Waking up in the middle of the night with a grumbling stomach makes it difficult to fall back to sleep. I find that getting a small snack helps me to keep my stomach from issuing further complaints and allowing me to get back to sleep. Of course, I prefer sweet things a lot and my midnight snack tends to be more along the lines of a dessert. Below, I’ve listed 10 healthy ideas for midnight desert to give you some ideas the next time your tummy grumbles in the middle of the night.
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You could always substitute hot cocoa, but I actually prefer the taste of chocolate milk. I don’t make it boiling hot. I find that luke-warm chocolate milk makes me feel a bit sleepy, whereas super hot milk makes me too warm to fall back asleep. If you don’t like chocolate, then you can warm some plain milk and add a bit of honey or sugar for additional flavor.
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I think toast and honey are a perfect combination; crunchy and sweet. I like to make this in a toaster oven, instead of a stand-up toaster. I put the bread on the tray and squirt the honey on it before it gets toasted. By adding the honey first, it allows the bread to get crunchy all over. If you add the honey after the bread is toasted, then the bread softens up a bit. Sometimes I don’t have honey on hand and will use some peach or apricot preserves instead. I love the chunks!
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The sugar-free gelatin is supposed to be healthier than the kind with sugar in it, so I figured I could still include this midnight dessert in my list of healthy ideas. The only downfall to this treat is that you have to basically drink it, unless you want to wait for it to set up. If you end up trying to wait for gelatin to get firm, then it will be way past midnight by the time it is finished. However, if you already have this made in advance, it is definitely a quick midnight snack.
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I was amazed at how many different kinds of 100 calorie snack packs there are. These are a quick snack and you can even take them with you easily. I’m a sucker for the Oreos, but Keebler also offers snack packs that each contain 100 calories worth of different kinds of cookies. Yum! I know there are many other kinds of packages with 100 calorie snacks in them, but these are my favorite ones.
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Sometimes a handful isn’t enough and I end up eating a small bowl of them instead. I find that they are sweet enough to satisfy my craving for a dessert food and filling enough that I don’t want to keep eating bowl after bowl. I like to add a chopped up banana to the top when I have one available. I don’t always have Honey-nut Cheerios on the shelf, since they are the kids’ favorite and tend to go fast. When this happens, I get some of my husbands plain Cheerios and add honey and bananas to these.
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There are so many excellent flavors of yogurt in the store. I remember when the standards were kinds like strawberry, peach, lemon, and blueberry. Now, there are flavors such as Apple Turnover, Banana Cream Pie, Boston Crème Pie, Cherry Chiffon, and even Chocolate Mousse. I like to have a variety in the fridge, since I never know what is going to sound good later.
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Bagels are so thick and hearty that I find I can’t quite eat a whole one as a snack. I’ll usually toast one half and add some strawberry cream cheese to it. If I only have plain cream cheese on hand, then I sprinkle a mixture of cinnamon and sugar on top of the cream cheese or stir in some peanut butter with the cream cheese. Honey and peanut butter seem to be part of most of my snack choices. Good thing we almost always have one or the other tucked away in the pantry.
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I often have either bananas or apples in the fruit bowl, but sometimes I have to open a can of fruit for a snack. I like eating a small can of mandarin oranges plain or mixing apricots and peaches together. It’s really hard to go wrong with fruit as a snack. Fruit usually has just the right amount of sweetness, thanks to the natural sugar it contains. This natural sugar tends to not cause people to get a sugar high, like they get from soda or chocolate, which allows them to fall back to sleep after their midnight dessert.
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Not many people know how good carrots and peanut butter taste. I either put PB right on each baby carrot as I eat it or put some PB in a small bowl to dip the carrots into. The baby carrots tend to be a bit sweeter and less dry, so I like to use these with the PB instead of cutting up a large carrot. The peanut butter is filling and the carrots add a satisfying crunch. The combination is excellent!
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This has always been a standard snack for most kids growing up, but I still enjoy a good celery log with PB and some raisin ants on top. Like I mentioned before, peanut butter seems to be part of most of my snack choices and this is yet another example. The peanut butter also covers the slightly odd celery taste that I have a hard time getting past when I try to eat celery stalks without anything on them. They are very crunchy, like the carrots, but make sure to get the strings off of them before you put the PB on!
I’m sure at least one or two of these 10 healthy ideas for midnight desert have been tried out by you as well. Are there other types of snacks you enjoy in the middle of the night? What is your favorite combination for a midnight dessert? I’m always looking for new ideas myself!
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