Vegan Brunch: The Perfect Menu for Gathering and Entertaining, with Minimal Work and Countless Vegan Breakfast Ideas and Recipes

As you know, I love entertaining at home, but I have to be honest, sometimes when I’m entertaining I feel so drained because of all the planning, shopping, prepping, cooking and cleaning that is required that I end up postponing the next event, because I already spend my entire week inside the kitchen and when the weekend comes, I feel the need to keep life as simple as possible. I am constantly having to navigate the two and it has taken me a few years to find a few delicious menus that both the vegans and non vegans in my life will love and get excited about, but that won’t leave me exhausted and instead, help me feel refilled and inspired to do it again. I have a few of these up my sleeve for lunches and dinners, and barbecues (where I prep and Carlos grills), and drinks and appetizers are always easy as well, but a vegan brunch, to me, is one of the easiest meals for vegan entertaining, yes, even when done in the morning, yes, even at a time of day in which you have less time to prep before people arrive.

Today, I’ll guide you through my favorite vegan recipes to impress and a vegan menu idea for breakfast and brunch and when to start making what, what vegan breakfast dishes or components you can make ahead of time, fun ways to plate and serve and of course, how to spend most of your time with your friends and family during this yummy meal, instead of hidden in the kitchen away from the fun conversation.

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My Favorite Vegan Brunch Menu and Breakfast Recipes for Entertaining

Breakfasts and brunches are some of my favorite vegan meals for non vegans and vegans a like, and I’ve also noticed through the years that it’s not only one of the meals that new vegans struggle with the most and need tips and recipes for, but it’s a meal everyone gets extremely excited over! It’s also why the first ever free vegan online course we created at Brownble was our free breakfast and brunch classics course which you can enrol in 100% for free and where you’ll find most if not all the recipes I’m mentioning today (or a close alternative).

This is what I usually serve when I’m having people over: 

Both vegan savory and sweet breakfast recipes as a main component: 

** Unless another link is provided for a variation, all recipes can be found in our free vegan breakfast and brunch course **

- Fluffy buttermilk pancakes (or blueberry pancakes - same recipe but with the addition of blueberries), topped with fresh berries, banana slices, chopped walnuts and maple syrup. You can also make our vegan and gluten free buckwheat pancakes here.

- Some kind of savory hash brown or potato dish: Sometimes it’s skillet hash browns, or oven hash browns, sometimes it’s vegan potato latkes, sometimes it’s spiralled potato using a spiralizar, I wrap the spirals in small “nests”, and get them cooked and crispy in the oven, then fill them with guacamole.

- Roasted or pan seared vegetables: Sound weird for breakfast? People in Scotland, England, Greece and in many other countries would disagree! Brunch gives you all sorts of permission for adding non-traditional sides to your menu. For these I usually sauté lots of cremini mushrooms (baby portobellos), and I roast lots of cherry tomatoes, still on the vine.

- A vegan protein source like vegan sausages, you can make our garlicky marsala homemade vegan breakfast sausage recipe here, or our chipotle sausages here, make our tempeh bacon, or you can serve some store bought vegan sausages or bacon style strips.

- Hot beverages: We usually make a big pot of coffee, we use a French press which is our favorite way of making coffee and either heat up non-dairy milk in each mug or warm it up in a pot and serve in a small pitcher at the table. This can also be hot cocoa, tea, matcha, or whichever warm beverage you enjoy.

- Cold beverages: You can serve a cocktail, a mocktail, juice, or juice mixed with seltzer if you love the bubbly action but don’t want to consume alcohol. This can be a classic, mimosa (a combination of orange juice and champagne), a Bellini (made with peach purée and Prosecco). You can also add grapefruit, orange or your favorite bitters to seltzer, and I love making my pink lemonade when I have guests over, it looks beautiful and you can make a super big batch and put it in a beautiful pitcher with some fun ice cubes where you previously freeze berries or citrus slices. Make sure to follow us on instagram because I gave you some cool ice ideas in a recent reel, and this week I’m teaching you how to make jumbo ice cubes for summer entertaining so that they keep your drinks colder at the table for longer during the hot summer months. The pink lemonade is also in one of our reels but just so you can easily remember it, I call it the rule of 3, that means 3 lemons, 3 strawberries, 3 cups of water, 3 tablespoons of maple syrup, you blend, and you can strain or not, and serve with ice.

