Cheesy Hashbrown Breakfast Casserole
This Cheesy Hashbrown Breakfast Casserole is the perfect combination of hashbrown potatoes, eggs, ham, cheddar cheese and ricotta baked together to serve up a hearty easy breakfast casserole to any hungry crowd. The perfect make ahead breakfast casserole, this is a crowd pleaser every time!
Ingredients
- 3 cups uncooked hash browns .. one bag of Simply Potatoes hash browns works perfect or 1-1/2 bags of the breakfast potatoes
- 1 stick butter .. melted
- 9 large eggs
- 15 ounces ricotta cheese
- 16 ounces shredded cheddar cheese .. divided (reserve 1 cup for topping)
- 1/2 large onion .. diced
- 2 cups pre-cooked ham chunks .. divided (reserve 1/2 cup for topping)
- 3 ounces pre-cooked bacon crumbles or 6 slices cooked bacon
- 2 green onions .. diced
- 1 teaspoon seasoning salt or Cajun seasoning .. optional
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
Instructions
- Start by preheating your oven to 450 degrees. Add your hash browns or breakfast potatoes into a buttered 9x13 casserole dish and spread into an even layer.
- Pour melted butter evenly over your potatoes and bake for 30-40 minutes or until your potatoes have started to crisp. Remove from oven, reduce heat to 350 degrees and in a large mixing bowl, combine eggs, ricotta and spices. Stir in shredded cheese, onion, bacon and ham (reserve some of the bacon, ham and cheese for later).
- Pour your egg mixture over your hash browns / breakfast potatoes and bake for 55-60 minutes.
- About 20 minutes before your breakfast casserole is done cooking, sprinkle with reserved shredded cheese, breakfast meat and green onions. When done, remove from oven and serve immediately.
Video
Notes
- Make life easier by using pre-cooked meats and ready to cook hash browns or breakfast potatoes. I buy the chunks of cooked / sliced ham, crumbled cooked bacon from the salad dressing aisle of my grocery store and the Simply Potato breakfast potatoes and shredded hashbrowns. You can make homemade hash browns but sometimes I am happy to let the supermarket do the work for me.
- Skip the pre-shredded bags of cheese from the grocery store. They produce an oily type of cheese and no one likes to serve up a greasy breakfast. Take the extra 5 minutes to shred block cheese yourself.
- Save some of your breakfast meat to the side and when your breakfast casserole is about 20 minutes away from being cooked, sprinkle on some shredded cheese, the reserved meat and some green onions. Your ham and cheese breakfast casserole will be extra pretty to serve up to your loved ones and we all know pretty is important :)
- This easy breakfast casserole can be changed up more ways then I can count. Add in whatever breakfast meat you like from bacon to sausage to turkey sausage to ham.. heck .. add all three if you want to serve up an extra hearty breakfast.
- Cheese is also able to be changed out if cheddar cheese isn't your jam... add in Monterey Jack, Havarti or even Swiss cheese if you want a bit of variety.
- This breakfast recipe is titled Cheesy Hashbrown Breakfast Casserole but those hash browns can be swapped out for breakfast potatoes if you prefer. I have used both hash browns and potatoes (like in the video below) and I find that is completely a personal decision. I also like to mix things up and fry up my potatoes or hash browns in a skillet on the stove-top before adding them to the casserole dish so that they are a bit crunchier but my hubby likes them baked in the oven as instructed but just throwing that out there for you to consider :)
