This easy breakfast casserole recipe with eggs, potatoes and sausage is a perfect dish to serve for any meal, even beyond breakfast and brunch. It combines nutrient-dense eggs with spiced Italian sausage, oozy mozzarella or cheddar cheese, and sweet bell peppers for a tasty, balanced meal.
Preparing the Perfect Breakfast Casserole
Breakfast casseroles require a fair amount of cook time. But once the eggs are cooked, you don’t want to leave them sitting in the oven until the meat and veggies are tender. This would cause the eggs to dry out.
For this reason, all the filling components for this sausage breakfast casserole are cooked in advance before hitting the baking dish. I pre-blanch the potatoes in boiling water. Then I sauté the vegetable mixture and spiced sausage in a skillet. That way all parts are cooked by the time the eggs are set. This is also a good idea for your favourite quiche recipes or frittata recipes.
Another excellent way of ensuring perfectly tender, custard-like eggs in your easy breakfast casserole is to incorporate fat. In the case of this breakfast casserole, shredded mozzarella or cheddar cheese and a ⅓ cup milk lighten up the egg mixture. They make the casserole delightfully fluffy.
Also, try not to overbake your eggs. A good rule of thumb is to cook the casserole until the middle has the slightest movement but is otherwise set. This casserole dish has a total time of 30 minutes for baking.
A Healthy Breakfast Casserole with Potatoes
I like to call this easy breakfast a healthy breakfast casserole because unlike most breakfast casserole recipes, it is made entirely from scratch and with only whole food ingredients. Instead of frozen hash browns, I make this breakfast casserole with fresh potatoes that are parboiled before baking.
I even make my potato breakfast casserole with sausage that I flavor myself by simply mixing ground pork with spices. Additionally, as with all shredded cheese recipes, I recommend shredding your own from a block of mozzarella or cheddar cheese to add to your egg mixture for this sausage egg potato casserole. It's so quick and easy to do (and cheaper), while you get to avoid all the added stuff (wood pulp etc.) in pre-shredded cheddar cheese.
A Clean-Out-the-Fridge Dish
Any egg recipe is excellent for using up leftovers in the refrigerator. An easy meal to prepare when you might be low on almost everything else. Generally, before a grocery shop, many people tend to have eggs, milk, blocks of mozzarella or cheddar cheese. And vegetables like broccoli and mushrooms, or greens like spinach that are just past their prime for fresh eating.
If you have some bacon or ham that need to be used, that works well in place of the sausage. This easy breakfast casserole is the place to use them whether you want to enjoy this baked casserole dish for breakfast or make breakfast for dinner. "Brinner" is a favorite around our house.
Substitutions for Restricted Diets
If you have a dietary restriction or are short on an ingredient, it is still possible to prepare this breakfast casserole recipe. For lactose-free diets, use your favourite lactose-free milk and cheese to make this a dairy-free egg recipe with excellent results.
For gluten-free, this casserole contains all traditionally gluten-free ingredients. However, you should always read cheese labels to make sure the cheese doesn’t contain wheat. Additionally, it is beneficial to ensure that the cheese wasn’t processed in a facility that also makes gluten-filled products.
Although cheddar cheese and mozzarella are recommended, you could really use anything that becomes similarly melty and stretchy. Swiss, Gruyere, and Gouda would all be excellent choices to add to your egg mixture. Don’t use drier cheeses like Parmesan or crumbly ones like goat cheese or feta. They won’t sufficiently melt into the egg mixture giving the breakfast casserole that creamy texture.
How Far in Advance Can you Prep an Egg Bake?
This egg casserole recipe can also easily be turned into a make-ahead breakfast casserole. Which is perfect to serve to guests who are staying overnight during the holidays or any other time of year. You can completely prepare everything the night before. In the morning, all you do is take the pan with the sausage egg casserole from the fridge and pop it in the oven.
Half an hour later a complete breakfast is ready to be served. Well, you should probably brew a pot of coffee (or tea) as well and some crusty bread with this casserole dish is never a bad idea either.
Tips for Preparing this Breakfast Casserole
- Don’t Overmix: When you mix the eggs with the milk, cheese, and black pepper, mix just until combined. If over combined, the egg mixture could souffle in the oven due to too much air.
- Rest the Casserole: Allow your casserole to rest for at least 10 minutes after coming out of the oven. This will make your egg bake easier to slice so that it comes out in clean, attractive pieces!
