Over the last few years, we have gotten together the weekend before Christmas with my brother and sister’s families to celebrate Christmas. We typically do brunch, and it is just to die for. I look forward to it every year and can’t wait to bring this hashbrown breakfast casserole this time!
We have beautiful baked egg casseroles, breakfast meats, and sweet breads. So good! In the last year, however, we have discovered egg allergies in one of my nephews, and also in one of my daughters. So this year my goal was to re-create my egg casserole breakfast into an egg-free version.
I have to admit – I actually like this version better! I combined about 4 different recipes I found during my search. We had this for dinner one night, and it was a big hit! I plan on it being the main dish for our family brunch instead of the egg bake this year so that no one feels left out.
So plan on getting cozy with a fuzzy blanket, a mug of coffee, and a hot plate of this delicious breakfast casserole while you watch the snow fall on Christmas morning!
- 1 lb pastured ground pork sausage (bacon would work too)
- ½ medium onion, diced
- ½ green pepper, diced
- ½ red pepper, diced
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- ¼ cup white rice flour (available on Amazon)
- 2 cups quality organic whole milk (Not ULP. Don’t worry about it being raw – it will get heated up with cooking pretty good anyway.)
- 1 cup whole sour cream (Not ULP. I actually just use the Daisy brand – least ingredients and just whole cream.)
- 1 ½ cups whole milk cheese, shredded
- 4 medium organic russet potatoes, shredded
- Sea salt/pepper to taste
- Brown the sausage in a fry pan and set aside in a large mixing bowl. Leave the grease behind in the pan to sauté the veggies in.
- Saute the onion, green pepper, and red pepper in the sausage grease with a few good pinches of sea salt, for about 5 minutes over medium high heat.
- Add the garlic and cook for a minute.
- Add the rice flour and cook for a minute.
- Pour the veggie mixture into the mixing bowl with the browned sausage, and add the milk, sour cream, cheese, and shredded potato. (DON’T shred the potatoes until you are going to mix them in – they brown from the air fast!)
- Season the mixture with sea salt and pepper – I use about a tsp of pepper and a couple tsp of sea salt.
- Pour the mixture into a buttered 9x13 baking dish and bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 60-70 minutes. Check it around the 50 minute mark in case our ovens run differently.
TIPS:
- Definitely do up most of this the night before! I would say make the entire mixture EXCEPT the shredded potatoes – keep the mixing bowl with everything already done, in the fridge. In the morning you just have to shred the potatoes, add them to the mixture, pour into your baking dish and bake!
- Try different veggies! I did the green and red pepper for “Christmas colors” but I think I would love broccoli even better – even spinach would be great.
- Be sure your pork is coming from a good source as there are many benefits of pastured pork!
- If you are vegetarian, just leave the sausage out – you could add some sausage seasoning blend to add more flavor!
- You might even make some homemade eggnog (non-alcoholic!) if you enjoy it for a holiday brunch!
Renee
