Easy Brunch Recipe Ideas

Brunch. What other meal offers such diversity with both breakfast and lunch foods, vegetable and fruit salads and decadent desserts? No need to be as elaborate as a restaurant brunch buffet, though, when planning an at-home brunch for Mother’s Day or graduation. Just serve a few simple dishes that also highlight the best of seasonal fruits and vegetables.

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This nutritionist-recommended menu includes springtime asparagus and spinach in a frittata, a flat, round Italian omelet cooked over low heat and finished under a broiler. Since a frittata isn’t folded, it’s so much easier – and less stressful – than a traditional omelet. A fruit salad with in-season mango and pineapple showcases Indiana mint, both as a salad garnish and mixed in the creamy, mojito-inspired lime topping. Garden-fresh green beans and edamame (green sweet soybeans) star in a traditional four-bean salad with an Asian twist.

More Simple, In-Season and Healthy Brunch Ideas

Vegetables

• Serve other in-season vegetables such as sugar snap peas steamed or microwaved with a little butter and lemon zest or Swiss chard sautéed in olive oil with garlic and crushed red pepper.
• Consider a new addition to all the baby carrots, cauliflower and broccoli on that ubiquitous “veggie and dip” tray and add strips of jicama, a traditional Mexican root vegetable. Jicama has a firm, crunchy and slightly juicy texture.
• Instead of a plain tossed iceberg lettuce salad, serve fresh spinach salad made with mandarin oranges, red onion and honey-roasted almonds.

Fruits

• Rhubarb, a spring favorite, has unlimited possibilities on a brunch menu:
• Rhubarb jam, to serve with those whole-grain English muffins and bagels)
• Rhubarb compote made with sugar, ginger and orange
• Homemade rhubarb cinnamon muffins
• Rhubarb cobbler, crisp or pie for the dessert table
• Combine in-season chopped mango with diced jicama, sliced oranges, red onion, cilantro and chili powder, and mix in lime juice and vegetable oil vinaigrette for a zesty salsa or side salad.
• Strawberry season arrives at the end of spring, and a big bowl of fresh berries is a hit at any party. If you have the time, make chocolate-covered strawberries by dipping in melted dark chocolate.

Brunch Meats and Seafood

• Consider serving at least one lean, lower-fat breakfast meat along with decadent bacon and sausage. Choose Canadian bacon, ham, reduced-fat pork sausage patties or links, turkey bacon, turkey sausage or soy sausage-like patties and links.
• Fresh peeled and deveined shrimp is so simple and an extremely low-fat, high-protein choice.
• Slices of smoked salmon are such an easy way to offer heart-healthy omega-3 fats at brunch. Simply open the package and arrange slices on a plate or tray.

Brunch Breads

• Serve whole-grain or whole-wheat versions of English muffins, bagels, cinnamon-raisin bread and hearty multigrain breads for toasting.
• Offer homemade muffins or quick breads that have been baked with one-half whole wheat flour.