- Don’t Overbake: Just set, custardy eggs are heavenly. You can test whether the eggs are done by shaking the baking dish gently. If the eggs are completely set with just a slight jiggle in the middle, they will be perfect.
Storing Leftovers
You can store any leftovers of this egg casserole in an airtight container in the fridge. For food safety reasons, you shouldn’t keep cooked eggs in your fridge for longer than three or four days. But this overnight breakfast casserole likely isn’t going to last that long anyway.
The casserole can be frozen AFTER baking. Just wrap it well to prevent freezer burn or it taking on smells from the freezer. Then defrost in the fridge overnight and re-heat in the oven again. Or if you only want to reheat individual servings, be sure to cut up the casserole before freezing, and wrapping in smaller servings. Smaller servings can also be re-heated in the microwave or on the stovetop on low heat in a covered pan.
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Breakfast Casserole with Eggs, Potatoes and Sausage
Ingredients
- 20 ounces (600 g) potatoes peeled & cut into ½ inch cubes
- 1 pound Italian sausage*
- 1 onion diced
- 1 red pepper diced
- 3 garlic cloves minced
- 2 cups shredded mild cheese from a block of mozzarella or mild cheddar
- 6 large eggs
- ⅓ cup milk
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- sliced green onion
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Cook the potato dices in salted boiling water for about 5 minutes. Drain and let cool.
- Remove casings from sausage, unless you are making your own mix like me. Heat a large skillet to medium-high and cook the sausage until browned. Break it up in the process. Remove from skillet with a slotted spoon. Leave 1 tablespoon of grease.
- Cook the onion and red pepper in the sausage grease for about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook a couple more minutes. Fill into a large baking dish (9x13 inches) together with sausage and potato dices.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk and black pepper. Add 1.5 cups of the shredded cheese and stir to combine everything. Pour into the baking dish.
- Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top, cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Uncover and continue baking for 10-15 more minutes.
- Let the breakfast casserole rest for a few minutes. Add sliced green onion and serve hot.
Notes
Nutrition
Recipe inspired by Gimme Some Oven
Doug
Absolutely perfect! I added a little bacon and used Jimmy Dean sausage because that’s all I had in the fridge and it was delicious!! Will use this one again and highly recommend.
Jennifer @ Leelalicious
It sounds delicious with both the bacon and sausage! Thanks for your review, Doug. 🙂
Marilyn
Can you use simply potatoes (diced potatoes) with onions instead of fresh potatoes?
Jennifer @ Leelalicious
Hi Marilyn, thanks for your question! Are you referring to using frozen diced potatoes rather than fresh diced potatoes? I think that would work fine. Plus, you would be able to skip the step of parboiling the potatoes at the beginning of the recipe.
Jennifer
“Best brunch ever!” This is what my family and guests said after I served this up today. Even my kids had two servings each! I had marble cheese on hand so used that. The home made sausage was such a hit I don’t think I’ll go back to store bought again. So fresh, easy, delicious, and really great that it is all fresh and whole food. Thank you!!!
Jennifer @ Leelalicious
Thanks so much for your positive review and for letting us know how much your kids enjoyed it too. 🙂
Debi C.
Hi, Regina!
This morning, December 31, I served the Breakfast Casserole. Our guest (a large man) ate 1/3 of the 9x13 casserole dish! LOL. No problem--we have leftovers for ourselves. I substituted Sweet Potato for the regular potato. My husband gave the recipe 3.5 stars because of the Sweet Potato; he prefers regular potatoes. My guest and I liked the Sweet Potato, and the recipe was easy to make, even with my substitutions and additions, so I personally gave the recipe 5 stars. Because of my guest's & husband's kidney issues, I used Sweet Potato and added green beans for color (because I had green beans on hand and wanted more veggies in there for my large guest.) I also used chicken pieces instead of sausage because of their kidney-care diet. Next time, I'm using potatoes and sausage (which I will need to make from scratch because I can't find good sausage where I live in Mexico). I like that the recipe can be made the night before. That worked out great for us because our guest spent the night----we had the OnePot Chicken and Rice for supper last night and this Breakfast Casserole this morning. Regina, your recipes are so well designed! Thanks! I look forward to more of your novel ideas in the coming years. Sincerely, Debi C.
