Sausage, egg and hash brown breakfast bake
80 min · 32 g protein · 334 cals / serving
The holiday-morning casserole, built for a crowd: grated potato pressed into a golden-edged hash brown base, browned turkey sausage, peppers, onion and spinach, and a custard of eggs, egg whites and cottage cheese under a layer of sharp reduced-fat cheddar, baked until puffed and golden. Assemble it the night before and bake in the morning.
Ingredients
Hash brown layer
- 3 medium (1 1/3 lb) russet potatoes, peeled, coarsely grated and squeezed dry
- 1/2 tsp salt, divided
- a good mist cooking spray
Filling
- 9 oz raw turkey sausage, casings removed
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 2 medium red bell peppers, red or a mix of colours, diced
- 3 big handfuls baby spinach, roughly chopped
Custard
- 5 eggs
- 1 3/4 cups + 2 tbsp liquid egg white
- 1 1/3 cups cottage cheese (1%), 1 % milkfat
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1/3 cup + 2 tbsp grated reduced fat cheddar cheese
- 2 green onions, sliced
Steps
- Heat the oven to 400°F and spray a 9×13-inch (23×33 cm) baking dish. Toss the squeezed potato with a third of the salt, press it into the dish in an even layer and spray the top. Bake 20 minutes, until the edges are golden and it holds together.
- Meanwhile, brown the sausage in a nonstick frying pan over medium-high heat, breaking it up, 6 minutes. Add the onion and pepper and cook 5 minutes more, until soft and the sausage is cooked through (165°F). Stir in the spinach until it wilts.
- Blend or whisk the eggs, egg whites, cottage cheese, paprika, pepper and the rest of the salt until fairly smooth (a few small curds are fine; they melt into cheesy pockets). Scatter the sausage mix over the hash brown layer, pour over the egg mix and sprinkle with the cheese.
- Lower the oven to 350°F and bake 35–40 minutes, until puffed, golden and set in the middle (a knife comes out clean). Rest 10 minutes, scatter with green onion and cut into 6.
Good to know
Can I make it the night before?
Yes. Bake the hash brown layer, let it cool, add the cooled sausage mix and cover. Keep the whisked egg mix in a jug in the fridge and pour it over in the morning, then add 5–10 minutes to the bake.
Why squeeze the potatoes?
Grated potato holds a lot of water. Wrung out in a clean tea towel it crisps into a real hash brown layer instead of steaming into a soggy one.
Can I use full-fat cheddar?
Yes, and it melts into a richer, stretchier top, at about the same score. Pork breakfast sausage instead of turkey works the same way and makes it richer still.
Alternatives
Per
- Calories
- 100
- Protein
- (40%)
- 10 g
- Fat
- (30%)
- 3 g
- Carbohydrates
- (30%)
- 8 g
- of which sugar
- 1 g
- Fiber
- 1 g
- Sodium
- 263 mg
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Computed from the ingredients with our published formula, not yet kitchen-tested. General guidance, not medical advice. Talk to your prescriber. How
As written, 2004 kcal goes into the pot and 2368 g of ingredients comes out as about 2000 g of food: 100 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.