Cottage cheese egg bake
80 min · 29 g protein · 246 cals / serving
The weekend breakfast casserole that feeds a crowd, built on eggs and blended cottage cheese for a custardy, soufflé-like set. Turkey sausage, peppers, mushrooms and spinach run all through it, with sharp cheddar on top. Bake it once and you have breakfast for days.
Ingredients
- 12 oz raw turkey sausage, casings removed
- 1 small onion, diced
- 1 red bell pepper, diced
- 8 oz crimini mushroom, sliced
- 5 oz baby spinach
- 6 eggs
- 2 cups liquid egg white
- 2 cups cottage cheese (1%)
- 2 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1/2 cup sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
To serve
- 2 tbsp fresh chives, snipped
Steps
- Heat the oven to 350°F and grease a 9×13-inch (23×33 cm) dish. Brown the sausage in a large skillet over medium-high heat, breaking it up, until no pink remains and it reads 165°F, 6–8 minutes. Add the onion, pepper and mushrooms and cook until the mushrooms have given up their liquid and it has evaporated, 8 minutes.
- Add the spinach and stir just until it wilts. Spread everything over the base of the dish.
- Blend the eggs, egg whites, cottage cheese, mustard, garlic powder, paprika, salt and pepper until completely smooth, about 30 seconds. Pour it over the filling.
- Scatter the cheddar over the top and bake 40–45 minutes, until puffed, golden at the edges and the center no longer jiggles and reads 160°F. Rest 10 minutes, then cut into squares and finish with chives.
Good to know
Do I have to blend the cottage cheese?
Blending is what turns it into a smooth custard instead of little pockets of curd. If you don't have a blender, a stick blender in a tall jug works, or whisk hard for a more rustic bake.
Why cook the vegetables first?
Mushrooms, peppers and spinach are mostly water. Cooking that water off before they go in keeps the bake from weeping and the bottom from going soggy.
How do I reheat it?
Squares keep 4 days in the fridge and freeze well. Microwave a square for about a minute at medium power so the eggs warm through without turning rubbery.
Alternative
Per
- Calories
- 104
- Protein
- (49%)
- 12 g
- Fat
- (40%)
- 4 g
- Carbohydrates
- (11%)
- 3 g
- of which sugar
- 2 g
- Fiber
- 1 g
- Sodium
- 356 mg
More breakfast
Computed from the ingredients with our published formula, not yet kitchen-tested. General guidance, not medical advice. Talk to your prescriber. How
As written, 1968 kcal goes into the pot and 2242 g of ingredients comes out as about 1890 g of food: 104 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water and energy density is the score's biggest lever, so the dish is scored as cooked, not as an average of its parts. Every ingredient links to its food page, with the same data and score. The label's percentages are each macronutrient's share of the calories. The full formula.