The Best Breakfast Casserole Recipe to Make-Ahead
*This post may contain affiliate links. Originally posted on 10-11-2020 and updated 11-25-2024.
I love having everyone home for the holidays, but I don’t like having to be in the kitchen the next morning fixing a big breakfast. Slow mornings during the holidays are my favorite! So my go-to recipe is my mom’s breakfast casserole that you can make ahead and pop in the oven to warm up for holiday mornings. This is an easy breakfast casserole recipe that has become a staple in our house over the years. I know you will love it and another great thing about it is it’s pretty impossible to mess up!
What is a breakfast casserole?
It’s essentially an egg casserole with different ingredients thrown in and baked in the oven. Our easy recipe is a sausage, egg, cheese, and bread base, but there many different ways you can make it. Some other versions use hash browns, tater tots, or sweet potatoes. I’ve even had a French toast casserole. Our family prefers a sausage version with bread because it sets up really well and is so delicious!
The Best Breakfast Casserole Recipe to Make-Ahead
Equipment
- 1 large mixing bowl
- Measuring cups
- 1 9×13 inch baking dish
Ingredients
- 2 lbs Ground breakfast sausage (I typically use one hot and one medium)
- 9 Eggs, room temperature
- 3 cups Milk (regular milk or almond milk both work fine)
- 9 Slices of white bread, crusts removed & cut into 1″ cubes
- 1.5 cups Shredded sharp cheddar cheese
- 1.5 tsp Ground mustard
- 1 tsp Salt
- Pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Brown the sausage in a large skillet over medium-high heat, drain, and set aside. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, ground mustard, salt, and pepper. Add the milk, cheese, and sausage to the bowl and mix together. Add the bread last and stir in just to combine. Pour the egg mixture into a 9 × 13 casserole dish, greased with cooking spray. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean and it’s not jiggly in the center. Easy peasy!
Notes
Swaps
If you want to make it a more healthy breakfast casserole, here are a few swaps to make. You can replace the white bread with gluten-free bread or use a higher quality white bread like Dave’s killer bread. Use grass-fed and/or organic cheese, and shred it yourself from a block if possible. Use organic and/or pasture-raised eggs and a high-quality pork breakfast sausage with no nitrites or nitrates if you can find it. Another swap would be to use organic turkey sausage, but you would need to add seasoning to it to make it a true “breakfast” sausage. I find regular milk and almond milk are interchangeable and I usually use almond milk because I often don’t have regular milk on hand.
Make-Ahead Breakfast Casserole.
You guys, if you do nothing else this holiday season, make this recipe! I promise it will not disappoint. It feeds a lot of people and you can bake it the night before and it will be ready for the next day. You can also make it ahead of time too, just cover it with plastic wrap or aluminum foil (if your dish doesn’t have a lid) and pop it in the freezer. This is my favorite casserole dish with a lid.
I usually make one for Thanksgiving and one for Christmas at the same time and freeze them both. You can store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge or freezer. I like to save individual portions for weekday breakfasts or put them in my son’s lunchbox for school lunch.
It’s a great recipe with simple ingredients that everyone will love. It’s perfect for a Christmas morning or any post-holiday breakfast. It truly is the perfect breakfast casserole, at least we think it is!
Looking for more holiday recipes? Check out our oatmeal, chocolate chip, and coconut cookie recipe. We like to call them the BEST cookies ever…because they kind of are! Enjoy!
Cheers!
Done!! This looks delish!
Thanks!! It is a family favorite :)