Make Ahead Christmas Brunch Menu (Best Recipes)
Make ahead Christmas brunch recipes are the easy and simple recipes you need for your Christmas morning breakfast. It’s a great way to celebrate the holiday morning!
It’s Christmas morning, you’ve opened the presents, and your people are hangry, hyped up on sugar, and in need of a hearty breakfast before the big meal at the end of the day.
This post will walk you through every part of the holiday breakfast, and how you can make it ahead of time.
If you’re looking for a delicious make-ahead breakfast casserole idea and other easy make-ahead breakfast recipes, this post is for YOU!
This post is filled with delicious Christmas brunch recipes that my family loves, and we have year after year.
The best part? You’ll get to enjoy the morning! If you put in a little work leading up to the big day, your holiday season will feel so much easier and celebrated.
Let’s get started!
Make Ahead Christmas Brunch
First, let’s chat about the menu for your Christmas Day Brunch.
You’ll need something with eggs, like a casserole or quiche of some sort. You also might want some grits, like in our family’s brunch menu!
Choose a sweet item like cinnamon rolls, or bread pudding if you’re feeling extra decadent.
Then, choose a fresh food like a big fruit salad, like this Fancy Fruit Salad, or fresh fruit like grapefruit.
To round out the whole meal you might want a bread product of sorts like a toast, bagels, biscuits, or an English muffin.
Choose recipes the whole family will love, but that are easy recipes for you to make.
When you’re choosing your menu, here are some thoughts to keep in mind:
Choose recipes that bake in the oven at the same temperature. This is helpful if you only have one oven!
Opt for recipes that can be served at room temperature.
And, see if you can use your slow cooker for any of the recipes to save your oven and stove space!
Make-Ahead Christmas Breakfast Casserole Recipes
Let’s chat about the hearty casseroles you can put together on Christmas Eve, and pop into the oven the next morning.
These are the savory options!
Schoolhouse Breakfast Casserole — this is my family’s Christmas morning casserole we’ve had for the last 30 years. Schoolhouse Breakfast Casserole is from a little bed and breakfast my parents stayed in Rocheport, Missouri for my aunt’s wedding decades ago. My grandmother loved the breakfast casserole so much that she wrote the recipe down on a brochure! We’ve been eating it ever since.
It’s a mix of any breakfast meat you have on hand, ham, bacon, or sausage. Then, you’ll mix in green onions, some mushroom soup, and lots of cheese. You scramble the eggs with everything, before pouring them into a casserole dish to bake with breadcrumbs on top. The best part is you can make the casserole the evening before, store it in the fridge and then bake it on Christmas morning.
Talk about an easy breakfast!
Next, you could make up a sheet pan of Spinach Pie. Is a meat-free egg casserole option filled with eggs, cheese, cottage cheese, and spinach.
Ham and Cheese Breakfast Casserole is the perfect way to mix all the ingredients, pour them into the baking dish, and cook the next day.
Sweet Breakfast Casserole Recipe Options
Instead of flipping individual slices of your favorite French toast recipe, I’ve found a make-ahead option for you!
Pumpkin French Toast Casserole is a fantastic way to celebrate any of the special occasions you need a yummy, sweet breakfast. The streusel topping is amazing!! It’s brown sugar, pecans, butter…
What better way to enjoy Christmas morning than with a cup of coffee and a piece of this casserole?! Yum. The drizzle of maple syrup adds the extra kick of sweetness you need for the most wonderful time of the year!
Let’s take ordinary Canned Cinnamon Rolls and make them EXTRAordinary! You’ve seen the viral hack for adding whipping cream over your canned cinnamon rolls, but turn this store-bought favorite into a delicious sweet roll.
People will think you went to your favorite bakery for this sweet baked goods option for your menu! They’ll remind you of the sticky buns you’ve had multiple places, and will round out your delicious breakfast!
This recipe isn’t a breakfast casserole, but it is a sweet treat that you can make ahead! These adorable Candy Cane Danishes have sweet cream cheese and cherry filling, braided inside puff pastry. Just delicious!
Other Make-Ahead Recipes
If you live in the South, you’ve got to have a big pile of biscuits on your table. My favorite Homemade Biscuits walk you through how to make the biscuits, freeze them, and then bake them when you need them. For this option, you could make up the biscuits at the beginning of December, then bake them on the 25th. How’s that for making ahead?!
