Everything is fair game at breakfast — and long has been, of course — but to most Americans it doesn’t seem appropriate to start making what amounts to dinner at seven in the morning. It’s one thing to eat leftover pizza, pasta, roast chicken, soup, whatever; it’s entirely another to start cooking them while your tea or coffee is still brewing.

It does feel natural, however, to see grains as the basis for a savory breakfast. Grains are the foundation of many traditional breakfasts, like cereal, toast and porridge; they can be fast or prepared in advance (more on this in a moment), they require little or no attention, and they’re satisfying. Their flavor is also neutral enough to be the starting point for a host of dishes that can be as simple as oatmeal with scallions and soy (or olive oil and tapenade, or chopped tomatoes and cucumbers, or miso and seaweed), or as complex as polenta “pizza” with greens and pancetta, an unusual and spectacular weekend breakfast dish.

About speed and the rushed-morning syndrome: I have long maintained that instant or even “quick” oatmeal is a hoax, given that rolled oats require only a few minutes to make, that even steel-cut oats can be cooked pretty quickly, and that any grain can be made “instant” by grinding it a bit finer in a good blender or food processor. There are other tricks that make whole grains faster (pre-cook halfway, soak overnight or use a pressure cooker, for example), but in the last few years I realized that even these aren’t crucial.

That’s because any whole grain can be cooked ahead of time in any quantity. The easiest technique is simply to boil a couple of cups of grains as you would pasta, in abundant water, until done and then refrigerate. If, as happens with finely ground grains, the cooked grain sets up in the refrigerator (often desirable, in the case of polenta), you just whisk in a little water before reheating, which you can do on top of the stove or in the microwave.

Uncovering this little-known fact has made the savory, grain-based breakfast a matter of routine for me. I do polenta with butter and Parmesan; steel-cut oats with peanut butter (sometimes with hot sauce); and, a recent favorite, brown rice with dried mushrooms and dried tomatoes.

In addition to the polenta “pizza,” and the wheat berry-soy-scallions bowl, which I eat in one variation or another at least once a week, you might consider this coconut oat pilaf, a spicy, aromatic dish that will change the way you think about oatmeal. As for the wild rice and quinoa dish, a kind of stuffing for breakfast, this — like the traditional post-Thanksgiving meal — is a perfect place for leftovers. As is breakfast in general.

Image Wheat berries with sesame, soy sauce and scallions. Credit... Evan Sung for The New York Times

Here are a few more fast ideas for savory, mostly whole-grain breakfasts (some of which come from readers of my blog, Bitten — for these I say a general “thanks”):

Breakfast risotto I can’t think of a leftover risotto I wouldn’t love at breakfast. But if you’re starting from scratch, fry sausage or pancetta in a little oil; add dried tomatoes, garlic, and onion, then rice. Make the risotto. Finish with cheese, parsley or sage, lemon juice.