Breakfast Casserole

My kids can not escape the house without breakfast. Ever. I don’t even mind making it everyday for my children, but sometimes I like to have things made in advance just to make the mornings a little easier. Like the first day of school for example. The first day is always crazy trying to adjust to the first early morning in two months and make sure everyone has what they need. This year I decided to remove the making of breakfast from the equation for the first day and put a breakfast casserole in the slow cooker.

There are a ton of recipes floating about on the internet for this and you should take the time to play with the recipe to make sure it has what you want in it. Mine is fairly straight forward, but you can add red or green peppers, or Canadian Bacon, or ham. I think Feta cheese would be lovely mixed into the layers as well, or goat cheese! I used sharp cheddar, but try gouda or parmesan if you like. It’s really yours, so make it what you want.

Breakfast Casserole

1 bag of frozen hash brown potatoes
1 lb of bacon, cooked and crumbled
1 large onion, chopped
2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped fine
1 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 cups shredded Sharp or Extra Old Cheddar
12 eggs
1 cup 2% milk
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Spray inside of slow cooker with PAM. Cook onion and jalapeno in olive oil until tender and slightly browned. Also cook bacon until crisp, let cool on paper towels to soak up grease and crumble. When onion mixture and bacon have cooled, place one third of frozen hash browns in slow cooker. Add third of bacon, onion, jalapeno and cheese. Repeat layers ending with cheese on top.

Whisk together eggs, milk, salt and pepper in a large bowl and pour over ingredients in the slow cooker. Cover and turn to low. This should take no longer than six hours. Internal temperature should be 160 to 165F. It will overcook and get dry if left too long, so don’t make this on a day you’re looking to sleep in. This makes excellent leftovers for the next day and can be rolled in a tortilla for breakfast burritos. It’s a fiesta at breakfast! Ole.