It’s Sunday morning, which means lazy day and time. It seemed like the perfect time to try making a breakfast casserole. I wish I’d thought of this earlier in the morning, as by the time it was fully cooked, we were STARVING and actually ready for lunch.
Ingredients:
- 1 pound turkey breakfast sausage
- 4 slices stale bread
- 2 scallions, sliced
- 2 roasted red peppers, diced
- 2-3 oz. fresh baby bella mushrooms
- 2 oz. 2% sharp cheddar, finely grated
- 2 cups skim milk
- 3/4 cup Egg Beaters
- 3 eggs, beaten
- 1/2 tsp dried mustard
- 1/4 tsp onion powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- fresh ground pepper to taste
Directions:
- Set your sausage to brown over medium heat.
- Spray a 9×13 baking dish thoroughly with cooking spray.
- Tear up the bread and layer it over the bottom of the dish.
- Slice the scallions and layer them over the bread.
- Rough chop the mushrooms and layer them over the scallions.
- Dice the red peppers and layer them over the mushrooms.
- Once the sausage is browned, set on paper towels to absorb the extra grease.
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees
- Grate your cheese with the smallest holes on your box grater. The smaller the grate, the further the cheese will stretch.
- Mix your milk, egg beaters, eggs, mustard, onion powder, and salt.
- Add the browned sausage layer to the casserole.
- Pour the milk/egg mixture over the casserole.
- Sprinkle the cheese over the top.
- Go over the top of the casserole with a few turns of your pepper mill.
- Cover loosely with foil to prevent over-browning.
- Bake for 45-50 minutes or until eggs are set and top is slightly brown. Remove foil for last 10 minutes.
As breakfast casseroles go, this isn’t bad nutrition-wise. It works out to 6 decent sized servings at 315 calories and 18.2 grams of fat. The use of the turkey sausage, 2% cheese, and half egg beaters really cuts down on the fat and calories, and loading it up with veggies helps to bulk up each portion without adding tons of extra fat and calories. You could certainly add other veggies like tomatoes or zucchini. I’d love to try this with leftover roasted potatoes. And changing up the type of cheese would give a different sort of flavor. You could also make this a vegetarian dish by leaving out the sausage, and that would really seriously lower the fat and calories.