• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy + Terms
  • Affiliates

The Chaos and the Clutter

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Google Plus
  • RSS
  • Email
  • School at Home
  • Sensory
    • Sensory Processing Disorder
    • Awesome Sensory Play Activities
      • Sensory Bins
      • Sensory Bottles
      • Sensory Bags
  • Family Games
    • Minute to Win It Games
  • Special Needs Parenting
    • Childhood Anxiety
    • Reactive Attachment Disorder
    • Sensory Processing Disorder
  • Store
  • Course Login

Family Breakfast Tips for a Large Family

By Sharla Kostelyk

(This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosure policy.)

  • Total2.6K
  • Facebook50
  • Twitter3
  • Pinterest2.6K
  • Mix
  • Yummly1

Most mornings, breakfast around here offers the kids the usual options…toast, oatmeal and if we have it: cereal. At least once a week though, I like to make a real breakfast. It is a bit more challenging with a large family but I have discovered some recipes and tricks that work really well.

Large Family Breakfasts

As our family has grown, there are some things that have become more difficult to make. I only have a 5 egg poacher, so if I make eggs Benedict, I use that for some and for the others, I cook an egg inside a red pepper ring (to give the right shape). Eggs Benedict is still a lot of work for this many people, so it doesn’t happen often!I also used to regularly make crepes or waffles, but I have to stand at the counter for many hours to make enough to feed our brood!

Omelettes are hard to make for a large group. Only the small ones seem to cook properly, so it becomes another time consuming one to attempt.

Over the years, I have come up with some easier solutions for yummy breakfasts that feed us all or that can even feed a huge group for brunch. If you are looking for ideas for a large breakfast, you’ve come to the right place!

Family Breakfast Tips:

For cooking bacon – cooking it in the oven on a baking tray is the easiest way to cook a larger amount at one time. There are many ways to do this (crumpling tin foil and laying it on top so that the grease goes into the crinkles in the foil is one) but the one I tend to opt for is to twist it and lay it on a baking tray. I cook it in the oven until it’s as crispy as we like it.

The theory behind the twisting is that it cooks more uniformly. Here is a before and after picture of my twisted bacon!

Bacon for a large groupHashbrown Casserole – There are many variations and they can be cooked in the crock pot or the oven. This is the recipe that I make most of the time because it is EASY and FAST and only has a handful of ingredients!

Hash Brown Breakfast Nachos – These are so good and can feed a group or in our case, our whole family! You can make it exactly like I do or you can top it with scrambled eggs, diced green onion and crumbled bacon. Either way, it’s pretty incredible!

Hash Brown Breakfast NachosScramble – Fry up some hash browns, add some eggs, crumbled cooked bacon, cheese, and a few veggies (onions and peppers work well).

Breakfast Scramble

Frittata – I don’t follow a recipe for this one, but this is loosely how I make it:

Saute onions or leeks, red pepper, zucchini or asparagus. Chop up some jarred artichoke hearts. Lay all the veggies in a casserole dish. In a bowl, mix together 10-12 eggs, about 1/2 cup sour cream, some milk, a cup or so of swiss cheese, rosemary, and pepper. Pour over the veggies. Bake at 350° for an hour.

Breakfast Sandwiches – This time, I made these to freeze and have on hand but the trick to making these for a large family lies is two things…cooking the eggs in the oven in a muffin tin and laying out all the English muffins on a cookie tray and broiling them. Layer an English muffin, a cooked egg (seasoned), cooked bacon or cooked sausage patty, a slice of cheese, and another English muffin.

Make Ahead Freezer Breakfast Sandwiches In order to freeze them, I wrapped them individually in plastic wrap and then put them into freezer bags so that they could be taken out one at a time.

All in one – This recipe I found here and tweaked it a bit. Basically, it’s hash browns on the bottom of the muffin tin, then an egg, bacon and cheese. An all in one breakfast and I can fit two muffin trays in my oven at a time, so can make 24 in one go. Visit the original for the complete recipe.

All in one Breakfast Cups

Bird’s Nest with a Bonus – We’ve been making these forever. I can make 16 at a time (two trays of 8 each). First, lay bread out on cookie sheet. Butter the side facing up. Take a round cookie cutter or use a glass and cut out a hole in each piece of bread.

Break an egg into each hole.

Bake for about 20 minutes at 350° depending on how set you like your eggs.

Here’s the fun part…take the cut outs from the bread, drizzle them with honey, sprinkle apple pie spice or cinnamon on top and bake those as well for a little treat!

Birds in a Nest and a TreatAll in One Breakfast Casserole – This is a great one because it can be made the night ahead. It’s also good because you can follow the recipe exactly or use whatever you happen to have in the fridge! It feeds our whole family and then some.

All in One Make Ahead Breakfast Casserole

Another one of my absolute favourite things to make for a crowd is Paula Deen’s French Toast Casserole. I have to warn you though…it is amazing and not for those watching their waistlines! Seriously, delicious! It’s great for a brunch because you can make it the night before and just cook it up beforehand. I use baguette slices instead of french bread because it stretches a bit further that way.

