Easy Breakfast Casserole: Fit For a Crowd and Can Make Ahead of Time

4.96 from 24 votes
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An easy breakfast casserole is the perfect morning meal, especially when feeding a crowd. You’ll love this dish full of eggs, hash browns, sausage, and cheese! 

A square of breakfast casserole with egg, sausage, hash browns, tomato and green onion on a white plate.
Featured with this recipe
  1. Easy Breakfast Casserole Ingredients
  2. How to Make Easy Breakfast Casserole
  3. Tips For Baking Breakfast Casserole
  4. Breakfast casserole in a slow cooker
  5. Make ahead breakfast casserole
  6. Day ahead breakfast casserole
  7. Freezer breakfast casserole
  8. Substitutions for this recipe
  9. Feeding a Crowd
  10. What to Serve with Breakfast Casserole
  11. Frequently Asked Questions
  12. More Breakfast Recipes
  13. Hashbrown Breakfast Casserole Recipe

Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day and this breakfast bake makes it even better! You start off with simple ingredients like eggs, hash browns, and cheese. After that, you can dress this casserole a million different ways. Add different meats and veggies to create a fun morning meal your whole family will enjoy.

If you are a fan of breakfast for dinner, this casserole tastes great for dinner! It is warm, filling, and nutritious.

Easy Breakfast Casserole Ingredients

  • Ground sausage –
  • Red pepper –
  • Onion –
  • Hash brown potatoes –
  • Cheddar cheese –
  • Eggs –
  • Milk –

How to Make Easy Breakfast Casserole

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Heat a skillet over medium heat. Cook sausage, pepper, and onion until sausage is browned and vegetables are tender. Drain off any excess fat.
  2. In a large bowl, combine the sausage mixture with hash browns and cheddar cheese. Pour into a greased 9×13 baking dish.
  3. In a separate bowl, combine eggs and milk. Whisk until fully blended. Pour over the hash brown mixture.
  4. Bake at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes, or until eggs are set in the center and don’t jiggle.
A slice of breakfast casserole being lifted out of a pan showing the eggs, sausage, peppers, and cheese.

Tips For Baking Breakfast Casserole

First things first, make sure you spray your baking dish with cooking spray. The eggs will stick to the bottom if you don’t. In my oven, this bakes up in about 50-60 minutes, but it may vary slightly in other kitchens. If you see that the edges are browning faster than the middle, you can add some tin foil around the edges to keep it from burning. Another way to avoid burning is to turn down the temperature of the oven and allow the casserole to cook a little longer. Cover and refrigerate any leftovers. They heat up great in the microwave!

This recipe is so versatile. Here are some more tips to customize it or make it even easier:

Breakfast casserole in a slow cooker

If you don’t have time to bake this in the morning, try our Slow Cooker Breakfast Casserole. You can throw in the ingredients the night before, and in the morning you’ll wake up to a delicious, fully-cooked meal! Plus, you don’t have to heat up your house with the oven.

Make ahead breakfast casserole

You can easily turn this into a make-ahead breakfast casserole. You can make it the day before and refrigerate, or freeze it and make it anytime.

Day ahead breakfast casserole

Save some time in the morning by making up this casserole the day before you plan to serve it. Follow the first 3 steps in the instructions, then cover the baking dish with plastic wrap and refrigerate. Remove the casserole from the fridge 30 minutes before baking, then bake for an hour or until a toothpick or knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Freezer breakfast casserole

To freeze, follow all the directions in the recipe below, and then cover the cooled casserole tightly with a layer of plastic wrap, then a layer of aluminum foil to prevent freezer burn. Store in the freezer for up to 2 months. To cook from frozen, thaw it in the refrigerator overnight, then bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes or until heated through. There’s something so comforting about knowing there’s a delicious breakfast option in the freezer, just waiting to be heated and served.

Substitutions for this recipe

Potatoes: I like to use frozen hash browns, but you can use any type of potatoes. Sometimes if I don’t want to cook my own vegetables, I will use the Potatoes O’Brien mix with peppers and onions. You can also use fresh potatoes, just make sure to slice or dice them thinly so they cook in the right amount of time.

Veggies: My favorite veggie combo in this easy breakfast casserole recipe is red pepper and onion. However, I’ve used many other combos when I don’t have those on hand. I’ve used broccoli and tomatoes, zucchini and peppers, spinach and mushrooms, or just whatever I have in the fridge. If you use spinach and onion, try using mozzarella or Swiss cheese instead of cheddar – so yummy!

Meat: Any breakfast meat tastes great in this breakfast casserole recipe. I like using maple-flavored sausage, but sometimes I use the spicy kind to kick things up a notch. You can also use bacon, ham, chorizo, or no meat at all for a vegetarian option.

Egg mixture being poured over hasbrowns, veggies, and sausage in a baking dish to make breakfast casserole.

