Feed a Crowd With This Simple, Tacky Sausage Breakfast Casserole Recipe

Savory, hearty, and filled with taste, a well-made breakfast casserole is nice for feeding a crowd. The best breakfast casserole needs to be creamy and filled with flavorful add-ins, and simple to slice into neat parts. Sadly, I’ve had some critically dangerous egg casseroles in my previous—ones which are so overcooked and rubbery, you may fling them throughout the room like a frisbee. That is why I respect a very good recipe for breakfast casserole, like this one from our Birmingham-based check kitchen colleague Elizabeth Mervosh.

Mervosh baked up numerous casseroles to created this flavorful egg, vegetable, cheese, and sausage model that’s positive to impress everybody at your subsequent household gathering or brunch. She gussies up her casserole with a considerate mixture of components like Italian sausage, earthy mushrooms, vivid sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, onion, and heaps of recent spinach. It’s all folded with shredded melty cheese (Gouda or cheddar) earlier than being mixed with the eggs and baked.

The casserole is straightforward to make and might be ready forward of time, so that you don’t must get up on the break of daybreak simply to get breakfast on the desk. Listed below are a number of suggestions for a savory breakfast casserole that is extraordinarily satisfying, not soggy, greasy, or underseasoned.

4 Necessary Steps to Assure a Nice Savory Breakfast Casserole

1. Pre-cook the sausage and greens. Eggs cook dinner rapidly—far too quick for fillings to do a lot past heat up a bit by the point the eggs are absolutely cooked. So the important thing to a fantastic sausage- and vegetable-loaded egg casserole is to cook dinner your fillings beforehand. We begin by cooking the sausage, then set it apart earlier than sautéeing the mushrooms and onions within the rendered sausage fats—this fats and and the fond left behind within the skillet from the sausage imbue the mushrooms and onions with porky, salty taste. The opposite aromatics and greens, together with sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, and recent spinach, are added after the mushrooms and onions. Sautéing the sausage and greens not solely makes them tender and helps them develop a strong taste, however cooking the fillings drives off extra moisture, making certain a creamy— not watery—casserole.

2. Load up on the dairy. It may be difficult to make sure baked eggs in a big casserole dish are evenly cooked from edge to edge. The eggs can simply overcook and switch rubbery. To make sure the eggs stay tender as soon as baked, we whisked a hearty quantity of half-and-half (or complete milk, for those who want) and bitter cream into the egg combination till absolutely mixed. The added fats from the dairy ends in a creamier custard-like filling.

3. Make it simpler by constructing it proper within the casserole dish. We needed to make this casserole as simple as potential to arrange with out sacrificing taste. That’s why we don’t skip sautéing the add-ins as described above—the time financial savings are simply not price it. However one shortcut we do encourage is skipping the blending bowl and easily combining all of the casserole components instantly within the baking dish so there’s one much less bowl to scrub up. 

4. Customise it. This egg casserole is well adaptable, so be happy to check out your favourite add-ins or swaps. You’ll be able to omit the pork sausage fully or swap it for turkey or veggie sausage. Any cheese that shreds and melts simply, equivalent to Gruyère or Monterey Jack, may also work effectively right here. Kale might be swapped in for the spinach and tomatoes might be added as effectively (simply make sure to cook dinner these components first to take away extra moisture, identical to you’ll with the spinach). To make it heartier, fold in some roasted potatoes, candy potatoes, or root greens. (Leftover cooked greens work effectively too.) Get artistic and do not forget that past breakfast this savory egg dish additionally makes a beautiful lunch or dinner.