This breakfast salad features breakfast sausage meatballs, hard-boiled eggs, sliced tomatoes, and avocado for a deliciously different breakfast that you can eat all week!
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In this salad, you’ll find breakfast sausage meatballs, cherry tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs, red onion, and avocado all tied together by two of our favorite ingredients – cilantro and lemon juice! The yolks from the hard-boiled eggs combine with the lemon juice and avocado to make a delicious, creamy dressing that really takes the flavor to the next level. This is a great dish to make ahead for the week to have for breakfast every day, and, if you’re finding yourself in a bit of a breakfast rut, it’s a great way to switch things up.
Why You’ll Love this Recipe
- It’s easy – the prep required here is super easy, so this can be whipped up in no time at all.
- It’s yummy – full of really delicious ingredients, this is a breakfast that I actually really look forward to.
- It’s nutritious – take a quick look at the ingredient list! This salad is loaded with good-for-you foods for a nutritious, energizing start to your day.
Ingredients Needed
Here’s what you’ll need on hand to make this breakfast salad:
- Breakfast sausage – when choosing your breakfast sausage, we recommend looking for one with minimal ingredients that is nitrate and nitrite-free.
- Eggs – hard-boiled eggs are the next main component of this salad, they provide protein and so much flavor to the dish.
- Avocados – can you ever go wrong with avocados? Here they help add a creamy consistency to the dish as well as a good boost of healthy fats.
- Tomatoes – slightly sweet cherry tomatoes help brighten up this breakfast salad with their acidity.
- Red onion – the red onion in this salad provides just a little bit of bite to the dish.
- Cilantro or parsley – a generous amount of cilantro or parsley (whichever you prefer!) provides fresh flavor to this salad.
- Lemon juice – finally, lemon juice brings everything together and mixes with the avocado and egg yolks to form a sort of creamy dressing that makes this dish irresistible.
Customize Your Salad
The sky’s the limit when it comes to breakfast salad ingredients! If there’s something on this list that you don’t like, simply omit it. In the same vein, if there’s an ingredient that you think would be especially delicious here, add it. Here are a few of our favorite breakfast salad additions:
- Bell peppers (chopped)
- Bacon (crumbled)
- Feta cheese (crumbled)
- Sweet potato (cubed and roasted)
- Butternut squash (cubed and roasted)
- Arugula or spinach
How to Make Breakfast Salad
- Brown the breakfast sausage meatballs – roll your breakfast sausage into 1/2-inch balls, then cook them. You’ve got two choices here – you can either cook these in a pan on the stove, or you can place them on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet and bake them at 400 F for 15 minutes. We’ve also had many people skip the meatball step altogether and just brown the ground sausage – it is really up to you!
- Boil the eggs – while the meatballs are cooking, get the eggs boiling. We’ve tested many, many methods and this one results in easy-to-peel eggs every time. Once the eggs are peeled, you’ll chop them into bite-sized pieces.
- Chop the remaining ingredients – with the big components out of the way, the next step is to dice your avocados, halve the cherry tomatoes, slice the red onion, and chop the cilantro.
- Add everything to a bowl, then stir it up – next, you’ll add all of your ingredients to a large bowl, squeeze the lemons over top, and stir everything together.
How to Serve
This breakfast salad is SUPER make-ahead friendly, so whip up a big batch, then (if you’re planning on enjoying this on the go) store it in individual mason jars. When you’re ready to enjoy, grab a mason jar and get your day going!
If you plan on enjoying this at home, feel free to store the whole salad in an airtight container in the fridge, and then spoon an individual portion into a bowl morning of.
Frequently Asked Questions
This breakfast salad will stay good for up to 3 days in the refrigerator. If you want to extend its life a little longer, you can leave out the avocado and add it in with each serving.
The lemon juice in the recipe keeps the avocados from browning! Note that even if you do happen to notice a bit of browning, the avocados are still fine to eat.
It’s totally up to your preference! I personally eat it cold, but many others have enjoyed it hot as well.
We think so! Not only is this breakfast salad tasty, but it’s also chock-full of *so* many amazing, nutritious foods, making it the best energizing, filling breakfast ever.
ANY of them! Leafy greens are SO good for you, so starting your day off with any you love most (think: kale, spinach, arugula, cilantro, etc.) is a great way to get ahead on valuable nutrition for the day.
More Favorite Meal-Prep-Friendly Breakfasts
Healthy Breakfast Salad Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 pound pork breakfast sausage
- 9 eggs hard-boiled
- 3 cups cherry tomatoes halved
- 1/4 cup purple onion thinly sliced
- 2 avocados diced
- 1/2 cup fresh cilantro or parsley chopped
- 1/2 – 1 teaspoon kosher salt to teaste
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/4 cup lemon juice or about 2 lemons
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Roll the sausage into 1/2 inch meatballs and place on the parchment paper, then bake for 15 minutes, until browned and fully cooked through.
- While the meatballs are cooking, peel the eggs and cut each into 8 pieces.
- Combine the eggs, tomatoes, onion, avocado, meatballs, cilantro, salt, pepper, and lemon juice into a large mixing bowl and stir until the egg yolks and avocado become a little creamy.
- Spoon into a bowl and enjoy! Will keep covered for 3 days in the refrigerator.
