This easy breakfast board is a creative spin on a charcuterie board that works great for family breakfast, brunch, holidays or parties. Breakfast boards are also a great idea for making special days fun for kids. There are no shortage of ways to make them, themes to use or breakfast ingredients to add. This post will give you an easy template to make your own breakfast board.

What is a Charcuterie Board

A charcuterie board is typically a snack or grazing platter often used for appetizers. They consist of easy finger foods, typically in a variety of cheese, meat, bread, nuts or seeds, dips or crackers, and fruits and vegetables. The concept is originally French, which makes sense as of course France has no shortage of amazing meats and cheeses. The term charcuterie itself means “cooked meats” in French.

This easy breakfast board is a creative spin on a charcuterie board that works great for family breakfast, brunch, holidays or parties. Breakfast boards are also a great idea for making special days fun for kids. There are no shortage of ways to make them, themes to use or breakfast ingredients to add. This post will give you an easy template to make your own breakfast board. #breakfastboard #easybreakfastboard #breakfastideas #holidaybreakfast #breakfastcharcuterie — Use Pinterest Icon When Hovering Over This Image to Save This Post to Pinterest!

Why You’ll Love This Recipe Idea

In recent years, charcuterie boards and platters have really taken off in the United States at large parties, events or just small gatherings of friends. They are usually a huge crowd pleaser as they are both visually appealing, but also allow guests to grab their own assortment of foods to their preference.

This breakfast board concept is a fun idea you’ll love because it’s a great way to feed a crowd for something like a baby or bridal shower, Mother’s Day brunch, or just a different way to serve breakfast on the weekend with your family and kids. We enjoy doing a platter like this on Sunday mornings and we can sit around the table and chat, play games, just enjoy a slower breakfast with all of our favorite breakfast foods.

Another reason this breakfast board is great is that it really requires minimal cooking skills. Breakfast foods are either not hard to make, or already “ready” to eat, such as the fruits, bread, cheese and meats, so not much work needs to go into it. And, many things can be purchased pre-made if you choose, such as toaster waffles, pancakes, or sausage patties.

These are also ideal for tailoring to specific dietary requirements, as you can opt for gluten-free items like a gluten free pancake mix. It can be made added-sugar free using simple swaps and sugar-free bacon or sugar-free sausage, and grazing platters like these make it easy for folks who are dairy-free to leave off cheese off of their own plate!

Breakfast Board Theme Ideas:

Themed breakfast charcuterie boards are a fun and easy idea for holidays, special occasions or family and friend parties. There are no shortage of breakfast board themes you can use this recipe outline for, and it’s as great for kids as it is for adults!

Some creative breakfast board themes could be:

Mother’s Day, Grandparent’s Day and Father’s Day
Kid’s sleepover or birthday breakfast
Special calendar days like pie day (3.14), May Day, last day of school or first day of summer, Earth Day, National Donut/Waffle/Pancake Day
Color themed (red food items, blue, yellow, etc.)
Other holidays such as Halloween, Flag Day (red, white and blue foods), Easter, St. Patrick’s Day

For holidays, parties or themes for kids, you can also consider getting toothpicks related to the theme to put into the food on the board and let them use those to grab their items. There are a ton of cute appetizer toothpick options, such as this Halloween variety pack, baby shower, Easter pack with bunnies and eggs, St. Patrick’s Day, first day of summer or summer birthday, snow day, Thanksgiving; so many cute options!

Pro Tips:

You don’t need a special board to make these. You can simply use any large platter you have. We most often use our largest wood cutting board. It works great, and will lessen your clean up being you can prep your ingredients on the same board you’ll use to arrange and serve.

You can use a variety of foods so that people can be creative on their own with how they want to eat. You could include bagels, mini pancakes, sausage patties and cheeses so some people could make their own bagel breakfast sandwich or McGriddle style breakfast sandwich while others eat the components separate.

Use a variety of dips or spreads, such as Nutella or peanut butter for bread or fruit, syrup for pancakes or waffles, a fruit dip, or cream cheese for bagels.

To make it more visually appealing, try to first organize one of the different components along the board in a wavy line. This line pattern catches the eye and draws it upwards to take in the whole of the breakfast board. Then you can fill in the board with the rest of the times around that, spreading them so that one type of food is not right next to the same type.

Aim to use the 333 method. This isn’t always required, and of course it’s best to use what you have on hand first to keep it affordable. That said, the standard rule of thumb for a charcuterie board is to use 3 cheeses, 3 bread or cracker varieties, 3 types of meats and 3 supplementary items. Those can be things like fruits, nuts and spreads.

Alternatives and Substitutions

This recipe is really just a loose guide, so you should feel free to add the things you prefer or that you already have in your kitchen to your own breakfast board. Scale it up or down to fit the needs of your family, party, or gathering. Some alternative options include:

Other Proteins: sausage patties or links, sliced fried kielbasa, smoked salmon, cheesy scrambled eggs, fried eggs, bacon, ham or turkey sausage/bacon. You can add different cured or deli meats, such as prosciutto or salami.
Fruits: Any fruit would work great. You could add banana halves with the peel still on to keep them fresh, orange slices, melon, raspberries, blueberries, kiwi, dates, or pineapple.
Vegetables: Veggies that may be complementary could include sliced or speared cucumber, tomato slices, roasted potatoes, hash browns, or fried breakfast potatoes with bell pepper.
Cheese: Like fruit, any cheese you prefer can fit into your breakfast board. If you were going to bagel, croissant or pancake sandwiches, a sliced cheese option such as cheddar can be used, or soft cheese like cream cheese, brie, or goat cheese.
Breads: For a breakfast board, you could use croissants, bagels, waffles and muffins like pictured and included here, or opt for pancakes, crepes, sourdough, cinnamon rolls, english muffins or biscuits, french toast, brioche or ciabatta rolls.
Supplementary Items: These are anything complementary to what you’re serving. You can add in things like capers if you’re serving smoked salmon and bagels, for example. Other additions or alternatives than included here could be any flavor jams, butter, nut or seed butter (peanut butter, sunflower butter), powdered sugar, syrup, walnuts, chocolate chips, granola, honey, or yogurt.

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