Breakfast Casserole Muffins

A Very Long Time Ago I became obsessed with the idea of making breakfast casserole muffins.

I looked all over Pinterest, I scoured Google, I painstakingly followed recipes.

Then I had a revelation.

You don’t need a freakin’ recipe to make breakfast casserole muffins! Follow these very, very basic guidelines and you’ll be doing the muffin dance in 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 325°

or 350°

or 375°

or whatever floats your boat. Lower is often better with eggy stuff, so lower and slower gives a nicer texture but if you’re in a big-butt hurry you can shave like 5 minutes off by using a higher temp in your oven. I recommend going with 325°. But if you’re cooking something else at the same time and it calls for a 350° temp, don’t stress.

Grease a muffin pan.

Or a mini muffin pan. Or a gigantic muffin top pan. Or use a silicone muffin pan – no lube necessary!

Put some stuff in it.

Generally it should be cooked stuff.

Here are some things I like to throw in,

depending on what’s in my fridge:

• cooked sausage
• bits of (cooked) turkey, ham, or ground beef
• pepperoni
• sauteed onions/peppers
• chopped spinach
• pepperoni
• bacon
• scallion (green onion)
• bits of leftover baked potato
• bell pepper
• zucchini
• mushrooms
• ground up leftover veggies (ha! Snuck one by you, kids!)
• cheese
• more cheese
• a little more cheese

Don’t try to put all of these in at once. That would be insane. I know you’re not insane, but disclaimers and all, right?

It’s best if the veggies are cooked/steamed/sauteed first because they naturally release a lot of water and raw mushrooms in an egg muffin sort of thing will end up in tears and disappointment. Just trust me on this.

The meat should already be cooked too. The breakfast casserole muffins will be in the oven long enough to set the eggs, not long enough to cook ground beef, ya know?

You can fill the muffin spots halfway or nearly to the top with filling goodies, as long as you leave room for enough egg to hold things together. If you prefer an egg-ier breakfast casserole muffin, fill each space 1/3 to 1/2 full with the filling. If you like a bursting omelet sort of thing, fill about 3/4 of the way. You’ll pour the beaten eggs on top.

Beat some eggs. Beat them like a red-headed step-child.

(send hate mail to ). Add a tablespoon or two of milk if you want the end result to be on the fluffy side. Pour the downtrodden eggs into the muffin tins. You’ll need a little less than 1 egg per muffin space, depending on the size you’re making and how much filling you’ve added. I generally use 9 or 10 eggs for a standard muffin pan. Start with 8 eggs and then add another egg or two if you need to.

Add more cheese.

Because you CAN NOT have too much cheese. Can not. Not possible.

Bake ’em until they are just golden and have risen some.

It will usually take around 25 minutes, depending on how big the muffins are, the temperature of your oven, etc. Make them once or twice and you’ll know exactly how long to cook them. Don’t overcook them. Please. I’m begging you.

Ta-da! You did it!

 

Don’t make it complicated. Look around in the fridge and throw in whatever is handy and sounds good. As long as you’ve got cheese you’ll be ok. If you’re not a cheese person, well, I don’t really know what to say except I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for you.

But you’re the authority! How do you do it?

Yep, I’m the Ultimate Authority on breakfast casserole muffins. For sure. You should follow my exact instructions. Or you don’t have to. But here’s how I often do mine:

• Mash a couple of thawed tater tots or baked potato or even a little leftover mashed potato or rice into the bottom of the muffin tin.
• Add some leftover meat and veg cut into teeny tiny pieces.
• Throw in some sort of seasoning if I remember.
• Put in some cheese.
• Look at it and decide it could use just a wee bit more cheese.
• Pour some beaten eggs on until it’s filled just up to the top.
• Look at it and decide it wouldn’t hurt to add a little more cheese on top.
• Bake for around 25 minutes.
• Scream at the kids that their whining won’t make them cook any faster.

Make a whole bunch of these, flash freeze them, and throw them into a zip bag for quickie breakfasts.

P.S. Grease the pan.

Seriously. I had to throw this one out, and believe me, there was much cursing involved.

If you feel like you absolutely, positively, MUST have a written out recipe, you can check out these beautifully photographed recipes gleaned from Pinterest. But yours won’t look that pretty in person. Don’t feel like a Pinterest failure. These things are only that poofy and gorgeous for like 3 seconds after they come out of the oven and then they sag a little. But that’s ok because we live in the real world.

Breakfast Egg Muffins, from Better With Wine
Amazing Muffin Cups from Johnsonville Sausage
Sausage and Cheese Muffins from Plain Chicken
Cheddar Onion Hash Brown Cups from Mom Foodie at Blommi.com
Breakfast Egg Muffins with Bacon and Spinach from Julia’s Album

Enjoy, and tell me what you want to stick in your muffin! (that is going to get me on the NSFW list in Google results for sure!)