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Breakfast is the favorite meal of the day for many people and rightly so! There are lots of foods that we tend to only eat for the first meal of the day, but sometimes it can be fun to mix it up a little bit. Of course breakfast for dinner (or brinner) is a wonderful change of pace, but you can also bring some supper to the breakfast table with this breakfast cottage pie.
Cottage pie is a lot like shepherd’s pie and many people use the two terms interchangeably. Technically a shepherd’s pie is made from lamb (hence the name), while a cottage pie is made from other kinds of meat. Whatever you want to call it this one is a treat.
The base of the recipe is a mixture of cooked breakfast sausage, spinach, onions, and diced tomatoes. Then this gets topped with a layer of beaten eggs, and then you season with salt and pepper. Now comes the fun part: adding the mashed potatoes on top!
These taters are extra tasty thanks to a generous amount of butter and some shredded cheddar cheese. Once these are mashed and ready to go you can either pipe them on top of the egg layer or you can use a spoon to evenly distribute the potatoes. It’s fine if some of the egg mixture peaks through the potatoes.
If using a piping bag, chose a tip with a star pattern on it for a ridged look to the potatoes. If using the spoon method, go back over the potatoes with a fork to make a pattern once you’ve smoothed it into an even layer. As the pie cooks the raised areas of the pattern will darken more readily, but it’s also normal for the eggs to bubble up during cooking and cover the potatoes just a little but.
This is a wonderful breakfast for a weekend morning. Serve with some fruit and you’ve got a really hearty meal. You can also make this one for brinner. It’s so delicious no one will argue with this morning time meal any time of the day.
Breakfast Cottage Pie
Ingredients
- 4 large Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and diced
- 4 Tbsp butter
- 1 8-oz bag shredded cheddar cheese
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1/2 cup milk
- 8 eggs, beaten
- 1 16-oz tube breakfast sausage
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 5-oz package baby spinach, loosely chopped
- 1 14-oz can diced tomatoes
Preparation
- Boil potatoes in salted water until fork tender. Drain and add potatoes to large bowl along with butter and cheese. Mash potatoes adding milk in a little at a time. Potatoes will be thick. Add salt and pepper to taste and set aside.
- Preheat oven to 450˚F. In a medium pan cook sausage and onions over medium-high heat until sausage is fully browned, breaking the meat up as it cooks. Add spinach and cook on low for 2 minutes.
- Pour sausage into a 9x9 baking dish. Add beaten eggs on top and season with salt and pepper. Pipe potatoes on top in a pattern or spread with a spoon, using the back of the spoon to smooth out the top. You can also run a fork along the top to create a pattern as well.
- Bake for 35 minutes or until potatoes are lightly browned. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before serving.
Recipe adapted from The Food in My Beard.