Snoop Dogg’s Billionaire’s Bacon is just the good food you need! It’s a sweet and spicy topping you add to your bacon slices as they cook, and it’s one of the most delicious Christmas breakfast ideas you’ll ever have! If you like smoky bacon with a little bit of sweet and spicy seasoning, this recipe will quickly become your favorite!
English Cherry Scones are the not-too-sweet bread option you can make a week ahead of time, then bake when you’re ready! Plus, if you use red and green cherries, you’ll be right on a festive theme!
Best Christmas Brunch Ideas
Ready for a couple of curated menus for you? I’ve got three menus with the perfect balance of savory recipes with the perfect addition of sweet treats.
Personally, the menu my grandmother made for us growing up has changed, since I’m making it now. When I was young, my family would open presents at our house, then scoot up the mountain to my grandparents where they had Christmas brunch waiting for us. Since they didn’t have people in their home, Toni (my darling grandmother!) had the peaceful pleasure of cooking in her kitchen uninterrupted.
But, now that we do the brunch at our house, and it’s all in one place, all day long… I like to make one thing, and assemble the rest!
I’ll make the Schoolhouse Breakfast casserole on Christmas Eve, and pick up donuts from the store. I like to make the grits fresh, and that gives me a little time to create the perfect addition to all the make-ahead-assembled-ahead recipes.
Menu One: Sweetpea’s Christmas Brunch
Schoolhouse Breakfast Casserole
Goat Cheese Grits
Store-Bought Doughnuts
Fancy Fruit Salad
Here’s the Game Plan for this menu:
Purchase store-bought doughnuts on the 24th, and make your Schoolhouse Breakfast Casserole. You can cut up all the fruit for your salad, and keep it in an airtight container.
On Christmas morning, remove the casserole from the fridge, and let it sit on the counter while you do other festive things.
Make your grits while the casserole bakes in the oven.
Assemble the fruit salad, and lay out the donuts on a big platter.
Menu Two: Big Breakfast
Ham and Cheese Breakfast Casserole
Zhuzhed-Up Cinnamon Rolls
Homemade Biscuits
With this menu, you can mix everything up! Here’s your Game Plan (working backward from the 25th!)
On the 20th, (or even at the beginning of the month!) mix up the biscuits, cut them out, and freeze them on parchment paper. Once they’re frozen, pop them into a freezer-safe bag and save them to bake until the 25th.
For the hashbrown casserole, you can mix this up and keep it in the fridge from the 23rd to the 25th. Leave the crunchy topping off, and add it the morning of the 25th.
On the 24th, in the afternoon or late that night (not like you have anything else to do!), make the Ham and Cheese Breakfast Casserole. Cover well, and keep in the fridge until the morning.
For the cinnamon rolls, you can make them up that morning, or the night before too.
On the morning of the 25th, remove all the casseroles and items to be baked from the fridge first thing. Let them sit on the counter while you do other things so the chill comes off.
Then, when you’re ready to bake just pop all the recipes into your oven. The biscuits do not bake at the same temperature. You have two options for this. You can bake your biscuits first, or save them to bake AFTER the other items have cooked, and then just tack on an extra 20 minutes before digging in. Both the egg casserole and the hashbrown casserole can definitely rest for 20 minutes, and be just lovely for your Christmas party!
Menu Three: EVERYTHING Menu
Schoolhouse Breakfast Casserole
Pumpkin French Toast Casserole
Goat Cheese Grits
Snoop Dogg’s Billionaire’s Bacon
Candy Cane Cherry Danishes
For this menu, you’ll want to make the danishes and bacon on the 23rd. Giving yourself the headspace to make the breakfast casserole and french toast casserole on the 24th.
On the morning of the 25th, remove everything from the fridge and let it sit out on the counter to remove the chill.
Make the grits while your casseroles bake.
Layout the bacon and danishes on a platter, and serve!
In conclusion, your Christmas breakfast will be spectacular and amazing, whatever you decide to do! Just remember, that while the food is important, it’s the people you are sharing it with that’s most important! Your dinner table will be filled with the best things, the best recipes, and you’ll enjoy it more if you focus on the people and the memories being made!
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