easter brunch ideas

Are you an Easter brunch type of person or the 2:00 PM lunch-ish kind of person? Either way, I’ve got a cute idea for a take on Eggs Benedict that I’m calling “Eggs Bunnydict” and it can be made ahead, reheated and assembled just before serving.

This idea came to me because I had once spent hours poaching eggs for brunch and then everyone called in sick and no one came. Although you can cook poached eggs the day before and reheat them, I wanted to make them “fresh”. I was left with over 2 dozen poached eggs! I vowed that day never to make anything for brunch that I couldn’t make mostly ahead of time. A great thing about making an egg casserole or scrambled egg dish is that it reheats beautifully. Think about ordering a quiche in a restaurant – you aren’t waiting 40 minutes for them to bake your quiche the moment you order it. It’s always reheated.

So here comes Peter Cottontail hoppin’ down the Eggs Bunny-dict trail…

What makes this a Bunnydict compared to a Benedict is that the Canadian bacon or ham slice and baked egg dish is cut out with an adorable bunny cookie cutter by Wilton to add a bit of spring whimsy. 🙂 Just so you know, we won’t need need the bunny tail cutter for this, just the body part, so keep it for your cookie making.

Make-ahead egg scrambled casserole can be made with anything you’d like to include in it. See some tips below…

Scrambled Egg Tips:

Actually, this scrambled eggs casserole doesn’t even need a recipe since you just add whatever you’d like to the eggs but there are a couple things to keep in mind to make when cutting out the bunny shape with the cookie cutter. I whisked up about 8 eggs for the dish pictured above and added chopped onion, chopped red pepper, fresh thyme and seasoning. I baked it at 350 until golden brown and puffed. You could add very small pieces of smoked salmon. I made Spring Flower-shaped Eggs that you can read about and I’ll add some other cute brunch ideas at the end of this post too.

For the veggies I added, I like to saute them before adding to the whisked eggs. This makes certain the “pieces” are soften so the cookie cutter slices right through them. Also, I don’t recommend using bulkier vegetables like broccoli, asparagus or even mushroom slices because they won’t cut a clean shape. You want the egg dish as smooth as possible.

Bake eggs in a square or rectangle pan. After baking the egg casserole, let cool or chill. You can flip out the egg from the dish and cut the bunnies or cut them in the pan.

To re-heat the ham and egg bunnies, place them in a sided pan and cover with foil and heat them in a warm oven. When ready to assemble the Bunnydicts, the eggs and ham will be hot and ready to place on top of the spinach or you can serve them as I show below, not quite on top.

Eggs Bunnydict is easy to assemble:

Toasted English muffin
Fresh spinach leaves
Hollandaise sauce
Ham slice (bunny cut-out)
Eggs (bunny cut-out)
Sour cream or whipped cream cheese dollop for the bunny tail

Serve extra Hollandaise on the side. There are tons of recipes online and if you really want to make it easy on yourself, Knorr makes a mix. And yes, I have done this but I add a few extra squirts of lemon juice to kick it up.

How easy is that?

Of course, mimosas would be a perfect accompaniment but then I’d be slumped in a chair after I ate and my guests would have to entertain themselves. I guess they could always do the dishes. 🙂