Long story short, I had breakfast sausage and carrot souffle on the brain – this is what ended up coming out.
I decided to combine the sausage and carrot into one dish rather than having to serve them as two distinct components for breakfast. I like an easy breakfast routine 😉 This casserole reheats very well and is a great option if you like to do food prep early in the week for leftovers throughout the week.
And as a bonus, it served as the impetus to make my own sausage 🙂 This recipe uses pork and beef, home grown herbs, dried cherries, shredded sweet potatoes and carrots, eggs and dairy (yogurt and cheese).
This recipe can be easily made dairy free – just exclude the yogurt and cheese and add more egg. You can also substitute TSP for the meat for your sausage if you’re an ovovegetarian. You could even use some sort of egg replacer for the eggs, sub the yogurt with vegan cream cheese and omit the shredded cheese if you are vegan. If you need it to be low FODMAPs friendly, simply replace the dried cherries with blueberries. Lots of options here. This recipe IS gluten-free and Paleo-friendly.
For this recipe, you will need:
Sausage:
1 lb. ground pork
1 lb. ground beef
1 t. salt
1 t. fresh ground black pepper
1/2 t. ground white pepper
2 t. chives
2 t. cayenne pepper
4 t. paprika
2 t. finely chopped fresh sage
1 t. finely chopped fresh thyme
1 t. finely chopped fresh lavendar
1 t. finely chopped fresh rosemary
1/2 t. ground allspice
1 c. diced dried cherries
3 T. garlic infused oil
Root Vegetable Crust:
3-4 medium sweet potatoes
1 c. carrots, ends trimmed
3/8 c. melted coconut oil
sprinkle of salt (if desired)
Egg Filling:
12 large eggs
1 c. yogurt or cottage cheese
8 oz. sharp cheddar cheese, grated
First, in a large bowl, mix all of the ingredients for the sausage and mix thoroughly. For this part, I use my hands – it’s pretty messy but effective.
Add 3T. of garlic infused oil to a large skillet on medium-high heat. Add the sausage mixture to the skillet and cook the sausage completely (i.e. browned with no pink).
Once the sausage is cooked, drain the fat. I laid the sausage on a stack of paper towels to cool – this also helps absorb any extra fat.
Now, while the sausage is cooling, you can prepare the sweet potato and carrot crust.
First, grab a large, glass casserole dish or a large spring foam pan. I tried both formats and both work well so the choice is yours.
Put 3/8 c. of coconut oil is a small bowl and heat for about 30 seconds in the microwave to melt the oil.
Clean the sweet potatoes and carrots and trim ends or unsightly spots.
Using a food processor (or by hand), shred or grate (use the large grate, not fine) the sweet potatoes and carrots.
Add the coconut oil and mix well. Add to your casserole dish or spring foam pan. If you’re using a spring foam pan, you may want to spray the pan with some additional coconut oil spray to prevent sticking (and a parchment paper disc on the bottom of the pan).
There are two important things to note here – you want the thickness of the crust to be fairly uniform throughout, and it needs to also cover the sides of the dish or pan. How far up the side of the pan or dish should it be? Here, 1″Â was perfect, but I’d actually say 1 1/2″ (I split my filling between two pans). Note, the spring foam pan shown here has a 6″ diameter and the glass casserole dish is 9″ x 13″. If you are using only a spring foam pan, I’d recommend using a 9″ spring foam pan.
If you like salty food, sprinkle the unbaked crust with a bit of salt.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Grate 8 oz. of sharp cheddar cheese (large or fine grate).
Crack the eggs into a large bowl. (I always crack my eggs into a separate bowl in case there are any shell bits that need to be fished out….)
Add the eggs to a blender, along with the yogurt and blend well.
My blender kind of sucks – so I added the cheese to the egg mixture in a large mixing bowl. By all means, if you’re blender will handle it, add the cheese to the blender and mix.
Before you add the sausage to the egg mixture, be sure to crumble the sausage – you don’t want huge chunks of sausage to overwhelm a bite, so make sure they are bite size or smaller pieces.
Fill the casserole dish and/or spring foam pan.
Place in the oven on a middle rack and bake until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean – about 50-60 minutes.
Make sure you let the casserole set for about 5-10 minutes before serving.
You can see that the crust browns and crisps nicely at the edges (the first piece is turned upside down) 🙂
And enjoy!
– Nicole