Easter Brunch: Plan a Menu That Doesn't Take All Morning

Easter brunch has a specific hazard: you invited people for an
11 am brunch, and from 9 am to 11 am you are frantically flipping
pancakes, toasting bread, frying bacon, and chopping fruit while
the guests arrive, pour mimosas, and eventually ask, "Can I help?"
while hovering awkwardly in the kitchen. By the time you sit
down, the food is cold and you are exhausted.

A good Easter brunch menu is designed around make-ahead
components. Sunday morning should be assembly and one or two hot
items, not eight parallel dishes.

See our related [Easter recipes](/recipes/holiday/easter) for
specific preparations.

## The 6-item menu

A brunch that feeds 8-10 people comfortably:

1. **A savory centerpiece** — baked French toast casserole, frittata,
quiche, or egg strata
2. **A protein** — glazed ham or bacon
3. **A starch** — hot cross buns or a batch of scones
4. **A fruit element** — fruit salad or roasted fruit
5. **A green element** — arugula salad or asparagus
6. **Mimosas + coffee**

Six items. That is enough. Stop adding. A 10-item brunch menu
guarantees you will not sit down.

## The make-ahead calendar

### Day -2 (Friday)

- Shopping for everything non-perishable and most perishables.
- Make the ham glaze (if going that route). Refrigerate.
- Proof hot cross buns / scone dough. Scones freeze beautifully
unbaked; form, freeze on a tray, bag, bake from frozen on
Sunday.
- Make fruit salad dressing (citrus + honey + mint).

### Day -1 (Saturday)

- Assemble the strata or overnight casserole. It actually NEEDS
overnight to hydrate; do not skip.
- Bread cubes, cheese, cooked sausage or veg, eggs and milk
whisked over the top. Cover, fridge.
- If doing quiche: make crust, blind bake, cool, wrap. Assemble
filling Sunday.
- Chop fruit (except banana and apple, which brown). Dress with
citrus juice, cover, fridge.
- Trim asparagus if using.
- Set the table.
- Pre-arrange the coffee station and set the coffee maker on
timer to auto-brew for 8 am.

### Day 0 (Sunday morning)

**7:30 am:** Oven preheats to 350 F. Put strata in, uncovered,
from the fridge. It takes 50-60 minutes.

**8:00 am:** Ham into a second oven if available (or rotate with
strata). Cover loosely with foil. 15 min per lb, so 8-lb spiral
ham = 2 hours. Glaze the last 15 min.

**8:30 am:** Scones from freezer onto a parchment-lined sheet
pan. Into oven for last 20 min alongside strata. They bake 2-3
min longer from frozen; aim for done at 9 am.

**9:00 am:** Strata out, rest (can sit 30 min on counter before
serving).

**9:15 am:** Asparagus on a sheet pan with olive oil and salt,
into 425 F oven for 12 min.

**9:30 am:** Fruit salad out to room temperature.

**9:45 am:** Mimosa station set up (champagne on ice, OJ pitcher,
grenadine for a pink variant, raspberries for garnish, non-
alcoholic option available).

**10:00 am:** Coffee on, second pot brewed. You are showered,
dressed, and drinking a coffee. Everything is done or staged.

**10:30 am:** Guests arrive. All food is hot or room temperature
as designed. You are at the door, not in the kitchen.

**11:00 am:** Sit down and eat.

## The three items that save the morning

### 1. Overnight strata or baked French toast

The single highest-leverage brunch dish. You assemble Saturday
night and it bakes itself Sunday morning while you do everything
else. One 9x13 pan feeds 8-10.

Sample strata recipe concept:
- 1 lb bread cubes (day-old)
- 1 lb breakfast sausage, cooked
- 2 cups grated cheddar
- 8 eggs
- 3 cups milk
- 1 tsp mustard, salt, pepper, herbs

Layer bread + sausage + cheese in a buttered 9x13, whisk eggs
and milk, pour over, cover, refrigerate overnight, bake 350 F
for 50 min.

### 2. Pre-cooked ham

A spiral-cut bone-in ham is already fully cooked when you buy
it. You are just warming and glazing. 2 hours unattended in the
oven. This is not cooking; it is heating.

### 3. Frozen scones

Form scone dough Friday, freeze on a tray, bag. Bake from frozen
Sunday. They rise better from frozen than from fresh refrigerated
dough (scone science: cold butter creates steam pockets on the
way up).

## Things to skip

- **Eggs Benedict.** Hollandaise requires live attention and
poached eggs need to be served immediately. Not a make-ahead
dish. Save it for a brunch for 2, not 10.
- **Pancakes cooked to order.** 40 minutes of active stove time
on a morning where you have no active stove time to spare.
- **Multiple breads.** One is enough. Guests do not need both
scones and hot cross buns and croissants. Pick one.
- **Complicated cocktails.** Set up mimosa self-service. Guests
pour their own. Do not be the bartender AND the cook.

## Mimosas as self-serve station

A mimosa bar handles itself.

- 2 bottles of Prosecco on ice in a bucket.
- 1 large pitcher of fresh OJ.
- 1 small pitcher of grapefruit juice (for variety).
- Champagne flutes or coupes.
- Garnishes: raspberries, mint sprigs.
- One non-alcoholic alternative: sparkling water + fruit juice +
herbs.

Label with a small card. Guests serve themselves. You do not
touch the bar station during the brunch.

## The vegetarian or pescatarian version

Same menu, swap the protein:

- Ham &rarr; smoked salmon platter (bagels, cream cheese, capers,
red onion, dill).
- Bacon &rarr; roasted mushrooms or a second frittata.

The strata becomes the vegetarian anchor; make it with mushrooms
or roasted vegetables instead of sausage.

## Kids at Easter brunch

A separate simple plate works:

- Toast soldiers with jam
- Fruit from the salad
- A plain scone
- Juice or milk

Do not try to adult-ify the kids' food. They eat what they eat;
save the energy.

## After brunch

Leftover strata freezes well in portions for 2 months. Leftover
ham is sandwiches for 3 days and ham + bean soup after that.
Leftover scones go stale by Tuesday; freeze Sunday night if you
will not eat them Monday.

Plan the follow-on meals now to avoid waste:

- **Sunday dinner:** Ham + leftover asparagus + potatoes (made
from scratch).
- **Monday lunch:** Ham sandwiches with leftover fruit.
- **Tuesday dinner:** Ham + bean soup using the bone for stock.

## The one rule for stress-free brunch

Everything you can do Saturday, do Saturday. Sunday morning
belongs to staging, heating, and answering the door. If you are
chopping anything before 8 am Sunday, you made a menu mistake.

An Easter brunch that works is one you actually enjoy hosting.
That requires not cooking during it. Make-ahead is the entire
game.