 

What can you prep the day before your vegan brunch?

•  Sauté or roast your mushrooms the night before (I like creminis because they will stay firmer overnight and plump up again slightly when re-heating them the next day.
•  Roast your cherry tomatoes using the broiler setting of your oven and moving the oven rack higher to the top. Place them still on the vine for a more rustic and fun look, in an oven-proof pan, drizzle with a bit of olive oil or the oil of your choice, some salt and pepper, a splash of balsamic vinegar and broil at 435ºF (225ºC) for 20 minutes or until sizzling, golden in some areas, and the skins have popped.
•  If making hash browns or any kind of roasted potatoes, you can make these the day before as well, the ones that hold up best when making ahead of time are those where you cut the potatoes into cubes or wedges and roast, but you can also re-heat and re-crisp grated hash browns.
•  Especially when making our fluffy buttermilk vegan pancakes, DON’T mix your pancake batter ahead of time, but DO measure out all your dry mix ingredients and leave them ready to go in a bowl on your counter so that in the morning, all you have to do is add your liquid ingredients, mix and make your pancakes.
•  I like grilling up sausages or tempeh bacon right before serving but what you can do if making these from scratch is make large batches of our sausages and freeze them to always keep them handy, and simply thaw them before grilling. Or if making our tempeh bacon you can steam the tempeh strips the night before, as well as prepare your marinade, and simply fry them up the morning of.
•  Make your lemonade or gather your ingredients for drinks.
•  Set the table.
  
  

As you can see, everything will be pre-made or mostly pre-made the day before.

 

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Introducing a Natural, Vegan, Non-Toxic and Cruelty Free Alternative to doing Laundry

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What to do on the morning of your brunch?

 

•  Mix together your pancake batter and let it rest for 10 minutes.
•  Re-heat the mushrooms and tomatoes in one pan in the oven, and re-crisp the hash browns in a separate pan. Set the oven to 350ºF and pop everything in there, checking often to see that they’re re-sizzling and especially that the potatoes have re-crisped but aren’t burning.
•  Grill up sausages or fry your tempeh bacon, then keep them in the warm oven until ready to serve.
•  My biggest tip: if you love entertaining or just love making pancakes, get an electric griddle where you can make all your pancakes at once and at the table! We usually entertain in our terrace and so I take an extension chord outside, plug in my griddle and actually make my pancakes right in front of my guests. When they’re almost done I pull everything else out of the warm oven and I serve all the pancake toppings at the center of the table so people can top them with what they like.
•  I plate all the other components (veggies, sausages and hash browns) in one large serving platter, family style, and that way everyone can grab what they like.
•  I take my drinks out of the fridge and serve, and Carlos usually handles the coffees at this stage or you can enlist some help which usually just means warming up the milk.
  
  

 During most of this process, you’re right there, enjoying time with your guests, the oven and griddle are doing most of the work for you, people are getting excited by seeing the process of the pancakes being made, and you get to relax and enjoy the meal with friends and family. 

This is my go to vegan menu for a fun brunch with friends, but of course you could have waffles instead of pancakes, make our vegan banana bread or pumpkin bread and have that be the sweet component, make muffins ahead of time, serve delicious breads and preserves. Make the frittata or mini breakfast frittatas from our free course, our blueberry scones the night before. There are so many variations for brunch.

I hope this gave you inspiration and ideas so you can take away that feeling that entertaining at home is a huge hassle, and even more so, that as a vegan you can’t make delicious meals for non vegan friends and family that are so delicious and impressive that people won’t mind one bit that all the delicious grub is made from plants.