Jennifer @ Leelalicious
Hi Debi! Thank you for your comments on this recipe and for letting us know about your modifications. It is always great to see how cooks like yourself make the recipes their own. 🙂
Tracy
Can I use smoked sausage and slice it and cook partially and let it finish cooking in the oven?
Tracy
Can I use smoked sausage and slice it and cook partially and let it finish cooking in the oven?
Jennifer @ Leelalicious
Hi Tracy, absolutely! I think that should work out very well.
Ella
I made this for my family for Christmas breakfast. I am dairy-free but my family is not. I spit the potatoes, sausage, etc. into 2 8x8 pans. Then I used half the eggs with almond milk and DF cheese and the other half regular. My family loved the regular and the DF was also awesome!
Annette
Made this today after doing vegetable prep work last night .It really is a very versatile recipe which could be made as mild or as spicy as you prefer .Turned out great !! Enjoyed by all !!No leftovers !!
Sarah Jane
I've been looking for a good breakfast casserole recipe that I can make the night before. So I think this is it I will try it tonight. I also really like your idea of freezing individual portions. And I had no idea how easy it is to make your own sausage! That is something I am definitely going to do. This is my first day at your website and I'm so glad I found it. Thank you.
Jennifer @ Leelalicious
I'm so glad you love the tips! Being able to freeze this casserole is definitely a gamechanger.
Sylvia
Thank you for bread recipe , it’s quite hard to find some flours , for some reason even though we ate loads of tiger nuts in the 1940s they disappeared never to be seen again so substituting is great off to make a banana bread I’m in uk .
Jennifer @ Leelalicious
Thanks for your note, Sylvia! 🙂
Tom
We really enjoyed your recipe! My wife cooks a little, but I am the main chef at home and I was looking for a recipe to use up a bunch of eggs since we have 50 plus hens that give us a lot more than we can eat. LOL! Of course we sell the majority of our eggs :). I ended up doubling the recipe, but using 18 eggs instead of 12. I also liked the idea of using fresh potatoes. I used 42 oz. of washed unpeeled yellow/gold potatoes, diced/cubed them up as suggested, but I decided to sauté/fry them on medium heat in olive oil until they were slightly softened. We buy a half a hog every year and used 2 pounds of bulk ground hot Italian sausage from our stash. I then used 4 diced different colors of bell peppers, that totaled probably 2 or 3 peppers at most. I then diced 2 small to medium sweet onions. Also as suggested I used 6 or so fresh crushed garlic cloves. We didn't have mild cheddar or just mozzarella by itself, but we did have mixed shredded cheeses that I used. I ended up using 4 cups of a Mexican cheese blend, that I mixed into the entire casserole mix, and then sprinkled an Italian cheese blend on top, along with some shredded sharp cheddar. We or should say I love cheese. LOL! So of course what I ended up with is two 9 X 13 baking dishes. My wife got home from work and was pleased to see dinner waiting, but asked me what are we supposed to do with both casseroles, since there is only the 2 of us. I ended up putting the second unbaked casserole in the fridge and was thinking about freezing it, but I think I should bake it first before freezing, would that be your suggestion? After a little rambling here, I just wanted to thank you for sharing this recipe. I use a lot of other written recipes and do tend to tweak here and there, but I always appreciate the added suggestions and help. It gives me a base to work with. We will definitely use this again. Thanks again!
Regina | Leelalicious
Thank you Tom for sharing how you modified the recipe for yourself. Everything sounds delicious. And you are on the right track. The casserole can be frozen AFTER baking. Just wrap it well to prevent freezer burn or it taking on smells from the freezer. Then defrost in the fridge overnight and re-heat in the oven again. Or if you only want to reheat individual servings, be sure to cut up the casserole before freezing, and wrapping in smaller servings. Smaller servings can also be re-heated in the microwave or on the stovetop on low heat in a covered pan.
Patty
This was good but I had way too many potatoes I think...I ended up adding two more eggs to the recipe (with proportionate milk and pepper) and I still would have liked even more egg in it to balance everything out. And I also baked it for about 10 min longer.
Ali
This is an easy, simple, and delicious recipe. I don’t see how anyone could give it any less than 5 stars!
Jessica
Would the leftovers freeze and reheat well?
Regina | Leelalicious
Yes. We do it all the time. Either in a skillet on low heat or the microwave
Toni
I have absolutely no idea how much 20 ounces of potatoes is. I’ve never seen a recipe stated this way.
Regina | Leelalicious
It is 1.25 pounds if that helps