Updating Dad’s Recipe: The Best Basic Sausage Breakfast Casserole

There are as many breakfast casserole recipes as there are stars in the sky, but there’s always room for one more in the galaxy, right? We wanted a toddler-friendly but adult-appreciated breakfast dish for a long, chilly weekend at Little House in the Rockies, and I decided to update one of my Dad’s recipes from ‘back in the day’. This dish is squarely in the great-tasting but not gourmet category, and that’s just fine with me. It’s comfort food that’s more assembly than cooking and comes together in less than 30 minutes. I promise you’ll have happy campers of every age when you serve it – this is based on the real-time reviews from the all three generations of the fam this morning.

Photo shoot of the finished dish on the front porch with “Micky Moose”.

Best Basic Sausage Breakfast Casserole

Ingredients

• 1 lb pork sausage, regular flavor (not sage)
• 2 cups of stale bread, cubed or torn (if you don’t have stale bread, lightly toast the cubes or torn pieces)
• 5 eggs
• 1 12 oz. can evaporated milk
• 2 cups shredded cheese, such as cheddar and jack or a Mexican blend
• 2 cups frozen plain hash brown shreds, or leftover hash browns
• 1 7 oz. can mild green chiles
• ½ tsp. salt
• ¼ tsp. each: cumin, finely ground black pepper, onion powder and garlic powder

Cooking Instructions

Cook the pork sausage in a skillet over medium heat, breaking it up into small pieces, then drain on paper towels. Coat a 9 x 13 casserole dish with cooking spray, then arrange the bread in it. In a large bowl, beat the eggs, then add the sausage, evaporated milk, shredded cheese, frozen hash browns, green chiles and seasonings and stir well. Gently pour the mixture over the bread, keeping the bread spread evenly over the casserole dish. Cover tightly and refrigerate overnight.

Remove the casserole from the refrigerator at least a half hour before serving, and preheat the oven to 350℃. Bake the casserole for about 45 minutes, and then, if desired, broil for 1-2 minutes to increase the browning on the top. Let cool for a few minutes and then serve.

Notes and Variations

This dish is delicious but not fancy and there are many things you can do with it.

• The bread can truly be any kind of bread; I used two English muffins which weren’t stale and toasted them after tearing them into bits. Artisan breads would be great and jalapeno-cheese bread would be outta this world.
• You can spice up this basic recipe easily, in several ways:
  • Use spicy pork sausage instead of mild
  • Use hot green chiles instead of mild
  • Increase each of the spices to ½ tsp.
  • Add ½ tsp. red pepper flakes
  • Use spicy cheese
• Any kind of potatoes could work in this dish, so don’t be afraid to substitute baked potato or even leftover french fries (yes, really!)
• This can be a vegetarian dish by simply substituting a 3-4 sauteed portobello mushrooms, chopped, for the sausage; you’d saute them in about 3 tbsp. butter for about ten minutes, seasoning with salt and pepper
• You could make this with regular milk, half ‘n’ half or cream, but the evaporated milk provides a unique creaminess
• A garnish of cilantro, sliced green onions or parsley would be beautiful
• This dish is rich, so all you need to serve it with is fruit

Join Me in the Kitchen

We took an early flight from Houston to Denver and arrived at Little House just before a snowstorm. That’s the view out of the kitchen window.

It made me happy to prep our breakfast for the next morning while it was snowing outside.

This was the view this morning before breakfast.

I really enjoyed my 10-minute photo shoot on the front porch. It was 21℃ but the sun was out and all was right with the world.

The Backstory: Dad’s Recipe

Dad was the King of Breakfast Casseroles from his three decades of Saturday morning Men’s Breakfast meetings at the Methodist Church in Crystal Beach, Texas. He attended religiously and when it was his turn to bring breakfast, it was always a casserole. Dad sent me copies of his recipes years ago, and I cherish them, especially since we lost him in 2017. Here’s the one that inspired today’s recipe.

But even though this recipe is a treasure, an heirloom from my Dad, it needed a little work. I don’t think his key talents were in recipe documentation, do you? For one thing, I’m pretty sure he used some seasonings, even if it was just salt and pepper – and there’s nary a seasoning listed on his recipe. For another, he didn’t provide any specifics on the vegetable add-ins. But it was enough to get me going, and I’ll always think of him when I make this dish.

Dad in my old kitchen in 2014; good times, they were.

Good times, they still are.

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