghurt topping and toasted seeds fresh when you serve, not before storing. For more grab-and-go ideas, see my 10 high-protein breakfasts for people who don’t like cooking.
Is it gluten free? Dairy free? IBS-friendly?
Gluten free: yes, naturally — millet, almond meal, flax and chia are all gluten free. Dairy free: almost — swap the Greek yoghurt for a thick coconut or soy yoghurt (in the bake and on top) and use coconut oil to grease; coconut cream plus a plant milk keeps it fully dairy free. IBS / low FODMAP: a couple of tweaks. Banana is low-FODMAP only when firm/just-ripe, so if you’re sensitive use one barely-ripe banana. Apple is high-FODMAP — swap it for a little grated firm pear, or leave it out and lean on the cinnamon and vanilla. Chia and flax are low in 2-tablespoon amounts, and Greek yoghurt is low in lactose (coconut yoghurt is a safe swap if dairy’s a trigger).
Want your meals doing the heavy lifting so your mornings don’t have to? Come and train with me in Coogee.