Breakfast casserole

When it comes to breakfast I’m hard to please.  I need a good one to last me throughout the morning.  I don’t really dig cereal or cold breakfasts.  And my healthy living and budget does not allow me to eat a bagel every morning so I am constantly looking for easy and tasty breakfast ideas because a girl can only eat egg beaters so many days in a row.  I found this breakfast bake on Pinterest and decided to give it a try.  I love the idea of making something up on Sunday that I can eat all week and cutting out some prep time each night that I would usually spend making breakfast and lunch the next day.  The recipe I found was called breakfast tater tot casserole and came from grouprecipes.com. 

The original recipe

Ingredients

1 pound ground pork breakfast sausage (or cubed ham or bacon, whatever you like best)

2-4 cups shredded cheddar cheese

2 cups milk

4 eggs

2 pounds frozen tater tots

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Spread the sausage, bacon, or ham evenly in the bottom of a 9x13 inch pan. Spread cheese over meat.

In large bowl, beat together milk and eggs. Pour over cheese. (May be refrigerated overnight at this point).  Top with frozen tater tots.  Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes.  Cool for 5 to 10 minutes before serving.

Adjustments:  I decided to healthify this meal from the get.  I went with the ground turkey this round.  I think ham would be great too.  Bacon would be tasty but it would take a lot of bacon since it shrinks and you’d have to crumble it.  I browned the sausage with some onion and red and yellow bell peppers and placed it on the bottom of a 9x9 pan so it was thicker.  I covered that with 2 cups of egg beaters then ¼ cup of reduced fat 2% shredded cheddar cheese.  I spread 3 cups of shredded hashbrowns on top of that.  Hashbrowns are less fat and calories than tater tots because they are not seasoned.  I did add some salt and pepper then another ¼ cup of cheese on top.  This baked uncovered for 45 minutes and came out perfectly!  I cut it into 6 large sections and put it in the fridge.  Each morning I remove one square, microwave it for 2 minutes and have a perfect breakfast meal. 

This is what the healthified version looks like

Wonderful breakfast!

Cost:  $2 roll of ground turkey breakfast sausage, $2.50 bag of hashbrowns, $2.50 bag of 2% shredded cheese, $4 carton of egg beaters, onion and bell pepper from the garden.  Grand total of $11 for six meals.  $1.83 per serving is cheaper than the fast food. 

Overall:  This was easy to make, tastes great, is cost effective and I love that it can be healthified. 

Rating:  Thumbs up! 

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