To improve the taste, follow these simple steps:
- Spoon up a heaping teaspoonful of sugar.
- Dump the remaining contents of the sugar bowl into the cereal.
- Pour the spoonful back into the sugar bowl.
- Enjoy.
Brown sugar and/or honey, people. And butter and milk. That’s what goes in hot cereal. I put cinnamon in as well. Sometimes I grate an apple and put that in when I cook hot cereal, sometimes I slice up a banana, sometimes I put in berries (frozen berries will work beautifully), sometimes I put in prunes. It’s a little heavy on the carbs, but most of them are good carbs, and will digest slowly. I don’t think that I could face Cream of Wheat or any other hot cereal with chocolate chips in it. I like chocolate chips, but I like them in COOKIES. Not in cereal, not in muffins, and not in waffles. Chocolate chips belong in COOKIES, or mint ice cream, or should be eaten out of hand.
Take one serving of Cheerios (or generic equivalent). Pour a quarter cup of frozen blueberries on it. Then pour milk over it all. The milk will thaw the berries enough that they can be eaten, and blueberries and oat cereal play nicely together.
I have tried and tried and tried to like yogurt. I know it’s good for me, I know that some of it’s lowfat/nonfat, but I HATE it, all of it, except TCBY, which is sort of defeating the purpose of eating yogurt. Yogurt tastes like milk that’s been left in a warm place so long that it’s become rotten. Oh, wait…
I make steel-cut oats with raisins and garam masala.
At the Indian grocery I found a pre-packaged upma, which is basically semolina seasoned with green chilis, lemon juice, mustard seeds, curry leaves, and ginger.
I’m on the WeightWatchers diet, so I can’t remember exact calorie counts (WW uses a formula which figures calories, grams of fat, and up to 4 grams of fiber), so I tend to do the math once, then just memorize the resulting point value or write it down for future reference.
My breakfasts have included boiled eggs (one or two, for 2 points each), bananas or apples (2 or 1 points each, respectively), and sometimes toast (goes well with a pan-fried egg, I fry the egg (lightly seasoned with a bit of salt, “Italian Spice”, or whatever you like on your eggs) so the yolk still has some liquid to it, then serve on wheat toast as a sandwich (comes out to about 4 or 5 points, depending on the bread).
I’ve also been known to drink one of those pre-bottled breakfast drinks (one brand I like is the “Boost” drinks). They’re relatively filling, and convenient, but pricy compared to real food. Whatever I eat for breakfast, I usually have a piece of fruit as a mid-morning snack when the pre-lunch-munchies start to kick in.
I eat lots of fiber whenever I can, and lately I’ve fallen in love with a new (to me) cereal, the Fiber One frosted mini-wheat cereal. I usually eat them with vanilla soy milk (I don’t mind real milk, I mostly use it for cooking, I just like the taste of vanilla soy milk)
EDIT: Oh, and when I make Malt-o-Meal, I season it with brown sugar and honey. Sometimes, depending on my mood, I’ll instead enjoy my brown sugar and honey with a bit of Malt-O-Meal for texture. 
Wait… you*** hate*** Cream of Wheat, but you’re going out of your way to buy it, getting up early enough to boil water, cook it up, and eat it?
Why?
Why not just pick a different cereal? There are a lot of whole grain cereals out there: Shredded Wheat, Grape Nuts, Red River, Uncle Sam, and my favorite:
Wheatabix!
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm… nutty, tasty, great with fruit, and can keep me filled up until I remember to eat something mid-day (sometimes it’s too late to call that “lunch”).
But a guy at Trader Joe’s said they were going to stop carrying it-- gotta stock up, and someday go to a “real” store (too far to bike to). Oh, well.
But my point:
Life’s too short to hate your breakfast.
I like Weetabix for breakfast, too. With sliced banana and skim milk. (I use Over the Moon or Skim Plus, so it doesn’t taste like ass.) It’s pretty solid and will usually hold me until lunchtime.