Easter Breakfast Ideas for a Family Table (Plus an Easter Brunch Menu)

The best Easter breakfast ideas are the ones a whole family can share from the middle of the table: a basket of warm croissants, a tray of pull-apart cinnamon rolls, soft-boiled eggs with strips of baguette for dipping, a spring frittata and a bowl of fruit. Bake the pastries from frozen at 425°F for 5 to 7 minutes, cook the frittata on the stove ahead of time, and the oven never becomes the bottleneck. Everything below is planned for one oven and a table of 6 to 12.

Below: 12 Easter breakfast ideas sorted by how they cook, an Easter brunch menu for 8 with quantities, what to prepare ahead, a simple oven order for Easter morning, a few ideas for kids, and answers to the questions hosts ask most.

What to serve for Easter breakfast

An Easter breakfast is not a plated meal. People drift in after church, after the egg hunt, after the drive. A shared spread works better than a stack of pancakes that only stay hot for the first three guests. A good spread has four parts: something warm from the oven, an egg dish, something savory and something fresh. Pick two or three ideas from each group and you are done.

From the oven: the sweet center of the table

• A tray of cinnamon rolls. Once they are warm, set them side by side on a board and let everyone pull them apart. Our cinnamon rolls are rolled with ground cinnamon and brown sugar, finished with a simple glaze, and go from the freezer to a 425°F oven for 5 to 7 minutes.
• A croissant basket. Mix plain and filled: butter croissants for the purists, chocolate croissants (two batons of dark chocolate folded into the layers), and almond croissants filled with almond cream and topped with sliced almonds. Line the basket with a clean kitchen towel and fold it over the top: the croissants stay warm and the crust stays crisp. You can see them side by side in our frozen croissants collection.
• A croissant loaf toast board. Wide slices of croissant dough baked as a loaf, toasted straight from the freezer in 90 to 120 seconds. Cut each slice in half and stack them on a board next to butter and jam.

Eggs: the Easter part of Easter breakfast

• Soft-boiled eggs with baguette soldiers. Lower the eggs into boiling water, cook about 6 to 7 minutes for a runny yolk, then cool them for a minute under cold water. Serve them in egg cups with thin strips of crusty, buttered baguette for dipping. In France these strips are called mouillettes. FoodSafety.gov recommends cooking them until the yolk and white are firm, so for young children, or anyone who follows that guideline, leave them in a few minutes longer, until the yolk is set.
• Deviled eggs from a fresh batch. Hard-cook a dozen eggs the day before (about 10 to 12 minutes after the water returns to a boil), halve them and fill them on Easter morning. Keep the ones that went out for the hunt for decoration: cook a separate batch to eat.
• A spring frittata. Whisk 10 eggs with 1/2 cup milk, salt and pepper. Soften asparagus, peas and a handful of herbs in butter in a 10-inch oven-safe skillet, pour in the mixture, cook over low heat until the edges set, then finish under the broiler for 2 to 3 minutes, until the center is set (FoodSafety.gov gives 160°F for egg dishes such as a frittata). A frittata is just as good at room temperature, which is why it suits a buffet where people serve themselves. It should not stay out of the fridge more than 2 hours in total, the limit FoodSafety.gov sets for perishable food.

Savory breads for people who skip sweets

• Radish and butter tartines. A spring classic on French tables: thin slices of crusty bread, a thick layer of salted butter, sliced radishes and a pinch of flaky salt. Use a sourdough loaf or a baguette.
• Cheese and pesto ficelle. A thin baguette filled with mozzarella and other cheeses, with basil pesto swirled through the crumb. Sliced into rounds, it is green, fragrant and easy to grab with one hand. Our Cheese & Pesto Ficelle comes two to a pack and bakes from frozen at 450°F for 6 to 10 minutes, directly on the rack.
• Ham on split croissants. If ham is on the Easter dinner menu, a few slices on a split butter croissant with a little mustard make the easiest breakfast of the next morning.

Something fresh

• A yogurt "nest" bar. A bowl of thick yogurt, granola shaped into little nests in each cup, berries and a drizzle of honey. Kids build their own.
• Spring fruit. Strawberries, kiwi, citrus segments and grapes on a platter. It needs no cooking and balances the butter on the rest of the table.
• Jam and butter, set out early. A jar of our wild blackberry jam, 55% fruit, and a dish of good salted butter. Set them out before anything else, so the bread has somewhere to go the moment it comes out.

Cinnamon rolls for the middle of the table

Rolled with cinnamon and brown sugar, finished with a simple glaze. From the freezer to a 425°F oven in 5 to 7 minutes. One of the 4 to 12 packs in your box, boxes from $89.

See the cinnamon rolls

An Easter brunch menu for 8

This Easter brunch menu feeds 8 people with a mix of sweet and savory, and keeps every dish on a different heat source. With an egg dish and fruit, most guests eat one or two pastries, so we plan on about 1.5 per person. Our holiday brunch menu works on the same oven plan.

