Cottage Cheese Breakfast Bowl
on Jan 21, 2025
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy.
We’re starting the New Year off strong with another breakfast of champions. 💪 This bowl is an elite way to start the day: creamy, protein-packed cottage cheese meets crunchy, sweet, and salty homemade granola. Divine! 🙌 The granola is endlessly customizable: from the spices and the sweetener, to the oil and the add-ins. And yes, you can even add chocolate! 😜 Give yourself something to look forward to first thing in the morning with this tasty, fueling breakfast.
Why You’ll Love Cottage Cheese Breakfast Bowl
Yogurt parfaits are tried and true, so let’s make something new for breakfast! Enter the cottage cheese breakfast bowl. The key 🔑 to preparing luscious, creamy, “this is cottage cheese?!” is to whip it up in the blender or food processor until it’s nice and smooth. We love cottage cheese for its high protein content, and now we can enjoy it in its creamiest form. This begs for a crunchy pairing, and my super simple homemade granola is perfect for the job. 👌
How to Prepare
🔥 Preheat the oven to 350F (177C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
🥣 In a bowl, mix the oats, pistachios, pumpkin seeds, cinnamon, and salt and stir. Next, add the oil and maple syrup, then stir until the oats are evenly coated.
🫓 Pour the mixture onto the lined baking sheet and spread evenly. Then, using a spatula or clean hands, press the mixture flat onto the cookie sheet for bigger clusters.
🧑🍳 Bake for 22 minutes, making sure to stir halfway through, until the oats are lightly golden.
🆒 Remove the granola from the oven and let rest for 45 minutes. Once the granola is cool, break it into any size clusters, based on your preference.
🍇 After the granola has cooled, stir in the dried cranberries.
🍽 To serve, add cottage cheese to a food processor and process until smooth. Spread the smooth cottage cheese onto a plate, and add granola on top.
🍯 Finally, feel free to add in berries, a drizzle of honey, or anything you wish! Enjoy!
Nonna’s Tip 🥣
Be sure to add any dried fruit to the granola after it has baked; otherwise the dried fruit will become rock hard. 🗿
Cottage Cheese Breakfast Bowl Variations and Substitutions
- Instead of cottage cheese, feel free to use yogurt.
- You can customize granola in so many ways! You can add roughly chopped nuts (almonds, walnuts, cashews, etc), a spoonful of flax or chia seeds after baking the granola, and any dried fruit 🍓 you love.
- In addition to or in place of cinnamon, these spices also add excellent flavor to granola: ground ginger, nutmeg, and pumpkin spice blends.
How to Make this Ahead for Meal Prep
Granola is an excellent recipe to meal prep. You can easily double, triple, or quadruple the recipe. Granola will last in an airtight container, on the counter, away from direct sunlight, for a few weeks (though I don’t recommend more than 3 weeks). It makes for a quick and easy breakfast, snack, and sometimes even satisfies my sweet tooth. 🦷 You can also freeze granola. 🥶 Pack individual servings in airtight containers. Dried fruit can get a bit hard and chewy when frozen, so consider adding that ingredient once you’re ready to enjoy. To thaw, simply place the frozen granola in the fridge for about 12 hours.
Similar Recipes
Best Served With
- For an incredible brunch spread, double this recipe and serve it up family-style on a large platter, alongside dishes like potato hash 🥔, Bulgarian spanikopita toast 🥪, and blueberry coffee cake 🫐.
- If you love healthy, protein-packed, make-ahead breakfasts like this one, you may also like: chia seed breakfast pudding, healthy breakfast muffins 🧁, and blueberry oat cake.
Common Questions
Yes, you can absolutely make this gluten-free. Not all oats are gluten-free, so be sure to look for ones labeled “gluten-free.”
Certainly! Try this with your favorite dairy-free cottage cheese or dairy-free yogurt.
Yes, both the whipped cottage cheese and the granola can be made ahead of time. The whipped cottage cheese can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for about 5 days. And the granola can be stored in an airtight container, on the counter, out of direct sunlight for a few weeks.
If you don’t like, or can’t access, maple syrup, you can use honey instead.
I mix the dried cranberries into the granola after baking to prevent them from drying out and burning.
Cottage Cheese Breakfast Bowl
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 cups rolled oats
- ⅓ cup pistachios
- ⅓ cup raw pumpkin seeds
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- ¼ cup avocado oil
- ¼ cup maple syrup
- ¼ cup dried cranberries, (and/or raisins and mini chocolate chips), for garnish
- 1 cup cottage cheese
- fresh berries and a drizzle of honey, for garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F (177C). Line a baking sheet with parchment 📜 paper.
- In a bowl, add the oats, pistachios, pumpkin seeds, cinnamon, and salt and stir.
- Add the oil and maple syrup and stir again until the oats are evenly coated.
- Pour the mixture onto the lined baking sheet and spread evenly. I like to use a spatula or clean hands and press the mixture flat onto the cookie sheet for bigger clusters.
- Bake for 22 minutes, making sure to stir halfway through, until the oats are lightly golden.
- Remove the granola from the oven and let rest for 45 minutes.
- Once the granola is cool, break it into any size clusters, based on your preference.
- After the granola has cooled, stir in dried cranberries.
- To serve, add cottage cheese to a food processor and process until smooth.
- Spread the smooth cottage cheese onto a plate, and add 1-2 tablespoons of granola on top. You will be left with a whole jar of granola to use throughout the week.
- Note: the total calories for the granola are 1758 for the whole batch. If you divide that into 12 equal portions = 146 calories per portion. I like to use 1 portion from that whole batch and store the rest.
- Feel free to add in berries 🫐, a drizzle of honey 🍯, or anything you wish! Enjoy!
Nonna’s Notes
My Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Been eating this for a while now! It is so good! Thank you for such a great recipe!
My kitchen smells so good!
The granola is delicious…
You get your recipes just right, every recipe I try on your site is perfect! and I am not just saying that….
My boys love your cooking:))
Aww thanks Natalie! Happy eating to you and your boys ❤️
This worked exactly as written, thanks! Very delicious!
Thanks Michelle, I’m so glad you enjoyed!
Just wanted to say that this has been my go-to breakfast! It’s so good and protein content is unbeatable!!
Perfect timing since we just ran out of yogurt. Gonna try this one for sure!
My family loved this! So yummy, quick and easy!