Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Health & Fitness
  3. Evergreens

A cottage cheese breakfast is an easy way to hit protein macros — try these tasty ideas

Cottage cheese is a great source of protein

By
Cottage cheese and berries.
DraCat / Pixabay

Cottage cheese once had a bad reputation — known as a lumpy and poor-tasting “diet food”  often associated with the low-fat diets popular in the 90s. While this food was once considered “something Grandma has for breakfast,” recent nutrition trends have brought to like how beneficial cottage cheese truly is. Jam-packed with protein, low in calories, and featuring a mild flavor, cottage cheese serves as a versatile ingredient for many breakfast recipes. These four cottage cheese breakfast ideas are destined to change your mind about this delicious high-protein food.

Avocado cottage cheese toast

Tasty avocado toasts on wooden board
Pixel-Shot / Adobe Stock

Avocado toast is a delicious breakfast classic that contains healthy fats and carbs and is super simple to make. Similarly, avocado cottage cheese toast elevates your morning avocado toast with extra protein to fuel your morning. This high-protein variation on classic avocado toast features a layer of cottage cheese on the toast, topped with avocado and seasonings as desired. To give this cottage cheese breakfast a bit more flavor, add dill, bagel seasoning, lemon juice, or red pepper flakes for a spicy kick.

Recommended Videos

Using just half a cup of 4% milkfat cottage cheese offers so much nutrition in this easy breakfast, including healthy levels of calcium, phosphorous, vitamin B12, riboflavin, and selenium. We love the mixture of healthy fats, carbs, and proteins that are combined in this quick breakfast recipe.

Ingredients

  • 2 pieces whole wheat sourdough bread
  • 1/2 cup cottage cheese
  • 1/2 an avocado, peeled and sliced thinly
  • Juice of half a lemon
  • 1 tbsp fresh dill, chopped
  • 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
  • Pinch of sea salt flakes

Method

  1. Toast the bread in your toaster to your desired doneness.
  2. Spread about 1/4 cup of cottage cheese in a layer onto each piece of toast.
  3. Top the cottage cheese with avocado slices.
  4. Squeeze lemon juice on top of the avocado slices, and sprinkle with chopped dill, red pepper flakes, and sea salt flakes.

Apple cinnamon cottage cheese bowl

Budget Bytes / Budget Bytes

Have a bit of a morning sweet tooth? This apple cinnamon cottage cheese bowl can be whipped up in just five minutes and adds a slight touch of sweetness to cottage cheese by using a dash of cinnamon and maple syrup. The crunchy walnuts in this cottage cheese breakfast add a unique element of crunchiness to the bowl. If you find you don’t like the sourness of cottage cheese, this recipe’s sweetness is perfect to balance out the taste.

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup 2% cottage cheese
  • 1/2 apple, chopped
  • 1 tbsp chopped walnuts
  • 1 tbsp maple syrup
  • 1 pinch cinnamon

Method

1. Add all the ingredients to a bowl or container. Enjoy immediately, or refrigerate in an air-tight container for up to four days.

Everything seasoning cottage cheese English muffin

cottage cheese on english muffin
Karolina Grabowska / Pexels

If you’re looking for savory cottage cheese breakfast ideas, this everything-seasoning cottage cheese English muffin is for you. This low-calorie breakfast has a healthy balance of carbs and protein that will keep you full until lunchtime. The toasted English muffin combined with the cold cottage cheese makes for a great combination and an easy breakfast to take on the go.

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup of cottage cheese
  • Everything bagel seasoning
  • 1 English muffin, toasted

Method

  1. Split the English muffin and toast to the desired level.
  2. Set toasted English muffins on the plate and spread 1/4 cup of cottage cheese on each half.
  3. Sprinkle a small dash of everything bagel seasoning on each half.
Scrambled eggs
Hamburger Helper / Flickr

Cottage cheese eggs

Did you know that cottage cheese blends beautifully into eggs? Combining cottage cheese into your eggs before cooking is a quick breakfast hack to enhance the protein content of your breakfast. Cottage cheese makes your eggs creamy, soft, and fluffy and can be added to scrambled eggs or omelets to supercharge your breakfast. With only 2 carbs and 16 grams of protein, these cottage cheese scrambled eggs are the perfect breakfast for any high-protein or low carb diet.

