Imagine waking up to a Sausage & Peppers Overnight Breakfast Strata that’s piping hot and ready to eat! (Well, it will be if you make your spouse go pop it in the oven while you sleep.) This breakfast strata DOES sit overnight in the fridge and you simply bake it up the next morning! It’s wonderful!
Sausage Overnight Breakfast Strata
This breakfast strata recipe came about because I had two or three half loaves of cut bread that were going to go stale. You don’t want to use stale bread to make an overnight breakfast strata as much as you want to use dried out bread. Stale doesn’t mean that it’s dried out necessarily, it means that the quality of the bread is deteriorated, does that make sense?
How to Make a Breakfast Strata Video
Use Dry Bread, Not Stale
Dry is good, stale is not when it comes to the bread that you want to use for this breakfast strata. The best bread to use in a breakfast strata is day old bread, it’s become dry enough to soak up all of the egg and milk mixture but hasn’t been hanging around long enough to go stale.
I used two types of bread as I had two different loaves to use up! I used sourdough and a white baguette and cubed them. I was extremely happy to be able to use them up for another dinner! We ate this for dinner during the week!
What is Breakfast Strata?
- Strata is also known as stratta and is a layered casserole dish.
- Technically, strata is layered, but some of us ( including myself) mix it all together and make it like a savory bread pudding instead. The original idea is that you poured the egg over the layers of meat and bread and then baked it.
- The main ingredients in a strata are bread, eggs and cheese and breakfast strata is supposed to be heavier on the eggs than the bread. My recipe has a couple less cups of bread cubes in it than most do.
- Strata can be eaten for breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner! The beauty of an overnight breakfast strata is that you can leave it in the fridge until you come home from work and eat it for supper!
Tips For Making a Great Overnight Breakfast Strata
Breakfast stratas are pretty much a fail-proof recipe, but here are some hints that might help you out!
- I can’t stress enough to not use fresh bread. Fresh bread will fall apart and won’t hold it’s shape at all!
- Use a bread that has a great crust and you will have these pieces of breakfast strata that are firm. Those pieces contrast with the soft pieces and make the strata perfect! Sourdough and baguettes have the perfect thick crust for a strata! I would not use sandwich bread in a breakfast strata. It won’t be the same as you see in my photos.
- When you use a good crusty bread you must refrigerate the strata overnight. If you don’t, the egg and milk won’t saturate the bread cubes completely and you will have bread cubes that are dry in the middle. Most strata recipes tell you that you can refrigerate the strata for 2 hours – heck no. The beauty of an overnight breakfast strata is that it’s overnight and prepped beforehand!
- You can use a 9×13 pan or a braising pan like mine that has the same capacity.
Breakfast Strata Ingredient Substitutions
This sausage and peppers overnight breakfast strata was amazing, but you might want to sub some ingredients for others. You can easily make it vegetarian or add other ingredients!
- Sub in bacon or ham and then use Swiss Cheese.
- Make it completely vegetarian by adding in more vegetables. Make sure to steam hard vegetables like broccoli for a couple of minutes first.
- You can also use regular breakfast sausage in this recipe, simply remove them from their casings and fry up the meat from inside.
Happy Cooking!
Love,
Karlynn
Sausage & Peppers Overnight Breakfast Strata
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 large white onion, diced
- 1 250 grams package of ground Italian sausage
- 2 cups red, yellow and orange peppers diced
- 8 eggs beaten
- 3 cups whole milk
- 1 tablespoon Italian Seasoning
- 1 tablespoon mustard powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 8 cups cubed day-old bread
- 1/2 cup shredded parmesan mix
- 1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese blend
Instructions
- Grease a 9×13-inch casserole dish or an equivalent sized pan.
- Heat a large skillet over medium heat; cook the onion in the oil until it starts to get soft and translucent. Add the peppers and fry for a few minutes, then add the sausage and and stir fry until the sausage is crumbly and completely browned, and the peppers are tender, about 10 minutes. Salt and pepper the mixture. Transfer cooked sausage to the prepared casserole dish.
- Mix the eggs, milk, Italian seasoning,mustard powder, salt, pepper and cheeses together in a large bowl; mix completely. Add in the bread cubes and coat completely. Pour over sausage. You can leave it as a layer OR mix it together like I did. I prefer it mixed together! Cover the casserole dish and refrigerate, overnight.
- Preheat oven to 350 °F.
- Bake in the preheated oven until a knife inserted into the center of the strata comes out clean, around 65-75 minutes.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Pin this recipe to your Dinner Ideas and Breakfast Ideas Boards and Remember to FOLLOW ME ON PINTEREST!
kate says
I guess the peppers go in with the onions, Right? Gotta try this looks real good.Thanks.
Karlynn Johnston says
Fixed and thanks!
Jeff DeWolf says
Need to soften peppers with sausage. Recipe has a typo.
Demeter says
Love that you make this ahead and have it ready to pop in the oven! Thanks for all of your tips!
Erin Dee says
I would totally love waking up to this breakfast strata! Looks so delicious! Such a great way to start the day!
Jacque Hastert says
What a great breakfast when mornings are rough!
Sandi says
ok that serving piece……where did that come from?! it looks so cool!
Thanks for sharing this recipe…inspired for the morning (today is my Friday. You’re welcome family!) I needed to know these bread secrets…very helpful to not have a breakfast mush.
Have a lovely week!
Karlynn Johnston says
I thrifted it of course! It was $1.99! Can’t beat that! Hope you love the strata, it was a hit here! Happy weekend!!