How to Create a Breakfast Charcuterie Board

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Nothing says “join me for breakfast” like an amazing breakfast charcuterie board. Sure when we think of charcuterie boards, we usually think of an appetizer board full of cheese, crackers, and meat, to be served in the evening, but a breakfast board is fun and practical for feeding a crowd.

You can make this as a breakfast brunch charcuterie board, or simply serve it at breakfast for your next family weekend at home. I made this board this week for my family’s Sunday morning breakfast – they were thrilled (and a bit surprised) to smell waffles and bacon and find a board piled high with their favorite breakfast foods.

Looking for more breakfast charcuterie board ideas? Check out some of our favorite morning board ideas.

Breakfast Charcuterie Board Shopping List

You can choose many different ingredients to go on your breakfast charcuterie board. Basically, anything you enjoy eating for breakfast can go on the board. The trickiest part will be getting the hot ingredients out when they are hot – you can read some suggestions below on how to make this happen.

Your breakfast charcuterie board should have some balance of sweet and savory – such as fruit and waffles to balance the bacon and sausage. You can also easily make your breakfast board vegetarian or vegan by substituting different ingredients.

Breakfast Charcuterie Board Ingredients

For our breakfast charcuterie board, we included the following items:

• Plain Bagels
• Blackberries
• Homemade Waffles
• Pancakes
• Maple Syrup
• Butter
• Jelly
• Bacon
• Sausage
• Hard Boiled Eggs
• Grapes

There are so many other fun breakfast charcuterie board ideas. You can consider some of the following substitutions or suggestions:

• Pastries or baked goods
• Fresh Fruit – watermelon, berries, apples, etc
• Eggs
• Granola and yogurt
• Donuts
• Cheese and meats
• Fresh Bread

Preparing Your Food for a Breakfast Charcuterie Board

Before setting out your breakfast items on a charcuterie board, you will want to prepare the food and come up with a plan to serve the items as hot as possible. Decide what items can be prepared cold in advance and then plan your other items to cook so they are just coming off the stove or out of the toaster in time to serve your board. Remember that some items can be kept warm in the oven at a low temperature such as pancakes. These are the preparation steps we took to keep the items warm.

1. Cup up all fruit, pour syrup, jelly, and butter into small containers ready to be put on your charcuterie board.
2. Hard boil eggs – these can be prepared and peeled in advance
3. Cook bacon in oven and prepare batters for waffles and pancakes, preheat waffle iron and pancake griddle
4. Begin cooking pancakes and waffles, put bagels in a toaster oven, and brown sausage
5. Keep everything warm and put on your charcuterie board quickly (this is the hardest part of putting out your board)

How to Create a Breakfast Charcuterie Board

Select your charcuterie boards. Since many breakfast items are large, you will need a medium to a large charcuterie board. I used two boards stacked on top of each other to give the board more interest and more space for all the items. Begin by laying out the core items such as the bowls of butter, syrup, and jelly. Next add the larger items like the waffles, pancakes and bagels, or you can begin layer items out around the bowls on the board.

Most charcuterie boards are laid out in one of 2 ways – you can either create a pattern of items or place the items randomly on the board. Either way, you should place the items so that they fully cover the board. I made rows of waffles and pancakes and placed the fruit and meats between the different items. Lastly, I laid down the blackberries and a few flowers to complete the board and fill in the spaces.

A few last thoughts on this breakfast charcuterie board – as a family of 5 (with 2 teenagers) we ate most of this food. If we were to add anything, it would probably be some more fruit and maybe a baked good or bread product (like banana bread).

The most challenging part of creating this charcuterie board, was keeping the different elements warm. Since I was trying to time the different foods and get my kids up at the same time, some of the food got a bit cold. I quickly threw some items in a warm oven and covered everything with a cloth until my family was ready to eat. It would also be very possible to do a breakfast charcuterie board without warm items by using more baked goods that can be served cold or at room temperature.

Finally – breakfast items take up a lot more room than other more traditional charcuterie board items – you may need to start boards, or use two separate charcuterie boards to contain all the food.

And that’s it! Below you can find the recipe for the charcuterie board – enjoy!

Breakfast Charcuterie Board Recipe

Looking for more charcuterie board inspiration? Check out:

• Granola, Yogurt and Fruit Breakfast Charcuterie Tray
• Bloody Mary Charcuterie Board
• Mother’s Day Breakfast Board

Follow along with me on Pinterest for more Charcuterie Board Ideas