Video
Recipe Notes
- Bell peppers (chopped)
- Bacon (crumbled)
- Feta cheese (crumbled)
- Sweet potato (cubed and roasted)
- Butternut squash (cubed and roasted)
- Arugula or spinach
Nutrition
I have made this salad many times and it is always a hit. I add just a tad of sugar free mayo and prefer using bacon over the sausage. This is a great alternative to eggs and bacon for breakfast and it holds you over all day long. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you soooo much for sharing this recipe! I’ve been making it since last spring and it’s definitely one of my favourites. And a great breakfast for cooler days, when smoothies are doing nothing but making me cold.
I’ve made a couple of changes and it still tastes fantastic:
– I’m recently discovered I’m sensitive to eggs so I skip them
– I got lazy and stopped making meatballs, instead I just use the meat ground
– I often skip fresh herbs because I live in Canada and they’re had to come by in the winter
Thanks for such a great recipe! Keep up the delicious work!
This was quite good and astonishingly beautiful. It also held up quite well in the fridge. Day three and it still LOOKS AND TASTES great! Eating it cold (as leftovers) wasn’t weird at all. I used precooked chicken sausage links which I chunked up and browned. Threw in half a yellow bell pepper (raw) and about 2 small roasted sweet potatoes. Lime juice would be a great flavor profile instead of lemon, but I did use lemon. Spouse, who is somewhat skeptical of nontraditional breakfasts, enjoyed it!
YUM! Thank you so much for sharing this with us, Holly! We are so happy y’all loved it!
Do you serve this hot or cold?
Do you have the nutritional info on this recipe? Thanks
This is so so good. I made it with parsley this time. Next time I’ll do cilantro!! I had to use lime because I was out of lemon. It was totally awesome
I’m so glad you liked it, Ava!
This looks SO good. Possibly a dumb question- do you eat the leftovers cold? I’m trying to imagine heating it all up for 2nd day breakfast and it seems like that wouldn’t work too well.
Plus, I’d love to find a tasty dish I can use for a workday lunch that requires no reheating.
Thanks!
My wife and I just started a Whole30 challenge, and had this for our first meal. Besides the obvious requirement of being Whole30 compliant, it also checked off the two most important boxes – Tasty aaaaaaaaaand Delicious. This is going to stay in my life for a long time, thanks for the great recipe!
I made this breakfast salad this morning and it was delicious!! I put it over a bed of spinach to make it more salad-y. I’m glad I can make the sausage and eggs ahead of time and have it for the rest of the week for breakfast.
How do you measure the serving size? Are the serving sizes 1 cup each?
Our serving is just based on the overall recipe, so it would just be 1/4 of the recipe. Feel free to eat more or less!
Not a big fan of avocado, what can I substitute it with?
Hi Orion! You can simply omit the avocado if you don’t like it too much. It does add a creamy texture, so maybe something like homemade mayo if you want the same texture. If not then anything you like really! I think artichokes or roasted red peppers would be great.
This looks great. I have been wanting salad for breakfast for a while so am definitely trying it. Planning on using the veggie Italian sausage instead. 2 questions: 1. Onions for breakfast though? Maybe on a Saturday when I don’t have to go into the office. 2. Since I am not a fan of raw tomatoes in general, how about either chopped red pepper OR seedless grapes instead?
Hi Stephanie! You can skip the onions if you need to go somewhere after haha! I would go with chopped red pepper as it will add a nice crunch and sweetness to the dish. Hope you like it!
Yum, my tastebuds are tingling just anticipating this dish, but my muscles and joints would not appreciate the tomatoes one bit much to my tomato loving dismay 🙁 I can hardly figure out good tomato substitutes, although they are so frequently featured in paleo dishes 🙁 . It seems like the tomato would add nice flavor contrast, as well as some moisture to a dish that might be a bit dry otherwise. Any suggestions for a tomato sub? I’d hate to just leave it out without something to replace it.
Hi Amanda! Sorry to hear you can’t have tomatoes. You could maybe try red pepper or roasted beets. Hope that helps!
I’m not a massive fan of breakfast sausage, but I looooove the hot Italian-style poultry sausage that our local grocery store carries. Perfect substitute! Loved this recipe. It made for a wonderful lunch for us — very filling!
Bookmarking this for the future.
That sounds like a delicious substitute! Thanks for the kind words Erin 🙂
Delicious! The lemon is the perfect pop of flavor to blend everything together. I will definitely make this recipe again!
So glad you enjoyed it!! Thank you!
Hi! This sounds sooooooo good! I can’t wait to make it, but I would only be making it for me. I am trying to lose weight/get healthy and breakfast has always been an issue for me. Im a super lazy food preparer and I don’t like to cook. And, Frankly I’m getting tired of isopure :/ So…couple questions: Can/should I eat this *every* morning b4 my workout? And how long will it keep?
thanks so much!
Hi Marly! Starting off with a well balanced breakfast would be a great way to get your healthy journey going. You could definitely make this and it will keep in the fridge for 3-4 days in a covered container. I’m not sure what time you are working out, but if you are hungry before your workout this would be a great snack to have as it has some protein and fat to get your body going and give you some fuel for your workout. Hope that helps!