Cheesy Amish Breakfast Casserole Burrito Filling

Cheesy Amish Breakfast Casserole Burrito Filling

Ingredients:

• 1 lb breakfast meat of choice (for a three-meat version, we did one lb. of maple breakfast sausage plus about another cup or so of diced ham and bacon bits in addition to the sausage)
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 9 eggs
• 1 bag frozen hashbrowns (about 32 oz) (we prefer the cubed hashbrown potatoes to the shredded)
• 16 oz shredded cheese of choice (the original recipe called for cheddar and Swiss, but we liked using all cheddar better)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• tortillas
• Optional burrito toppings: sour cream, salsa, hot sauce, shredded cheese, etc.

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 baking dish.
2. In a large skillet, brown and crumble your sausage (or other desired breakfast meat) and cook your onion until both ingredients are cooked through. Drain off any excess grease. Season with salt and pepper. Pull from heat. Add your frozen potatoes to the pan to help cool off your meat to keep the hot meat from prematurely cooking your beaten eggs in a later step. Set aside.
• If using precooked bacon bits and diced ham as well, add these items to your pan during the last few minutes of cooking just to heat through and crisp up.
3. In a large bowl, beat your eggs. Add your shredded cheese.
4. Add your meat and potatoes to your eggs and cheese and stir to combine. Pour everything into your prepared baking dish.
5. Bake for 45-60 minutes, or until a thermometer registers 160 degrees in the center. For an extra cheesy finish, you can also top with additional shredded cheese during the last couple minutes of baking to make a melty-cheesy crust.
6. Allow casserole to cool for 5 minutes, then cut into squares. Use each square as filling for a burrito. We liked to spread some sour cream on our tortillas, add the filling, top with salsa or other desired burrito toppings and then wrap everything up burrito-style.

Marsha's Notes:

The original recipe was just a casserole that we found just a little underwhelming. However, after changing a few things to boost the flavors and then deciding to use the casserole as burrito filling, we actually really liked the end result. If I was going to try to make this as JUST a casserole, I think I need to do something to make it "saucier." I have considered adding a can of cheddar soup and/or sour cream to up the creaminess. The original recipe also had you add 1 and a 1/2 cups of cottage cheese, which really didn't seem to do much, so we opted to leave it out and try other substitutions. I worried that the original casserole might be dry and added about a 1/2 cup milk to the mix, but that didn't seem to be helpful, so now I omit the milk.

Here is a picture from the first time we made this. The picture at the top of the recipe is the updated version who's instructions are the ones listed above.