I tend to engage in quite a few conversations about food. I’m sure I have passed beyond boring my friends, family and co-workers but I find it an endlessly fascinating topic.
In a recent conversation, someone I was speaking with mentioned they had seen a recipe online for Breakfast Lasagna. I instantly blurted “STOP!”
I loved the idea but didn’t want to hear how someone else did it. I felt the creative juices flowing and started putting together what I would want in such a dish. I knew I had to substitute items from standard lasagna to make it work.
- The sauce: This was the first that came to mind. Out with the tomato based sauce and in would be sausage gravy. What sauce says breakfast more?
- The meat: I knew the hamburger or Italian sausage would need to go but debated if I should use chorizo. In the end, I used crumbled breakfast sausage.
- The cheese: I thought about cream cheese in place of the ricotta and mozzarella but wasn’t sure it would go with the rest, so I settled on shredded cheddar.
- Filling: I decided to add some hash browns to add a bit more heft to the dish. I thought about adding onions and peppers and might in future iterations.
- Noodles: Wow. This was a tough choice. Pasta was out. In its place was one of two options. The first was pancakes. I thought about making thin pancakes for the layers and almost went with this option all the way until the end. Pancakes would offer the structure but just didn’t seem to fit flavor wise. Option two, which I went with, was crepes. This added the egg portion of breakfast.
This was awesome!
I used two packages of gravy and the crepe recipe from Manicotti Crepes.
Other than the sausage gravy, I cooked each item first (including making the crepes) and then like lasagna put it all together.
I cooked the hash browns first.
Frying up the sausage.
I made the crepes thicker than I would normally and layered them together to help build structure.
I layered first with gravy.
Crepes.
Hash browns.
Sausage.
Cheese.
Repeat, then top with more crepes, gravy and a layer of cheese. Bake at 350 for 12 minutes.
This was an instant hit with the family and will definitely make the rotation. Next time I will add onions and peppers into the mix.
Rantings of an Amateur Chef 
Love the creativity of this! And it sounds so good! (doesn’t help that I haven’t eaten breakfast yet myself…) I can definitely appreciate why you want to come up with your own versions of recipes, and you do it well, so keep it up!
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OMG! Where is the “LOVE” button? Very creative, I’ve got to try your recipe.
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Looks delicious!!
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wow, that looks amazing.
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I love finding out how other people make the same things I make! It’s so interesting to hear how other people end up with the same food at the end but get there in a totally different way. My work colleagues and I are always swapping recipes 🙂
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Awesome recipe! We LOVE breakfast casseroles around here, so I know I will be making this one very soon!! Very creative!
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I make something similar but we call it breakfast enchiladas. Using tortillas instead of crepes. Filling the burritos, lining them in a pan and pouring gravy on top before we bake it.
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Jean’s demanding this one.
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Make it for her man!
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