It is so nice to get up in the morning and have a good hearty breakfast. Breakfast is probably my favorite meal of the day next to dessert. It’s warm, comforting, delicious and I love it can be sweet or savory depending on your mood. This breakfast strata was one that was savory and filling but it wasn’t at all heavy or greasy. One of the beauties of this particular dish is that it can be assembled the night before if you so choose, which makes it a great option for serving a crowd or if you have an event going on that you need to get to but still want a decent breakfast. I love things like this for Christmas morning or hockey practice mornings or just any morning that I happen to have the ingredients for it. A strata is basically just a savory bread pudding, same concept with soaking the bread and baking it into sort of a custard, but instead of adding chocolate or berries or whatever, you are adding meats, cheeses, veggies, those sorts of things. You can, of course, change up the mixins, swiss cheese and bacon, some zucchini might be nice. Whatever you can think of that sounds good with eggs I suppose. Either way, its really a simple and delicious way to start your day.
- 8 eggs
- 2 cups whole milk
- 4 cups cubed sourdough bread
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
- 1 teaspoon dry mustard
- 1 pound sausage
- ½ red onion, minced
- 8 ounces crimini mushrooms, diced
- ¼ cup parsley (plus a little more for sprinkling), minced
- 1½ cups grated cheddar cheese (plus a little more for sprinkling)
- In a large mixing bowl combine the eggs, milk, salt, pepper and dry mustard. Once completely combined, add the bread, making sure it is completely covered in the milk mixture. Set aside to soak while you make the other ingredients.
- In a medium fry pan over medium high heat, brown the sausage and then set aside to cool.
- Next cook the onions just until they start to soften, then add the mushrooms. Cook until the mushrooms release their juices and then remove from heat. Allow to cool.
- Once the sausage and mushrooms are cooled (I stuck them in the fridge to speed up the process) add them to the egg mixture along with the cheese and the parsley, reserving a little of the cheese and parsley to sprinkle on top once they come out of the oven.
- At this point you can either pour it into a buttered 9×13 casserole dish or 8 individual ramekins (placed then on a baking sheet to make them easier to move around). Then your next move will either be to put it in the fridge (covered) to wait till morning or to go ahead and bake it.
- When you are ready to bake the strata place in a preheated 350˚ oven, for the casserole dish about 45 minutes, for the ramekins, about 20 minutes. Either way, it’s done when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Remove from oven and sprinkle a little more cheese and parsley on top and serve.
Thanks for the recipe: http://jessicaburns.com
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