This easy breakfast casserole can be adapted to use whatever ingredients you have on hand – cheese, veggies, meat – and can be made the night before and baked in the morning. Or eaten for dinner – your choice!
BE PICTURED IN; CHARACTERIZED IN:
On vacation, too much fun to realize nothing planned for meals, fridge mostly empty, and I remember being responsible for feeding my boyfriend’s kids that day.
Open the fridge door, you see half a dozen eggs, half a pack of milk, some cheddar cheese, leftover sausage from yesterday’s cookies and gravy, a little broccoli, a leftover ear of corn (cooked).
Open the freezer and you’ll see half a loaf of sliced bread. Saved!
Furious. I don’t have to reach for the packaged mac and cheese.
Video: How to make an easy breakfast casserole
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Easy breakfast casserole
What is a breakfast casserole?
The basic ingredients are eggs, cheese, milk and bread. It’s the easiest thing in the world to put together. We have a sausage breakfast casserole on the side which is one of my favorites.
The great thing about a breakfast casserole is that you can put almost anything you want on the bottom. Italian sausage is my absolute favorite, but bacon or ham will do, too. Or make it vegetarian with zucchini, broccoli, basil and onions.
When I first served this to the kids, they insisted it had to be put on the website. The name they chose was “Open Fridge Breakfast Bake” because that’s basically what I did—open the fridge, put whatever I could find in a casserole dish, and baked it.
How to make a breakfast casserole
To make a breakfast casserole, beat some eggs, add milk and cheese, add cubed bread, add “mix-ins” like mushrooms, veggies, sausage, and herbs, place in a casserole dish, and bake.
just right? The ingredients basically all come together in one large casserole, but there are a few steps I would recommend first:
- If using a lot of mushrooms, saute them beforehand to release some of their moisture.
- You can add cooked, hearty vegetables like broccoli to the casserole or add them raw. If you’re using raw veggies, chop them up into smaller pieces, knowing that adding them raw instead of cooked will give them a crispier texture.
- If you’re adding sausage or bacon, cook it first before adding it to the casserole.
The proportions of the ingredients are adjustable. Adding more eggs will make the casserole firmer and less likely to drain.
Day-old or stale bread works best for a breakfast casserole, but if you don’t have any, simply let fresh bread slices dry on the counter for a few hours or place the slices in a low oven (200°C). F, 10 min) or 1 minute in the toaster (just enough to dry them out a bit).
What to serve with a breakfast casserole
Breakfast casserole is truly a meal in itself! It has starch (bread), milk, cheese, meat and vegetables. It can be prepared for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Serve it with some sliced fresh fruit for breakfast or a green salad if you’re making it for dinner. If you omit the veggies in the casserole, consider serving some sautéed veggies on the side. Or if you leave out the meat, some crispy bacon or cooked sausages.
Make instructions ahead of time
Breakfast casseroles are almost designed to be made ahead of time. You can assemble the whole thing the night before, put it in the fridge (covered) and bake the next morning. It’s minimal work when you wake up and a hassle-free breakfast when you’ve got a group of people to feed.
How to store and reheat a breakfast casserole
This breakfast casserole will keep, covered, in the fridge for a few days. You can microwave it until hot, one portion at a time, or you can reheat the whole casserole in a 350F oven for 15 to 20 minutes, until heated through.
Do you have a favorite breakfast casserole combo? If so, please let us know in the comments.
CONTINUE READING:
More easy, lazy breakfast casseroles
- Tater Dead Casserole
- Biscuits and sauce casserole
- Baked Blueberry French Toast Casserole
- Zucchini Breakfast Casserole
- Bagel Breakfast Casserole
Easy breakfast casserole
The ingredient percentages are estimates. The more eggs, the firmer and less likely the casserole will drain.
Mushrooms tend to retain a lot of moisture, so if you’re using a lot, you might want to saute them first to release some of their water.
Don’t have any bread from the day before? Place fresh bread slices in a 200°F oven for 10 minutes.
ingredients
- For the breakfast casserole:
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6 to 10 large eggs
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2 to 3 cups shredded cheddar cheese
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6 slices of day-old bread, cut into 3/4-inch to 1-inch cubes
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2 cups of milk
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Salt
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pepper
- Among the possible additions:
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1 cup corn (cooked or frozen)
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1/2 cup chopped broccoli (cooked or raw, raw is crispier)
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1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
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1/4 cup chopped green onions
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1 cup diced ham and/or cooked Italian sausage
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A few slices of cooked bacon, chopped
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1 teaspoon Herbes de Provence or other dried herbs (or 1 tablespoon freshly chopped herbs such as basil, rosemary, or thyme)
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1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cumin or curry powder
method
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Preheat oven to 350°F
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Make the Casserole:
Beat the eggs in a large bowl. Mix in milk and cheese.
Add the bread and stir gently until all the pieces of bread are moistened (don’t mix too much or the bread may fall apart).
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Add the supplements:
Add salt and pepper to taste (if you’re using Italian sausage, you don’t need either). If you have a lot of additions, you may need a few more eggs to make sure everything touches at least some of the egg mixture. Simply stir in 2 tablespoons milk for each beaten egg you add.
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Bake the casserole:
Butter a 9×13-inch baking dish. Pour the mixture into the casserole dish. (At this point, you can bake immediately, or refrigerate the casserole and bake the next day.)
Bake in a 350°F oven for 50 minutes to an hour, until top is browned and center springs back when touched.
Remove from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes before serving.