Ingredients

  • 1 tbsp butter
  • 4 eggs, beaten
  • 1/4 cup cottage cheese
  • 1 tsp chopped fresh chives
  • ground black pepper

Method

  1. Gather all ingredients.
  2. Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat. Pour beaten eggs into the skillet; let cook undisturbed until the bottom of the eggs begins to firm, 1 to 2 minutes.
  3. Stir cottage cheese and chives into eggs and season with black pepper.
  4. Cook and stir until eggs are nearly set, 3 to 4 minutes more.

Discovering your favorite cottage cheese breakfast

Cottage cheese with tropical fruit
Irina Gutyryak / Shutterstock

Ditch your preconceived notions from the past about cottage cheese and give these unique cottage cheese breakfast ideas a chance. Whether you’re looking for a classic egg breakfast such as cottage cheese eggs or something a bit sweeter like the apple cinnamon cottage cheese bowl, hitting your protein macros has never been easier when you add cottage cheese to your favorite breakfast recipes.

Emily Caldwell
Emily Caldwell
Contributor
Emily is a Features Writer at The Manual, where she specializes in food, beverage, and travel content. She focuses on weaving… Read Full Bio
Topics
Health & Fitness
Fitness 101: The perfect biceps curl with fitness expert Liz Baker Plosser
Liz Baker Plosser

There is no shortage of examples of the male bicep becoming the driver of confidence in men and desire for women. Men have been fed this narrative since we were kids, from Popeye winning the love of Olive Oil when he eats spinach and is awarded with bulging biceps, allowing him to be the hero (I won’t go on a tangent about how this was also used to manipulate me into eating vegetables…which I have thankfully overcome as an adult) to Captain America displaying his hulking biceps by holding down a literal helicopter. The bro culture makes memes of men like Arnold Schwarzenegger locking hands with Carl Weathers and showing off the boulders under their tee sleeves, resulting in all of us men wanting to learn how to get the giant arms to show off our hard work.

Of course, that means one of the first things we reach for in the gym when we first get our membership is the dumbbell so we can start our journey towards attaining our own Olive-Oil-rescuing muscle. But, like anything, it is best to listen to experts. Liz Baker Plosser is a fitness and wellness expert who has spent two decades teaching others on the same journey to attain their fitness goals. From being the editor and chief at Women’s Health to appearing on national shows like Live with Kelly and Mark and The TODAY Show, she has become a staple in the fitness industry.

Read more
Health & Fitness
Get the “Extraction” body before Chris Hemsworth’s threequel
Extraction Workout

Movies lied to me when I was a kid. When I joined the Army, I had dreams of being an Army Ranger. Too many movies made me think I could be a special operator and maybe even get myself a great nickname like the GI Joes. Instead, I told one of the sergeants of my aspirations, and he flat out said I wouldn’t make it. Not that I couldn’t do it, but that they wouldn’t let me. I was too big. 6’5″ and 220 pounds was going to require too many calories. You see, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and Dwayne Johnson made me think that the elite soldiers needed to be hulking giants. Or world-class martial artists like Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, or Jean-Claude Van Damme. And since I couldn’t do a roundhouse, I decided to follow the more practical path of the everyman like Bruce Willis, Nic Cage, and Tom Cruise.

You see, special operators need to be agile. They need mobility. That is why Chris Hemsworth adopted a workout with that goal to prepare for his third turn as Tyler Rake in his new Netflix film, Extraction 3.

Read more
Health & Fitness
The Manual’s Health & Wellness Awards Are Open for Submissions
Clothing, Footwear, Shoe

For years, The Manual has told readers which products actually work. Not which ones arrived in the nicest box, and not which brand bought the most media. Which ones held up after weeks of real use, and were still worth reaching for at the end.

Now we’re bringing that same approach to health. Introducing The Manual Health & Wellness Awards 2026, our first awards program dedicated to the products that help men sleep, train, recover, and feel better. And it’s open to submissions.

Read more