While I love my pancakes and muffins, there’s something about a nice savory breakfast that hits the spot like nothing else. But, if you’re cooking for a crowd then it can take quite a while to fry up all the eggs, sausage, and then still make some potatoes on the side. That’s why this make ahead sausage breakfast bake is perfect for when you’ve got a lot of mouths to feed, but maybe not so much in the time department.

This recipe is pretty simple and you can customize it to your liking very easily. To start with you’ll need 2 pounds of crumbled breakfast sausage. My personal favorite is the sage variety, but the hot style or the smokehouse sausages would work great for this casserole.

First fry up a small onion until it’s almost cooked all the way through then set aside. Then fry your sausage until browned. Remove the meat and then add the real time saving ingredient to the pan: frozen, shredded hash browns. You only need to cook them a few minutes on each side before removing from the heat.

Next combine 8 eggs with milk and whisk together in a large bowl. Then add in the garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper to the eggs and whisk again. For a Tex-Mex spin you could add chipotle chili powder. Or change up the spices to suit your tastes.

Then add the potatoes to a greased 9″x13″ baking dish. Add the onions on top of the potatoes and then pour the egg mixture over the top. Add the sausage and then top with cheese. The easiest to use is cheddar since it goes with everything, but Monterey Jack would be nice, too.

At this point you can pop the pan in the refrigerator until you’re ready to bake. You could make this the night before and then bake it in the morning while you’re getting ready.

When you’re ready bake the casserole for 30-35 minutes until the cheese is all melted and gooey. This make ahead sausage breakfast bake is a simple, but effective, strategy for making sure a tasty breakfast doesn’t take all morning to make.