This Bacon And Egg Breakfast Casserole is the Perfect Way to Start Your Day

Image by @Personal Creations / Flickr

What’s the coolest thing about a breakfast casserole? As long as it contains the crucial ingredients—eggs and cheese—you can get creative with a wide range of additional ingredients. This mouthwatering recipe features soft-boiled eggs, bacon, cheese, potato, and spinach. (Who says you can’t experiment beyond that?)

Bacon And Egg Breakfast Casserole

Ingredients

1 box of all-butter puff pastry, thawed as directed
All-purpose flour (for work surface)
14 large eggs, divided into a set of six and a set of eight
9 strips of bacon
1 large onion, chopped or thinly sliced
8 oz. (2-1/2 cups) coarsely grated Gruyere cheese
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 cups of heavy cream in one container, and 1 tablespoon of the same in a different container
1 medium Yukon Gold potato, cut into half-inch cubes
5 oz. baby spinach

Pastry Directions

Preheat the oven to 350º F. Sprinkle some flour on the cooking surface and roll out enough puff pastry to cover the baking pan. Keep the remainder for another use. Cut pastry lengthwise into 14 half-inch-wide strips. Lay the strips out on wax paper or baking parchment, and chill them for the rest of the prep time.

Filling Directions

Peel and cut up the potato into half-inch cubes. In a medium-sized pot, boil water. When the water comes to a rolling boil, add six eggs. Cover and cook for seven minutes. Remove from heat, and run cold water over the eggs. Put the eggs into a bowl of ice water, and let them cool completely. Peel the eggs when they are cool.

While the six eggs are cooking, fry the bacon in a skillet over medium heat until the bacon is crisp, about 10 to 12 minutes. Lay the strips on paper towels to soak up excess grease. Pour the bacon fat into a bowl, and set it aside. Once the bacon is cool, crumble or coarsely chop it.

Heat 2 teaspoons of bacon fat in the skillet you just used. Sauteé the onion until it turns translucent.

Grease a 9″ by 13″ baking pan with a tablespoon of the bacon fat. This recipe requires no further bacon fat.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eight uncooked eggs. Add the cheese, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and 2 cups cream. Whisk all of this together. Stir in the potato cubes, spinach, sauteed onion, and chopped bacon. Pour the mixture into the greased pan.

Cut the boiled eggs in half lengthwise and arrange them as desired in the mixture. Press the egg halves gently until their surfaces are even with the surface of the pan contents.

Take out the chilled pastry strips, and arrange half of them along the diagonal across the top of the casserole filling, about one inch apart from each other. Trim off excess length, and use this toward the corners of the pan. Do the same with the second half of the strips, laying them out in a diagonal pattern in the opposite direction, to form a lattice. No need to weave this; just lay them on top of the first layer. Brush the pastry lattice with the remaining 1 tablespoon of cream.

Bake the casserole for 50 to 55 minutes, rotating the pan after about 25 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 15 minutes before serving.

The pastry, the filling, or the entire casserole can be prepared ahead of time and baked or reheated the day you serve. Enjoy!