Breakfast casserole is a secret Internet celebrity. While exploring the mysteries of the World Wide Web recently, I discovered that “breakfast casserole” and “egg casserole” are among the top breakfast-related searches on Google. They’re right up there with “easy breakfast” and “bed and breakfast.” How can this breakfast casserole be such a sought after breakfast when I have never had one? I thought I was an expert on egg dishes to be eaten in the morning. I usually won’t claim to be able to cook, but I will brag about my ability to make breakfast. But the breakfast casserole had gotten by me.
Further research allowed me to build a profile on the breakfast casserole. It is a pretty normal casserole, but you make it with eggs, unless you are vegan. (More on that later.) It often contains bacon or sausage, toast, veggies, and, almost always, a lot of cheese. And there’s plenty of room for variation here. Fancy varieties are made with things like sundried tomatoes.
They are often found in Southern states, especially at bed and breakfasts, and at Christmastime. None of those things are a big part of my life. I can’t recall ever having been to a bed and breakfast. That explained why the egg casserole and I had never crossed paths. A meeting would have to be arranged. This kind of research works up an appetite.
Christmas is still a ways off, I’m in New York, and I can’t see myself making it to any cozy weekend getaway spots, so I was forced to whip one up myself. I should have presented that with a lot less drama because it was stupid easy to do. My casserole was an amalgamation of a few different recipes culled from About.com, Paula Deen, bed and breakfast websites, and one online firearms forum. Generally speaking, to make an egg casserole you pile layers of omelet fillings over some bread in a greased dish. Then you mix 6-8 eggs with maybe two cups of milk and pour it over your fillings. Then you bake it for about forty minutes. Small wonder it’s popular for holidays and get togethers where there are a lot of mouths to feed.
I chose whole wheat bread, lightly fried fake sausage, chopped green peppers, white onions, and canned mushrooms for my fillings. Oh, and a mixture of shredded white cheddar and Monterey Jack cheese. I can’t abide watery omelets and the like so I actually baked my casserole for a lot longer than was probably called for. I didn’t take it out of the oven until there was a nice golden brown skin across most of the top.
When I finally scooped myself out a serving and doused it with Tabasco, the jiggly little cube was still a bit soggy for my taste ― kind of like chowing down on the most delicious wet sponge ever. The bread had also shifted up from the bottom of the dish, where it was meant to act as a kind of crust, and formed a glutinous sub-stratum in the middle. Not bad, but I definitely need to work on my technique. Subsequent batches will definitely include less milk, more flavorful vegetables like spinach, and potatoes for a more robust texture.
Munching contentedly, I realized that this was just an American rejoinder to quiche. It’s unfussy, less tidy, and open to interpretation. In that light, I am absolutely adding it to my canon of great breakfast foods. Sorry, Oatmeal, you still haven’t made the cut, but thanks for your continued interest in our organization.
As it turns out, the vegan world is all over the breakfast casserole. Even though I have no quarrel with eating eggs and cheese (I try but I can’t stay mad) I think I will want to sample a few of the animal-free recipes I found. The tofu scramble and Gimme Lean-based dish over at Vegan Crunk looks amazing with its tomato slice toppings. And Hell Yeah, It’s Vegan has a mid-western-style overnight breakfast casserole recipe that sounds to die for. But the tofu spinach breakfast casserole over at Scrumpdilly promises to be the most flavorful.
Back on the ovo-lacto side of things, I’m sort of afraid to try the French toast breakfast casserole and cheese grits breakfast casserole recipes I found, but, then again, I also can’t get the thought of them out of my head. They may be best saved for a day when I actually do have a full house. Or when I want to give myself a heart attack. Be warned: Even a normal breakfast casserole is not a light meal.
On a final note, just as I suspected, the casserole was even better the next day, even cold. It had settled and solidified into something like a meaty custard. It is going to last me for the rest of the week. And I can’t say I mind.
