Swirled with spinach and topped with fresh herbs, this skillet sausage, egg, and cheese grits breakfast bake will delight your friends and family! And even better? This brunch bombshell of a breakfast casserole can be made in advance!
Skillet Sausage, Egg, and Cheese Grits Breakfast Bake
If you’ve frequented this blog a bit then you know all about my affinity for breakfast foods. We breakfast, brunch, and brinner our faces off! Since discovering the chickpea shares our obsession with all things brekkie we are almost single-handedly keeping eggs in business over here. We now have to pick up two dozen each grocery run for fear of running out. Even then we still occasionally run out.
Now that this dish is in our lives? We’re totally running out!
#worthit
Let’s get our recipe on!
Skillet Sausage, Egg, and Cheese Grits Breakfast Bake
Ingredients
- 8-10 oz package frozen chopped spinach
- 16 oz hot Italian sausage or your favorite breakfast sausage
- 2 cups low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth
- 1 cup half and half
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup old-fashioned grits (not instant)
- 1 cup grated Gouda cheese
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ¼ tsp garlic powder
- 2-3 TBSP chopped green onion (divided)
- 1 cup grated sharp Cheddar cheese (divided)
- 3 large eggs (lightly beaten)
- 1.5 TBSP plain cornmeal
TASTY TOPPINGS: add your favorites!
- red pepper flakes
- freshly chopped green onion and parsley
- Sriracha
- chopped bacon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Thaw spinach + squeeze out liquid with paper towels.
- In a small-medium pot, bring broth to a rolling boil. Stir in grits, salt, and half and half and reduce heat to low/simmer. Cook grits for 12-15 minutes, stirring occasionally until thickened.
- While the grits cook, brown sausage in a large cast iron skillet over medium-high heat, stirring often, 5-8 minutes or until sausage crumbles and is fully cooked; remove from skillet, and drain.
- Set aside.
- Once grits are ready, remove from heat and stir in gouda, garlic powder, pepper, green onion and 3/4 cup Cheddar until melted. (Mixture will be very thick.)
- Add your sausage and chopped spinach to the grits then gently fold in the eggs until blended.
- With either olive or coconut oil, grease a 10-12-inch cast iron skillet then sprinkle the bottom and sides with cornmeal. Add your breakfast mixture then sprinkle with remaining Cheddar cheese and top with a light sprinkling of red pepper flakes.
- Bake at 350° for 55 minutes or until set.
- Remove from oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool for approx. 30 minutes. Top with fresh parsley and green onion [optional but delish garnishes for a burst of color!] and top with your favorite hot sauce. Enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
so . . . how was it?
There’s something awesome about tucking a bevvy of breakfast foods into a quiche-like package. Each bite is as delicious as the last; I’m in love with this sassy brunch-in-a-skillet!
The only thing I love more is that I have leftovers for breakfast tomorrow!
Cue confetti and obnoxious dancing. I have a feeling this easy peasy dish is going to be on serious repeat around here.
hungry for more?
- Instant Pot Frittata Breakfast Casserole
- Key Lime Pie Pancakes
- Sweet Potato Frittata with Spinach and Feta
- Cheesy Roasted Potato Breakfast Bake
Hi. Can this be made day before then microwaved morning of?
Hi Jackie! I always enjoy the leftover slices of this breakfast casserole. When it comes to reheating, it is not one of those dishes you can just microwave in it’s entirely as it will heat unevenly. Individual slices heat up great though!
I’m curious if anyone has made this with a non-dairy alternative for the half and half… would a simple almond milk be too runny?
When do you add the spinach? it’s listed in ingredients, but never added in the instructions. I just added it with the sausage
With the sausage is perfect Lisa! I’ll update the instructions as I’m not sure how those little fellas got left out! xoxo
Just wondering if fresh spinach can be used instead of frozen.
Hi Eileen! Of course!
Your instructions don’t say when to use the chicken stock and the spinach
Hi Carolyn! The broth/stock is used to cook the grits in step 3 and will be absorbed into the grits. I’m not sure how the spinach snuck away in the directions there but I’ve fixed it now, thank you! I add it in step 7 along with the sausage.
I made this for Christmas brunch and got rave reviews- will totally make again. It’s good served w avocado!!
Merry Christmas! When are you supposed to add the spinach after its been thawed?
So sorry I’m just now seeing this Catherine, I unplugged for the holidays this year. Hoping you had a marvelous Christmas and that you didn’t have too much trouble working around the fact that I’m a total airhead and didn’t include the spinach in that step! It folds in with the grits and the sausage and I’m updating the recipe to reflect that. Thank you so much for pointing out my goof (seriously, saves my booty – thank you!) and I apologize for the delay/inconvenience. xoxo
Just found this recipe. It looks delicious. But I’m confused about the make ahead instructions. It says through step 5. Does that mean you don’t add the cheese, sausage and egg until just before cooking (after it’s thawed)? In other words, the grits is all you do beforehand? Or was it supposed to say through Step 7 or 8? Thanks for the help. I’m hoping to make this this weekend for a large group and would appreciate the clarification.
Hi Shelley! I’m going to update the instructions right away, thank you so much for your question! You’ll want to go ahead and follow the recipe through step 8 (I’m not sure why on earth I wrote 5 – thanks for saying something!) but instead of adding it to a greased cast iron skillet, you’ll add it to a freezer-safe casserole dish (either a pyrex baking dish with a lid or one of those one-time-use foil bakers will work great!)
If you’re making it the night before and popping it in the fridge, don’t worry about the freezer-safe bit. Add to a greased baking dish and don’t add the extra cheese on top quite yet. Store covered with foil in the fridge until you’re ready to bake in the morning 🙂 Before baking, add the remaining cheese on top plus any extra to taste. You can bring the casserole to room temp to cut down on bake time or put it straight in.(you’ll need to add extra time if it goes in cold) I hope you and your guests adore it Shelly, thanks again!
Actually now that I’m thinking of it, I wonder if it would save even more bake time to partially bake it the night before so and finish it off in the oven the next morning? I might need to try that out this week and see how it goes!
Hello there, breakfast perfection! Seriously – ALL the good things in life are in this skillet! I’ll be eating breakfast for every meal from now until the end of time. Thank you very much. 🙂
Aw thanks so much Kathryn! <3 You always make my day!
This breakfast skillet looks great. I love that it is quiche like and make ahead!
Thanks Kathy!!! The leftovers are really really good too!