(Veggie) Sausage and Grilled Onion Breakfast Casserole*

*with a healthier version below! ;)

Serves 6-ish

When I was growing up, every Christmas morning we had some sort of breakfast casserole (well, until I was about 12, and Mom got sick of making the same freakin’ thing every year; then we started having stuff like Shrimp fra Diavolo – for brunch!). There are 5 components to a breakfast casserole: meat, cheese, bread, milk and eggs. The varieties you use of each are interchangeable, and you can add whatever else you feel like adding, but those 5 things are the backbone of the recipe.

They’re also practically the definition of what’s wrong with the American diet. Not a fruit or veggie in sight! But if you grew up with some variation of the Standard American Diet (does anyone else notice that the acronym for that is SAD?), breakfast casseroles evoke either pleasant, warm, comforting feelings or the gag reflex. There doesn’t seem to be a middle ground. I fall into the former, though, and I needed some comfort food recently, so this is my version of the breakfast casserole. (And for good measure, I altered the recipe to make a frittata below – no bread, less milk, WAY healthier. But not QUITE as comforting on the nostalgia scale. I’m just sayin’.)

The Recipe (1):
1 Tbs canola or grapeseed oil
1 large white onion, halved and thinly sliced
4 croissants OR 6 slices of white bread (Don’t even bother with using whole-grain bread for this; it tastes weird. Just make the frittata below if you can’t bring yourself to buy white bread.)6-8 cooked sausage patties, chopped (I use Morningstar Farms veggie patties, just because I like them and they’re easy.)
2 cups grated jack-and-cheddar cheese blend (or 1 cup each, if you’re grating your own)
12 eggs
1 ¼ cups whole milk
½ -1 tsp hot sauce (Frank’s Red Hot is my favorite in this, although I’ve been known to use Sriracha sauce from the Asian food aisle.)
1 Tbs fennel seeds (optional: they add a lot of flavor, but it’ll still be good if you don’t have any on hand)
Salt and pepper

In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat and add the onions, breaking them up as you add them. Add a light sprinkle of salt, stir, and reduce the heat to low.

Spray a 8 ½ x 11 casserole dish with nonstick spray, and then shred half the bread of your choice into the bottom. You want pretty small pieces: maybe ½ an inch or so.

(Stir the onions. They should be getting soft by now, so turn the heat up to medium.)

Chop the sausages if you haven’t already, and add them to the casserole dish.

(Stir the onions. Continue to stir them whenever you have a minute. We want them to get really brown and soft. Altogether they’re going to spend about a half-hour on the stovetop, just FYI.)
In a LARGE bowl, crack the eggs. Whisk them together, then add the milk, hot sauce, fennel, salt and pepper. Stir to combine and set aside.

When the onions are done (read: pretty brown), spread them over the sausage in the casserole dish. Top with half the cheese. Shred the remaining bread over the mixture, then pour the egg mixture over THAT. Top with the remaining cheese and set aside.

Now. If you’re going to cook this within an hour or so, I’d just leave it on the countertop. (Note: that is NOT recommended by the food safety folks, so proceed at your own risk. No one in my family has ever gotten sick doing that, but we’re pretty blasé about these things.) Otherwise, put it in the fridge and let it sit for a couple of hours. Take it out of the fridge about 40 minutes before you want to cook it, so it can come to room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake the casserole covered for about 30 minutes, take the cover off, and bake it for about 15 more, so the cheese on top is melted. Allow to stand for 5-10 minutes so it sets before you cut it up.

This is great on its own, but if I’m serving it to guests, I usually put out extra cheese, some sour cream, ketchup, salsa, guacamole, cheese, whatever I can think of that I have on hand. Pretty much EVERYONE feels the need to mess with their eggs (including me).

Um, usually I have a picture here. But I had guests, and I served it before I thought about it. Oops.


The Recipe (2):
Serves 4-6

This is a little healthier. The key to the preparation on this is to use an oven-safe skillet. Otherwise it’s a HUGE pain. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

1 Tbs canola or grapeseed oil
1 large white onion, halved and thinly sliced
6-8 cooked sausage patties, chopped (I use Morningstar Farms veggie patties, just because I like them and they’re easy.)
1 cup grated jack-and-cheddar cheese blend (or ½ cup each, if you’re grating your own)
6 eggs (8 if you have a BIG pan)
½ -1 tsp hot sauce (Frank’s Red Hot is my favorite in this, although I’ve been known to use Sriracha sauce from the Asian food aisle.)
1 Tbs fennel seeds (optional: they add a lot of flavor, but it’ll still be good if you don’t have any on hand)
Salt and pepper

Prepare the onion the same as above.

While the onion cooks, chop the sausages, and set aside.

When the onion is done, add the sausages to the pan and heat through. Spread the mixture out evenly over the pan.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, ½ the cheese, hot sauce, fennel, salt and pepper together. Pour the mixture over the sausage mixture in the pan, and allow to set – DON’T STIR IT. When the eggs start to solidify around the edges (it will still be liquid in the middle), sprinkle the remaining cheese on top, remove the pan from the heat, and put it (uncovered) into the oven. Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. The cheese will be melted, and the frittata will get nice and puffy-looking. (It’s actually pretty impressive.)