For 4 people, halve the pastries and keep one ficelle in the freezer for next weekend. For 12, add a third pack of cinnamon rolls, two packs of almond croissants (2 per pack) and a sourdough loaf for toast and tartines (12 slices, per its label). Sourdough bakes at 430°F for 16 to 23 minutes and needs at least 20 minutes of rest before slicing, so it goes in first.

What can you make ahead for Easter breakfast?

Almost everything that is not a pastry. Pastries are best the moment they come out of the oven, which is why it pays to keep them frozen until the last minute. Here is how to split the work.

The day before

1. Hard-cook the eggs for deviling, cool them and keep them in the fridge in their shells.
2. Make the frittata, let it cool, cover it and refrigerate. Take it out 30 minutes before serving, and return what is left to the fridge within 2 hours.
3. Wash and cut the fruit, except bananas and apples, which brown.
4. Set the table: egg cups, a towel-lined basket for the croissants, a board for the bread, small spoons for the jam.
5. Check the freezer: croissants, cinnamon rolls and breads stay frozen until they go into the oven. Nothing needs to thaw.

Easter morning

1. Fill the deviled eggs and set out the frittata, fruit, yogurt, butter and jam.
2. Preheat the oven and follow the oven order below.
3. While the pastries bake, boil water for the soft-boiled ones and cut the baguette into soldiers.

The oven order on Easter morning

Breads and pastries do not bake at the same temperature, so the rule is simple: the longest bake goes first, the pastries go last, and the resting time of each bread covers the next bake. Every time below comes from the instructions on each product page.

1. Sourdough loaf, if you have one: 430°F, straight from the freezer, packaging off, directly on the middle rack with no baking sheet, 16 to 23 minutes. Rest at least 20 minutes before slicing.
2. Ficelle or half baguettes: raise the oven to 450°F. Bake directly on the middle rack for 6 to 10 minutes, then rest 5 to 10 minutes. Baker's tip: run a little water over the back of the frozen bread before it goes in, for a crisp crust that does not get too hard.
3. Croissants and cinnamon rolls: turn the oven down to 425°F and wait until it reads 425°F. Place them frozen on a baking sheet on the middle rack and bake 5 to 7 minutes, until warmed through and crisp. Let them cool at least 5 minutes before serving.
4. Croissant loaf: in the toaster, from frozen, 90 to 120 seconds. Watch the slices: their crumb browns quickly.

Croissants need room to puff. If they do not fit on one sheet with space between them, bake two rounds of 5 to 7 minutes and keep the second round in the freezer until the first basket is empty. That is also the easiest way to serve latecomers warm pastries. You will find the full baking method for each product, and how our frozen breads work, on how it works.

Easter breakfast ideas for kids

• Bunny toast. Toast croissant loaf slices, let them cool for a minute, then press a bunny-shaped cookie cutter into each one. Spread with jam or a little hazelnut spread. Save the trimmings for the adults.
• The cinnamon roll unroll. Let kids unroll a warm cinnamon roll and eat it ribbon by ribbon. Messy, and the part they remember.
• An egg cup hunt. Hide a few plastic eggs with a note inside that says "chocolate croissant" or "cinnamon roll". Whoever finds one picks first from the basket.
• Yogurt nests. A spoon of yogurt, a ring of granola and three berries as "eggs". Kids can make them while the croissants bake.

Easter breakfast for family who cannot come

Not everyone makes it home for Easter. Our breads and pastries ship frozen, so a box can wait in someone else's freezer for up to 6 months in its closed packaging, ready for their own Easter morning. Our bakery gift boxes let you pick the packs yourself, and a bakery gift card lets them choose, delivered by email on the date you pick. We deliver to the Eastern US: check their zip code on the site first.

Shop the bakery

Croissants for the basketButter, chocolate and almond. Bake from frozen at 425°F for 5 to 7 minutes.Shop frozen croissants →Croissant loaf for bunny toastWide slices that toast straight from the freezer in 90 to 120 seconds.See the croissant loaf →Easter for family far awayBakery gift boxes and a $120 gift card for the Eastern US.See bakery gifts →

Easter breakfast questions

What is a traditional Easter breakfast?

There is no single menu. Most families combine eggs, often from the batch dyed on Saturday, something salty like ham or bacon, and something sweet from the oven: cinnamon rolls, a sweet bread, pastries. A French-style Easter breakfast leans on the bread basket: croissants, a crusty baguette, butter and jam.

How do I keep croissants warm on a brunch buffet?

Serve them in a basket lined with a kitchen towel folded over the top, and bake in small rounds instead of all at once. Holding croissants in a warm oven for a long time dries them out; a fresh round of 5 to 7 minutes from frozen is better than a tired first batch.

How many pastries per person for Easter brunch?

With deviled eggs, a frittata and fruit on the buffet, plan about 1.5 pastries per person: one plain or chocolate croissant and half of a cinnamon roll or an almond croissant. If pastries are the whole meal, plan two per person.

What is an easy Easter breakfast for a crowd?

Pastries baked from frozen, a frittata made the night before and a big platter of fruit. On the morning itself, the oven work comes down to short bakes of 5 to 10 minutes, and everything else can be set out before the first guest arrives. That is what makes it an easy Easter breakfast.