An early kickoff is a great reason to serve a delicious breakfast tailgate menu! Get ideas for everything to serve, including a mimosa bar!
When it comes to tailgating, there’s nothing like a night game.
You don’t have to wake up at the crack of dawn.
Depending on how far you have to travel, you could enjoy both lunch and dinner at the tailgate.
The entire day is filled with fun.
And let’s face it, the atmosphere at night games is electric!
Sadly, not all games are night games.
Your team will likely have at least one noon kickoff each season.
Sometimes more…
Which means you’ll get to have a breakfast tailgate.
I don’t know about you, but breakfast food is some of my favorite food.
So coming up with a menu of delicious breakfast food for a tailgate?
Sign. me. up!
Even if it means I need to get up at 6 in the morning on game day…
The key to a great breakfast tailgate is preparing most of the food the night before.
I also like to keep a bag ready at all times filled with tailgating essentials.
Let’s take a look at what I served at last week’s early afternoon football game tailgate.
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Menu for a Breakfast Tailgate
Morning tailgates are the perfect time for Bloody Mary’s.
Or how about a delicious mimosa bar!?!
To put together a mimosa bar all you need is a few bottles of Prosecco and a variety of fruit juices.
Make it fun with some berries or other fruit to toss in as a garnish.
For a truly fall-inspired mimosa, bring some apple cider and cinnamon sticks!
I love these stemless reusable plastic wine glasses or these disposable wine glasses are great too.
My perfect mimosa is 2 parts Prosecco, 1 part juice.
But everyone can personalize their drinks with their own ratio.
If you have coffee drinkers in your group, a thermos like this one can keep your coffee hot for 12 hours!
A portable grill like this one is fantastic for all tailgate parties.
It’s perfect for grilling meat, but at breakfast, think out of the box!
Bring along a pan and some cooking spray and you can scramble eggs on the grill.
Make sure that the pan you use has an oven-safe handle.
And don’t forget the grill-safe oven mitts when you pick those pans up!
My family loves chicken apple sausages, so we made those for this morning tailgate party too.
The night beforehand, I cut up some red and green bell peppers into strips and put them in a glass food storage container.
The morning of the game, I popped the container into this nifty bag that has a heating element and a 12V plug you plug into your car!
About an hour into the 2.5-hour drive to the game the van started smelling amazing as the peppers cooked.
Our table was filled with delicious food that we cooked at the tailgate, plus some casseroles I assembled the night before.
Here are a few more fun ideas for your next morning tailgate party.
Scrambled eggs are delicious, but you can take them to the next level with some tasty toppers.
Those cooked peppers were delicious with the eggs!
A container of fresh salsa is a wonderful topper.
Don’t forget to pack a salt and pepper shaker…
Adobo seasoning and Cholula sauce add amazing flavor to scrambled eggs.
Or for a real treat?
Bring some jalapeno pimento cheese!
Not only is it wonderful on top of the eggs, it’s a great dip with cut veggies or pretzel chips.
I definitely recommend cooking the bacon before the tailgate.
You can get the pre-cooked bacon and crisp it up at home in the microwave before traveling, then pop it on the grill in an aluminum pan for a little more crisping once you get there.
I made a low carb breakfast egg casserole the night before our tailgate.
Of course, I made some tweaks because that’s what I do.
I used Jimmy Dean’s hot breakfast sausage for the meat, added double the peppers and onions, skipped the mushrooms, and topped it with pepper jack cheese.
You can either cook it the night before and then just warm it up the next morning, but I opted to cook it that morning to keep it fresh.
An insulated casserole bag like this one keeps your food hot on the drive.
Or you can stack the casseroles in a cooler if you’re bringing more than two!
Just don’t add any ice… LOL
We used this cooler to transport our hot casseroles and the food was almost fresh-from-the-oven hot when we arrived almost 3 hours later.
If you’re stacking casseroles in a cooler, cooling racks like these keep your casseroles from getting squooshed.
I was introduced to breakfast salads when we went to New Orleans a few years ago with another couple.
They’re so good!
All you need is a box of mixed greens and a bottle of balsamic dressing.
Look at us being all healthy at our tailgate!
But not tooooo healthy…
I made this Baked Apple French Toast Casserole recipe for a sweet breakfast option.
Instead of Challah bread, I used hamburger buns we had leftover from the previous week’s tailgate.
Just tear up the buns, then assemble the casserole.
This is another recipe you can either bake the night before and the reheat, or bake the morning of your tailgate.
I made a modified version of that recipe using keto bread for the low carb folks in our group.
Since it was low carb, I skipped the apple topping and got generous with pumpkin pie spice and caramel extract.
This keto maple-flavored syrup has the best flavor of all the ones we’ve tried.
Next time I think I’ll make it with blueberries and cinnamon for a little more moisture.
My daughter invited her roommates and friends to join us.
They were all thrilled to get some home-cooked food!
One thing to remember: you can never bring enough bacon…
No matter how much you bring it will all be eaten!
The mimosa bar was so yummy and paired perfectly with the other breakfast foods!
The apple cinnamon mimosas were my favorite combination.
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[mailerlite_form form_id=1]Snacks and Desserts for Tailgating
We bring two folding tables to our tailgates: one for the main course, one for snacks and desserts.
The big bowl of fruit salad was popular, but the cookies were gobbled up first!
You can never have enough cookies, no matter what time of day it is.
We used some of the fruit from the fruit salad as garnishes for our mimosas.
When you bring a fruit salad to a tailgate, I recommend keeping the berries separate until you get there.
Add the berries just before serving so they don’t get crushed beforehand by the heavier fruit.
Before tailgating season began, I picked up a bag of disposable/reusable plastic serving utensils.
These are great because it’s not a big deal if they accidentally get thrown away in the flurry of cleaning up before heading into the game.
But having tongs for things like cookies and bacon is nice for keeping hands off the food.
Another great idea for tailgating is to bring small snack-sized bags of chips instead of big bowls of chips.
Not only will the chips stay fresh, you can serve a wider variety.
Menu for a Breakfast Tailgate
Here’s the complete menu I served for this breakfast tailgating party:
- Scrambled eggs with toppings (salsa, pimento cheese, Cholula sauce, Adobo seasoning)
- Bacon
- Chicken apple sausage and peppers
- Low carb egg and veggie casserole
- Baked apple French toast casserole
- Keto French toast casserole
- Breakfast salad
- Fruit salad
- Assorted chips and pretzels
- Assorted cookies
- Candy corn
- Smokehouse almonds
- Mimosa bar
- Beer, hard seltzer, soda, water
Have you ever hosted a breakfast tailgate?
If so, what is your favorite thing to bring?
Tell me what I should bring the next time in the comment section below.
If you have any questions or suggestions, contact me or leave a comment!
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