Let’s start the day off right! A big chunk of breakfast egg bake, loaded with sweet potatoes, poblano and bell peppers, red onions, and studded with delicious maple pork sausage links, topped with smoked cheddar cheese. This is hearty enough to put some hair on your chest, yet still give you some top notch nutrition.
What Ingredients Will I Need?
- Sweet Potatoes
- Eggs
- Maple Sausage Links- You want to find the best quality that you can. I used Kiolbassa brand Maple Sausage Links. They were available at Costco. Use what you can find, or use a good sausage recipe like this one. Just add a little extra maple syrup, OR top your serving with this Hot Maple Syrup.
- Smoked Cheddar- I used Sartori brand Cherrywood Smoked Cheddar. Use whatever you can find in your area.
- Poblano Pepper
- Yellow Bell Pepper- Or red….or orange.
- Red Onion
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil- Oliva Dorado is one of my go-to oils, but I’m out. So, I used Graza Sizzle oil.
- 12″ Skillet- I used this Lodge brand 12″ Cast Iron Skillet.
Loaded Maple Sausage and Sweet Potato Breakfast Bake
Ingredients
- 12 Large Eggs
- 10 links Maple Pork Sausage Links I used Kiolbassa brand, carried at Costco
- 4 cups Sweet Potatoes, about 3-4 small potatoes
- 1/2 Poblano Pepper
- 1/2 Yellow Bell Pepper Could use red or orange….pretty much the same
- 1/2 Red Onion
- 1/2 tsp Redmond's Real Salt, or other sea salt
- 1/4 tsp Black Pepper, coarse ground
- 2 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil Avocado oil, tallow, lard, bacon grease, duck fat….just some sort of cooking fat that is natural and good.
- 5 oz Smoked Cheddar Cheese I used Sartori brand Applewood Smoked Cheddar. There are plenty of good ones, just use whatever you have available.
Instructions
- Preheat your oven or, if you're REALLY cool, your smoker to 350 degrees.
- Peel and dice the sweet potatoes to about 1/4"-1/2" in size. We are cooking these directly in the skillet and we don't want them to take forever, so a smaller dice works well for this.
- Heat a 12" skillet (I used cast iron) over medium heat with about 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Add sweet potatoes and stir occasionally.
- Go ahead and do a small dice on your poblano, bell pepper, and red onion. We're talking about 1/4" or smaller on that dice, unless you just like big chunks of veggies.
- Once the potatoes are beginning to become tender enough (easily pierced with a fork, or just eat one and see if it's still crunchy), go ahead and add the onion and peppers. Sautee for a few minutes to cook and slightly soften the raw veggies.
- After a couple minutes of cooking those peppers and onions, add the sausage links and allow to cook for a couple minutes while you whisk your eggs in the next step. We just want to heat the sausages through. At this point, you could actually kill the heat to the pan and just use the residual heat from the burner to complete the cooking.
- While the sausages are warming up in the pan, whisk 12 eggs with salt and pepper.
- Ensure that all of the sausages are evenly distributed across the skillet and the sweet potatoes are in an even layer across the bottom. Now, pour the eggs all over the sausage and potatoes. Make sure everything get covered in eggs. You will have some sausages poking through the surface, but just ensure there are no bald spots without SOME eggs being present)
- Transfer the skillet to the preheated oven/smoker and bake for roughly 20 minutes. You are looking for eggs that are set and no longer runny. You may notice that the eggs "dome up" towards the end. This is a pretty good indication that the eggs are cooked through. So, if you are concerned about your oven cooking hotter, set the timer for 18 minutes and check their doneness. Then decide whether or not to keep baking.
- After eggs have set, add grated smoked cheddar all over the top and return to oven for long enough to melt, probably 2-3 minutes.
- Allow to cool slightly. If you still have some "doming" of the eggs, this will allow them to settle back down to a flattened state.
- Cut into your desired amount of servings and plate it up.
- If making as a meal prep, freeze individual servings and reheat when needed.
