I love serving food like this. Imagine this breakfast charcuterie board served up in the middle of the table with a bunch of your favourite ingredients. Making parts ahead of time makes this so easy to do.
While ‘charcuterie’ is technically a French term for cold meats, the term is now used just as often for grazing platters just like this.
If you’d like to serve up a savoury option as well, try this puff pastry breakfast tart and if you’re looking for a starter for Christmas try this Christmas tree charcuterie board.
Whether you want to call it a brunch board, breakfast platter or breakfast charcuterie, all that matters is that it’s a bunch of delicious ingredients all on one board served like a miniature breakfast buffet.
What to put on a breakfast or brunch charcuterie board
Great question. Traditional charcuterie would include a number of different cold meats, plus cheeses and jams. But for this sweet Easter breakfast version, I like to think outside the box. Try adding these to your breakfast platter;
- Base components: These are things like pancakes, muffins, scones or crumpets.
- Condiments: Add things you’d love to serve on each of the bases like butter, maple syrup, honey, jams.
- Toppings / Fillings: Add some cooked bacon or cheese to top or fill. If you want to create a true charcuterie board, add a few different cold meats.
- Fresh fruit: Use a number of different fruits so everyone can find something they love. Grapes and berries are easy but slices of orange or watermelon are also refreshing.
When choosing your base components, try to add things that are easy to make and / or can be made ahead of time. For this board, I used 3 of my favourites, all of which I made ahead of time.
- English Pancakes – reheating them in the oven right before serving is very simple
- Homemade Crumpets –these can be made ahead and frozen up to 2 months. Thaw the night before then toast right before serving.
- Chocolate crumpets – an even more decadent version of the classic.
- Hot Cross Buns – as per crumpets, you can freeze these, thaw the night prior, then toast before serving.
- Danishes – use my easy danish pastry and make these custard danish pastries ahead of time so you can just bake them on the morning.
Many breakfast treats can be frozen and thawed very successfully so you can make things weeks in advance. All you’ll need to do on the day is toast or reheat.
If you’re having a large gathering, be well prepared and have a couple of toasters on hand or the overhead grill / broiler preheated so you can toast everything up quickly
More breakfast platter ideas
The sky’s the limit with a breakfast platter like this. Decide first if you want to go mainly sweet or savoury, then choose your components.
- Pancakes: I’ve used my English pancakes here but you could try these fluffy pancakes or my chocolate pancakes (both can be frozen and reheated).
- Granola: add some granola and yoghurt – always a great combo. Try this easy maple granola or this chocolate granola too.
- Jams: I chose to make my blueberry compote – another great make ahead recipe. You could try this fresh cherry sauce, sauteed cinnamon apples or this gorgeous blood orange curd.
- Other condiments: Make sure to serve some butter or try this maple butter. Honey and maple syrup are wonderful with breakfast as are nut butters and choc hazelnut spread.
- Other meats: Prosciutto, sliced ham or a mild shaved salami are lovely. You could also fry up some sliced chorizo.
- Cheese: Try mild, creamy cheeses like gouda, Jarlsberg and brie or camembert.
- Eggs: Hard boiled eggs are super easy to make ahead and serve up sliced.
- Quiche: Bake a quiche or frittata the day before
- Fruits: Berries are always great and require minimal prep, but sliced melon, kiwifruit and oranges are also great since they add freshness.
- Other great ingredients: avocado, salmon, bagels, cinnamon rolls … the list goes on.
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Ingredients
- 1 batch homemade crumpets
- 1 batch English pancakes
- 1 batch cranberry white chocolate hot cross buns
- 1 batch blueberry compote
- 10 slices bacon
- Fresh berries
- Kiwi fruit
- Green grapes
- Butter
- Nutella
- Sugar
- Lemons
- Maple syrup
For best results, always weigh ingredients where a weight is provided
Instructions
- Make the crumpets and hot cross buns up to 2 months ahead and freeze until required. Thaw overnight.
- Make the pancakes 2 days ahead and keep the stack covered in the fridge until required.
- Make the blueberry compote 2 days ahead and keep in a sealed container in the fridge.
- On the day, preheat your overhead grill / broiler and have your toaster at the ready.
- Heat the pancakes in the oven until warmed through. Toast the crumpets and hot cross buns. Cook the bacon in a pan or under the overhead grill / broiler.
- While that’s all happening start laying out the condiments on the board.
- Add the base components as they are ready.
- Add the fresh fruit last, filling in all the gaps.
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2 Comments on “Easter Breakfast Charcuterie Board”
Absolutely beautiful idea. And smart too – I think everyone at least once had a situation when it was hard to choose among few things, right? As I mentioned in my comment on your Instagram post, some French toasts (hot cross buns) would be awesome as well as mini donuts, bagels, or scones. Or imagine a pancake plate that will offer 4-5 varieties from all over the world? So many delicious ways to customize this!
Thanks Ben. The beauty of this style of breakfast is that it is so customisable – you can include all your favourites and truly make it your own.