Eat Lasagne for Breakfast
More people need to eat pasta for breakfast. The combination of carbohydrates, fat, and (sometimes) protein is the most comforting human in the world, and often cheese. It also tends to warm up well, which means you can cook a large serving and eat from it throughout the week. There is no downside.
While I love tossing yesterday’s spaghetti with eggs (try this sometime), some pasta dishes feel like they’ve been prepared for a morning dinner. Carbonara is an obvious choice, as eggs and pork jerky are already included in the recipe, but the cheesy cacio e pepe will also wake up nicely. If you need to paste for breakfast literally screaming into your mouth, do not look for anything but this lasagna for breakfast, which is not Italian, but very tasty.
Instead of regular tomato sauce, we use a simple sausage gravy , then top it with no-boil noodles, more cheddar and gruyere, and a little green onions. (Basically, this is a much quicker version of this 10-hour recipe , which uses noodles that must be cooked separately and spinach.) If you’ve dreamed of a breakfast casserole that doesn’t rely heavily on eggs, this is the hot dish for you. I made mine in an 8×6 inch pyrex plate that serves about six people, but you can easily enlarge or shrink it. To make it you will need:
- 1 pound breakfast sausage
- 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 cups whole milk
- Hot sauce to taste (optional)
- 1 cup grated cheddar
- 1 cup grated gruyere
- Pepper to taste
- 6 noodles with lasagna, no boiling
- 1 bunch of green onions, only light and dark green parts
Place the sausage in a cold stainless steel skillet and spread out in an even layer. You should make one large sausage cake. Turn on medium heat and leave alone until the bottom is lightly browned (about 7-10 minutes). While the sausage is cooking, combine the cheese in a large bowl and season with freshly ground pepper. Once the sausage is browned on the bottom, divide the patty into quarters, turn each quarter and let the other side lightly brown (about 3-5 minutes). Break the sausage into small pieces, cook for another minute, then flour the meat, stirring occasionally, until it is evenly coated. Cook for another minute, then pour in the milk, a cup at a time, stirring occasionally, until you have a nice thick sauce. Season with hot sauce if desired (or salt and pepper if your sausage wasn’t super seasoned) and remove from heat. Preheat oven to 350 ℉.
Grease a skillet with butter and spoon a couple tablespoons of the gravy (avoiding large pieces of sausage) to create a base for the first layer of noodles. Add two lasagna noodles, overlapping slightly, then spoon to 1/3 of the sausage gravy. Top with a handful of cheese and a third of the chopped green onions and repeat two more layers, finishing with cheese and leaving the last third of the green onions.
Cover the skillet with foil and bake in the oven at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes, until the cheese is completely melted and the lasagne starts bubbling on the sides. Remove the lid and cook for another 10-15 minutes, until the cheese is browned. Remove from oven and let sit for 15 minutes, top with remaining onion and serve.