Easy Ways To Make An Amazing Mother's Day Brunch

Easy Ways To Make An Amazing Mother's Day Brunch

These unfussy recipes -- for a crustless quiche, a dazzling fruit salad, an a.m.-appropriate cobbler and more -- take about as long to prep as it takes for a pot of coffee to brew.

By Lynn Andriani

1. The Fruit Salad to End All Fruit Salads
Ryan Szulc
Fruit salads can be boring, but not this one from the new cookbook Grain Power. It has three parts (fruit, crunch, dressing), so you get a variety of textures and color. You can use whatever fruit you'd like, from kiwis to strawberries to canned pineapple to berries. Cooked quinoa adds a fantastic nutty element, and the dressing is a simple combination of the juice from the pineapple can, and that of a lime.

Get the recipe: Toasted Coconut Fruit Salad with Quinoa and Pineapple-Lime Dressing
2. The Breakfast Cobbler
Clare Barboza
If the idea of peach pie for breakfast speaks to you, you'll love this morning spin from Megan Gordon's book Whole-Grain Mornings. Its filling is sweet peaches covered with mounds of biscuit dough that's been seasoned with fresh thyme. The best part: You don't have to peel the peaches, and you can mix the dry ingredients for the biscuits the night before. In the morning, just combine the dry with the wet ingredients and slice the peaches; by the time you've finished your first cup of coffee, it's ready to pull from the oven.

Get the recipe: Peach Breakfast Cobbler with Cornmeal-Thyme Biscuits
3. Quiche Sans Crust
Ron Manville
You don't have to worry about rolling out dough and dealing with cracks, breaks or a not-quite-right texture with this recipe. A mixture of shredded zucchini, eggs, chopped onions, baking mix (like Bisquick) and shredded Cheddar form the crust on their own.

Get the recipe: Savory Zucchini Pie
4. Eggs That Won't Make You Feel Like a Short-Order Cook
Getty Images
Frying eggs to each person's individual taste (sunny-side up, over easy, enough already!) can be maddening. The solution: Bake the eggs in ramekins. You can pull just-set ones out of the oven a minute early and let others cook a bit longer—without sweating over a frying pan.

Get the recipe: Baked Eggs with Fresh Herbs and Goat Cheese
5. A Simpler Spin on Muffins
Ditte Isager
Instead of greasing cupcake tins, dropping spoonfuls of dough into each cup and having to scrub each little one clean later, make this berry-topped focaccia. It tastes like a slightly sweet, less-crumbly alternative to a classic blueberry breakfast muffin.

Get the recipe: Blueberry Focaccia
6. A Trusty Make-Ahead Casserole
Jeremy Liebman
If you assemble this casserole the night before, all you have to do is preheat the oven and pop it in to bake. It's best with day-old challah or a similar egg bread, which does a fine job of soaking up the eggs, milk and cream.

Get the recipe: Raspberry and Goat Cheese Breakfast Strata
7. The No-Brainer Coffee Cake
Gentl & Hyers
Spiked with dried fruits, honey, citrus zest and nutty-tasting walnut oil, a rustic apple cake comes together in a flash. No need to make a separate crumb topping; this treat is wonderful with just a dollop of plain Greek yogurt.

Get the recipe: Apple Polenta Cake with Walnut Oil
8. Homemade Bloody Marys Without 14 Ingredients
Anna Williams
The quandary: Use bottled Bloody Mary mix, which is quick but not as good as homemade, or make your own but deal with a long list of ingredients. The solution: Cat Cora's recipe, which mainly relies on basil-infused vodka (that you can make days ahead of time) for flavor.

Get the recipe: Bloody Marys with Basil Vodka

Before You Go

10
Quiche
I'm sorry quiche! Don't take this too personally. You are too frequently either a claggy, soggy mess or a tough, dry disaster. When made perfectly, you are near perfect for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Please don't blame yourself.
9
Frittata
James Ransom/Food52
The frittata has a leg up on quiche for one very particular reason: Tortilla Española. This stuff is the real deal. Hot, cold, room temperature, anything goes.

Get the Spanish Tortilla recipe from Food52
8
Hard Boiled
Hard boiled eggs are certainly not the prettiest or sexiest egg preparation there is, but they have a secret weapon: they are the gatekeepers of deviled eggs.
7
In A Hole/Nest/Basket
Getty
This is a beautiful, civilized, nearly foolproof way to make an egg. If it were mandatory to make it in a grilled cheese sandwich, instead of just a piece of toast, it may have had a shot at #1.
6
En Cocotte/Shirred/Baked
Mimi Thorisson/Manger
I love eggs this way for one very serious reason: it encourages people to use cream, parmesan, fancy ham and other insanely luxurious ingredients while they cook me an egg. It also makes for easy sopping-up-with-toast soldiers.

Get the Eggs In Cocotte with Foie Gras recipe from Manger
5
Scrambled
The classics are pretty hard to beat and there is rarely a time that scrambling an egg isn't all the breakfast labor you need to put in.
4
Poached
A well-poached egg is like a love letter: tidy and pretty on the outside, gushy and messy on the inside. Poaching an egg in water is pretty healthy, which is great since they usually get covered in hollandaise immediately thereafter.
3
Soft Boiled
How could soft boiled eggs possibly have gotten a leg up on poached eggs? They have all the best parts of poached eggs without the unfortunate wateriness that sometimes accompanies them.
2
Omelette
An omelette is one of the most perfect expressions of the egg's incredible versatility. It can be filled with anything. It can be big and fluffy, thin and crispy at the edges, rolled like the French or folded like the Americans. But most importantly, there is usually cheese.
1
Fried
Sorry all other eggs. The runny yolk, tender white and perfect sheen of grease that we so frequently need at breakfast will forever own my heart.
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