Feeding a Crowd

When I have company, this is my go-to breakfast casserole recipe. It is easy to put together, and you can customize it to fit even the pickiest of eaters. This recipe makes 12 large servings or 15 regular servings. However, I can fit two 9×13 pans in my oven so I can double the recipe and feed up to 30 people! I just make sure to switch the baking pans halfway through, one on the top and one on the bottom. I like to pre-cut slices in the pan to make sure everyone gets a piece.

What to Serve with Breakfast Casserole

If we are just eating this at home on a normal morning, I serve this casserole by itself or maybe with some fresh fruit. My kids like to top it with ketchup, and my husband and I usually top it with sour cream and salsa. However, if I am feeding a larger group or a very ravenous group, I will make a sweet breakfast item to round out the meal. Some of my favorites are Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins, Lemon Poppyseed Muffins, and Caramel Monkey Bread.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the difference between breakfast casserole and frittata?

The resulting dish is similar to an omelet, but it tends to be thicker and more rustic. Notably, most frittata recipes do not contain potatoes, which makes them distinct from breakfast casseroles. The Incredible Egg shares a frittata recipe that incorporates lots of filling ingredients.

What are the three components of a casserole?

 casserole or hot dish is typically a baked food with three main components: pieces of meat (such as chicken or ground meat) or fish (such as tuna) or other protein (such as beans or tofu), various chopped or canned vegetables (such as green beans or peas), and a starchy binder (such as flour, …

Why do you have to refrigerate breakfast casserole overnight?

The casserole is covered and refrigerated overnight to allow the liquid ingredients to be absorbed into the bread. This is a perishable mixture and should be cooked the morning or day after assembly. Bake in an oven set no lower than 325 °F. Most recipes suggest 350 °F.

How long can a breakfast casserole sit out?

Never leave cooked eggs or egg dishes out of the refrigerator for more than 2 hours or for more than 1 hour when temperatures are above 90° F. Bacteria that can cause illness grow quickly at warm temperatures (between 40° F and 140° F).

READ NEXT: 33+ Super Easy Breakfast Ideas

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Breakfast Egg Casserole on a plate made with eggs, cheese, sausage, and peppers

Hashbrown Breakfast Casserole

4.96 from 24 votes
Easy breakfast casserole is the perfect morning meal, especially when feeding a crowd. You'll love this dish full of eggs, hash browns, meat and cheese! 
Prep Time 10 mins
Cook Time 55 mins
Total Time 1 hr 5 mins
Course Breakfast, brunch
Cuisine American
Servings 12

Video

Ingredients

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Heat a skillet over medium heat. Cook sausage, pepper, and onion until sausage is browned and vegetables are tender. Drain off any excess fat.
    Sausage, peppers, and onions being cooked in a pan to make breakfast casserole
  • In a large bowl, combine sausage mixture with hash browns and cheddar cheese. Pour into a greased 9×13 baking dish.
    Sausage, peppers, onions, cheese, and frozen hash browns in a glass bowl to make breakfast casserole.
  • In a separate bowl, combine eggs and milk. Whisk until fully blended. Pour over hash brown mixture.
    Egg mixture being poured over hasbrowns, veggies, and sausage in a baking dish to make breakfast casserole
  • Bake at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes, or until eggs are set in the center and don't jiggle.
    Breakfast casserole in a glass baking pan with eggs, hash browns, sausage, cheese, peppers, and green onion.

Nutrition Information

Calories: 286kcalCarbohydrates: 9gProtein: 19gFat: 19gSaturated Fat: 8gCholesterol: 227mgSodium: 714mgPotassium: 311mgFiber: 1gSugar: 2gVitamin A: 489IUVitamin C: 3mgCalcium: 190mgIron: 1mg

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Elise Donovan

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Comments

  1. 4 stars
    I made this with beyond meat and it turned out okay, a bit bland to be honest but I wonder if it was because they beyond meat wasn’t pre-seasoned like a sausage would be.

    One note for me is perhaps we’re big eaters but I really didn’t get the sense it was a 12-15 serving dish, maybe 8-10 servings rather, particularly if this is the main dish of your breakfast or brunch with a salad on the side.

    My other note was that the cheese didn’t seem to come through at all. I’m thinking of adding another few cups of cheese on top of the dish in the last 5 minutes of baking and getting it nice and melty before serving.

    I’m making it again for a large group and will use regular sausage this time, and I’m thinking it will go well with some salsa as a topping, almost like a breakfast taco casserole.

  2. 5 stars
    I love breakfast casseroles! They are so easy and such a great way to feed a crowd. This one was a big hit!

  3. 5 stars
    This Easy Breakfast Casserole was off the chain GOOD! Let me tell you it flew off my breakfast table in no time. I will be sharing this recipe with my sisters because I know they would love this recipe!!!

    Have a great day!!

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