I also will sometimes make up a huge batch of pancakes or buttermilk waffles, tripling the recipe. Then I will freeze them by laying them flat on cookie sheets and once frozen, into freezer bags and back into the freezer. This way, they don’t stick together. Then I warm them in the oven and serve with brunch.

What are your favourite things to serve for a large breakfast?

And for those weekday mornings? Make Ahead Breakfasts are a huge time saver for busy moms!

 

  • Total2.6K
  • Facebook50
  • Twitter3
  • Pinterest2.6K
  • Mix
  • Yummly1

Filed Under: Cooking in the Chaos

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Dawn says

    January 22, 2013 at 5:49 am

    I love all of the ideas. The english muffins sandwhichs look so good.
    Blessings, Dawn

  2. Jennifer says

    January 22, 2013 at 7:40 am

    Thanks for sharing. Now I have a couple of new ideas to try.

  3. karen says

    January 22, 2013 at 7:47 am

    Those are great ideas (and pictures)! Thanks for sharing! Never thought to do bacon like that. But then again, most of the time when we have bacon (seldom) it’s just come out of the freezer so twisting it then wouldn’t work… we’ll have to plan ahead more 🙂

    When i do crepes or pancakes, i usually have at least 2-3 pans going at a time to speed things up, but i only have one waffle maker, so that one is time consuming for me too (unless one of the kids takes over ~ the waffle maker is a bit of a novelty because we don’t have waffles very often).

    The egg in a hole thing ~ rather than cut the bread out of the middle we just dip the entire slice of bread into slightly beaten egg, and sprinkle with chili powder and cook/fry it like that. Most of us don’t like runny eggs anyway (seemed the eggs in the hole never got done well enough for some). But I love how you use the middle of the bread for a treat!

  4. Erin Klassen says

    January 22, 2013 at 8:29 am

    Twisted bacon looks fun! Thanks for sharing 🙂

  5. VLVL says

    January 22, 2013 at 10:59 am

    Thank you so much for this post! I pinned it (hope you don’t mind)!!! I’m really looking forward to trying some of these once we bring our (adopted) children home 🙂

    • Sharla says

      January 22, 2013 at 12:04 pm

      Pin away!!! All the best to you on your adoption…that’s so exciting!

  6. Amanda says

    January 22, 2013 at 3:31 pm

    With having a fairly large family by some standards, 9, I also struggle with breakfasts. My kids are so tired of cereal! I honestly can’t remember the last time I cooked anything for breakfast. Thankfully, for their sakes, my hubby enjoys making a real breakfast every once and a while 🙂 Before it was discovered that we have Celiac & gluten intolerance in our family, I used to make breakfast burritos by the dozens & freeze them for a quick breakfast or snack on the go. I’d fill large casserole pans with eggs, a breakfast meat ie ham, ground sausage or bacon, diced onions, green pepper etc and bake it. Once cooled, cut it in half lengthwise then in about one inch-for lack of a better word-logs. I’d then wrap each section of egg, with a bit of cheese, in a burrito sized flour tortilla, wrap in plastic wrap and freeze.
    Now I need to force myself to cook up dozens of gluten free pancakes to freeze….right after I get off Pinterest!;)

  7. Deborah says

    January 22, 2013 at 6:20 pm

    Great ideas!! I love that you use the oven! I make a dish with leftover bread, eggs, milk, some sugar, cinnamon, sometimes fruit and/or cream cheese and bake it in the oven. I guess it would be called baked French toast. Otherwise, here it’s oatmeal on weekdays year round, and cold cereal on weekends with the occasional fun breakfast in between.

    Blessings!
    Deborah

  8. Shonya says

    January 24, 2013 at 11:52 am

    These are some really great ideas. You are, however, making me feel ashamed about my cereal, oatmeal, yogurt, fruit types of breakfasts around here! 🙂

  9. Julia @ Swirls and Spice says

    July 23, 2014 at 10:27 am

    I can never fit enough bacon on the tray. Twisting it should solve the problem! Thanks for all the ideas!

  10. Amanda says

    November 22, 2014 at 10:09 pm

    What a bunch of great ideas! Those recipes look yummy too. Thanks for sharing at the Homestead Blog Hop!

Trackbacks

  1. Easy Mother's Day Menu Ideas with Link Up - Marriage Motherhood and Missions says:
    May 5, 2014 at 10:02 am

    […] Meal Makeover Mom’s Gluten Free Granola Muffins – The Chaos And The Clutter  Breakfast Ideas for Large Families (Or hosting out of town guests!) – The Chaos And The […]

Primary Sidebar

Minute to Win It Party
How to Create an Anti-Anxiety Kit for Your Child including free printable relaxation prompts
Chicken Dump Recipes - 10 meals in just one hour

Categories

Copyright © 2022 • The Chaos and the Clutter • Site Design by Jeni @ The Blog Maven

Return to top of page

Copyright © 2022 · Chaos and the Clutter 2.0 on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in