Overnight French toast is the ultimate 'lazy but lavish' breakfast

Less time cooking, more time snoozing.

Overnight Blueberry French Toast

Everyone knows that the best meal of the week is Sunday morning breakfast. 

With that extra time we (sometimes) have on a Sunday morning, the brekkie imagination can run wild – pancakes, fritters, a huge fry-up, waffles – the breakfast list goes on. 

On the Sunday mornings when we’d rather be getting a few extra ‘zzz’s in but still want a lavish breakfast, our prep-ahead French toast is the answer.

The easiest weekend brekkie: overnight blueberry French toast recipe

This dreamy French toast includes all the classic ingredients in French toast: eggs, sugar, vanilla, milk and of course, bread. We opt for brioche in this recipe (IMO brioche is the BEST kind of bread for French toast) but you can use any kind of bread you have and if it’s stale, even better! In French, French toast is called ‘pain perdu’, meaning ‘lost bread’. This is because French toast was commonly made when bread had gone stale. 

It’s cool to give your bread a new lease on life. 

What differs with this French toast is the fact that it can be prepped the night before. Overnight, you soak thick slices of brioche in a custard mixture and scatter blueberries over the bread. The bread will beautifully soak up all that custard and in the morning all you need to do is pop it in the oven and bake. You end up with a soul-warmingly good breakfast. 

You’ll want to soak the bread mixture for at least 8 hours (and up to 24 hours) in the fridge to ensure the bread soaks up all the liquid and the flavours develop. 

How to make overnight blueberry French toast

Similar to the method of making a classic bread and butter pudding, this overnight blueberry French toast is made by slicing bread into thick pieces and then arranging them in a shallow baking dish. Cutting thick pieces of brioche allows the slices to soak up all that yummy custardy mixture while still remaining intact.

In a large bowl, you whisk the eggs, sugar, vanilla and milk together, and then pour the egg mixture all over the bread – scattering the blueberries too. Cover the tray in plastic wrap and place in the fridge overnight.

After a peaceful night sleeping in the fridge, your French toast will be ready for the oven. Turn the oven on to 180C and place the tray in the oven to bake for 35 minutes (this recipe gets extra points for the fact that you don’t need to wait for the oven to preheat).

35 minutes later, you’ll have a golden tray of French toast that can be served with maple syrup, fresh food and some whipped cream (if you’re feeling like some decadence). 

That’s brekkie, ‘fini’. 

Originally published as Overnight French toast is the ultimate 'lazy but lavish' breakfast