Breakfast Charcuterie Board

This breakfast charcuterie board will guide you in making a beautiful and delicious board everyone will love!

Filled with some of our favorite ways to start the day, this is perfect for a weekend brunch with friends or an intimate breakfast for just the two of you!

If you love charcuterie, too, you’ll want to check out my tutorial on how to make an easy charcuterie board, DIY charcuterie cones, and or Brie charcuterie board.

Why We Love this Breakfast Charcuterie Board

My husband and I are empty nesters now and traditional charcuterie boards are just so easy and much less expensive than going out. We always have most of the ingredients on hand, too.

They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and this breakfast charcuterie board is super easy to make.

I put this board together last Sunday and we had such a nice brunch at home. The best thing is there is no cooking for this breakfast spread!

For company, it literally takes 10-15 minutes to pull this together. Break open a bottle of bubbly to go with it for a really special brunch!

I can’t wait to make this on Christmas morning when our daughters visit!

What You Need to Make It

For this breakfast board, we wanted to do a brunch theme with ingredients that would go with sparkling wine.

Breakfast board with a bottle of wine and glasses.

Key Ingredients

Smoked salmon and the accoutrements like cream cheese, hard-boiled eggs, capers, and onions.

Bagels – we chose the mini bagels and I may never buy the regular bagels again!

Fresh veggies – sliced cucumber, olives

Fresh fruit – cantaloupe and grapefruit

Scroll down to the recipe card for all the ingredients we used for this board.

Make sure to reference my list of must try condiments for a charcuterie board when adding to your board!

Recommended Tools

To make your board pretty, you really need a nice wooden board. We have 4 different boards and I love collecting them!

Smaller boards are great when it’s just the two of you, or your board is just an appetizer before dinner and not a meal.

A large board that has a spot for knives is helpful. The board needs to be big enough to fit all your favorite breakfast items.

You can sometimes get lucky and find a beautiful board at your local thrift store. I’m always on the hunt for them.

I love glass jars for spreads and syrups and these come with spoons. We use them all the time for fig spread and honey.

You can just stick them in the fridge for next time if you don’t finish the contents. You could also use small bowls.

How to Make This Breakfast Board

I take the time to plan out my boards. I have several books about plating charcuterie and I get ideas from them all the time.

My current favorites are That Cheese Plate Will Change Your Life, Around the Board, and Graze, a gorgeous book with recipes for dips and other starters.

For this breakfast board, I started with sliced cucumber. I used mini Persian cucumbers as they are smaller and more crunchy. I added the whipped cream cheese next to the cucumbers.

Cucumber and cream cheese on a wood board.

Build your board around each item you place. I decided to add cantaloupe and olives next.

As the mini bagels are a larger item, I put them in the corner and placed the sliced egg next to them. An egg slicer is nice to have because it cuts the egg perfectly.

Bagels, egg, cucumber, cream cheese, olives, and cantaloupe on a wood board.

On the other side of the board, start with rolled smoked salmon, layering it as shown. Place lemon pieces around the salmon. It’s important to try to group items for how they will be eaten.

Fit the bowl of chopped red onion in with the lemons. Go ahead and find a good spot in the middle of the board for the Brie.

Place grapefruit slices in between the cantaloupe and bowl of onions.

Salmon, lemons, onion, crackers, cheese, and fruit on a wood board.

At this point, just fill in with ingredients as shown below. I placed a bowl of capers next to the eggs.

The figs and crackers were paired with the brie, so I placed them close to it. Any other empty spaces should be filled in with extra nuts or figs or other items.

Serve and enjoy!

Breakfast charcuterie board with sparkling wine in background.

Variations

The beauty of a breakfast charcuterie board is that you can fill it with your favorite breakfast foods. Whether you love waffles, overnight oats, or yogurt fruit parfaits, you do you!

We love these mini baked oatmeal cups, and they are so simple to make and super healthy. A fancy board is a wonderful way to get the kids to eat healthier!

Mini pancakes, mini cinnamon rolls, crispy bacon, and fruit would be perfect for the kids, too. Add a jar of maple syrup and a small bowl of peanut butter.

If you were making this for a special occasion like a baby shower, you could add wrapped pink or blue Starburst candies to the board to make it festive for the party or make pink or blue chocolate dipped strawberries.

Though I love making big boards, you can also make a small snack board with nuts, dried fruit, and cheeses. It doesn’t have to be elaborate. Simple cheese boards are fun, too!

Think how nice this board would be for special occasions like Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, a birthday party, or any celebration!

Come up with your own breakfast charcuterie board ideas and let me know what you create!

Frequently Asked Questions

Do people eat charcuterie boards for breakfast?

They do! If you’ve ever been to Europe, you’d see meats and cheeses served for breakfast, and always on a buffet.

What do you put on a brunch charcuterie board?

As brunch is a combination of breakfast and lunch, I would add some of both. This way those people who feel like breakfast can choose those foods, but lunch-type options (like meats and cheeses) are also available. We love this breakfast board because it fits both breakfast and lunch.

Can a charcuterie board be a meal?

A charcuterie board can absolutely be a meal as long as there is enough food for everyone. We make boards all the time and eat them for a meal.

Top Tips

If you’re serving hot foods, you will want to put them in a crock or other dish with a lid to keep them warm. Honestly, foods that can be served at room temperature are the easiest way to avoid having to keep things warm.

You could add one or two hot items on a large breakfast platter. Choose items like sausage links, mini waffles, fluffy pancakes, or French toast cut into quarters and layered. Serving it when it’s piping hot is key.

You can also keep hot things hot in the oven and replace them as they get cold.

When entertaining, we often have baggies full of the ingredients put aside so I can replenish them when things run out.

Great options for a brunch charcuterie board are breakfast favorites like mini donuts, mini bagels, or mini muffins along with fruit and yogurt. Small bowls of granola are a crowd favorite, too.

A great way to fill in empty spaces on your breakfast charcuterie board is to add nuts, fresh fruit, dried fruit, and fresh herbs – which also add pops of color.

I find it helpful to use sticky notes when planning my boards. For instance, the Everything Bagel seasoning from my bagels got all over the board and I had to keep wiping up the seeds and onions. It’s better to mark your spots first so you don’t have to move things around.

If you love these breakfast charcuterie board ideas, we’d so appreciate it if you could give it a 5-star rating! Thank you!