If breakfast is the most-important meal of the day, and mornings are the most-hectic time of the day, how do you make a morning meal that’s healthy and timesaving? That conundrum led us to compile our favorite morning hacks.

Update Your Oats

1: To cut the cooking time for steel-cut oats, try this trick: Cover the oats with water in a saucepan the night before. Bring to a boil, then turn off the heat and cover the pan. In the morning, bring it back to a simmer and your oatmeal will be ready to serve!

2: Cook leftover oatmeal into little cakes, plus more tips from Food52.

3: Make savory oatmeal. Think beyond sweet and top your oatmeal with a fried egg, grated cheese, a drizzle of olive oil and scallions — or even black beans and salsa.

4: Make overnight oats (pictured above) or chia pudding. Trust us on this one… it’s so easy and so delicious.

Use Your Microwave

5: Use your microwave to make a single-serving “cake.” There are lots of recipes on the Internet for almost-instant cakes and muffins, but this one is actually healthy, using oat bran and buckwheat groats.

6: Use it to scramble eggs or make omelets.

7: Make bacon in the microwave. Say what? It’s true! All you need is some paper towels (and a microwave) to get a crispy strip or two for breakfast.

8: Nuke frozen fruit (think berries, cherries, mango) and it’s ready to eat. Use it to flavor plain yogurt, or to top toaster waffles.

Other Tricks and Tips

9: Try a new toast topping. Need a few ideas? Check out these 50 ways to be more creative with toast.

10: Assemble smoothie ingredients in your blender the night before (this works if you’re adding ice, rather than using frozen ingredients).

Or, prepare smoothie packs for your freezer: Put half a banana and a cup of frozen berries in zip-close bags and they’ll be ready to go.

11: Make a batch of these breakfast bread puddings on the weekend and they’ll be good to go for the week.

12: Try this three-ingredient smoothie: banana, milk and peanut butter.

13: Dip apple rings in pancake batter and cook them in a skillet for an all-in-one meal (try a whole-grain batter).

Kerri-Ann is a registered dietitian who writes on food and health trends. Find more of her work at kerriannjennings.com or follow her on Twitter @kerriannrd or Facebook.