Healthy breakfast casseroles or egg bakes make busy mornings much easier!

When your mornings are busy or unpredictable, having a breakfast that takes under two minutes to prepare is essential.

That’s why breakfast casseroles, “breakfast bakes,” or egg casserole recipes are so popular these days.  But what should you consider when choosing a recipe if you’re trying to eat better?

That’s exactly the question a client recently asked me in a nutrition counseling session.

I’m going to share with you the five things I told her to look for in a recipe.  My responses are both as a registered dietitian nutritionist and as a busy woman who is always looking for ways to make healthy eating easy, fast, and delicious!

5 Things To Look For In A Healthy Breakfast Casserole Recipe

#1:  A recipe that provides a balanced meal all in one dish

A balanced breakfast is one that provides you with:

• Enough protein to prevent muscle loss and to keep you feeling satisfied until lunch.
• Some high quality carbohydrates and fiber to help fuel your brain, give your gut microbiome some fiber, and keep your blood sugar from spiking and then crashing. This blood glucose roller coaster can lead to mid-morning snacks and poor lunch choices. (If you’re wondering what your gut microbiome is and why you want to eat fiber, read the article Gut health: 9 Ways your gut microbiome affects your overall health.)
• Your first serving of the day of non-starchy vegetables or fruit for vitamins, anti-oxidant phytonutrients, and fiber for gut health.

With a balanced breakfast, you’ll be less likely to be famished by late morning and make a poor choice for your lunch. You’ll also be less likely to snack and overeat later in the day.

#2: Avoid breakfast recipes with too much saturated fat

Since many breakfast casseroles have eggs, cheese and sometimes cream, milk, butter, or meat in them, it’s always a good idea to look at the nutrition facts for the recipe.  You especially want to consider the saturated fat.

Eating too much saturated fat can cause deposits to build up in your arteries, increasing your chances of heart attacks or strokes. It can also raise your LDL cholesterol levels. So, how do you tell if the breakfast recipe you’re considering has too much saturated fat?

Look at the serving size of the recipe and ask yourself these two questions:

• Is that the amount you would normally eat?
• Is the saturated fat for a serving of the recipe 5 grams or below?

Unless you are planning on eating pizza, a cheeseburger, or some other food rich in saturated fats later in the day, the recipe is probably okay if you eat one serving of it.

#3: Choose a recipe with at least one serving of non-starchy vegetables per portion

I can’t stress enough how important it is to include lots of non-starchy vegetables in your day even when looking at recipes for healthy breakfast casseroles.

Non-starchy vegetables provide you with important micronutrients and phytonutrients to keep your gut microbiome healthy, support your immune system, and achieve and maintain a healthy weight.

So what is a serving of non-starchy vegetables?  It’s a half cup of cooked vegetables.  Keep in mind that is the minimum total amount of vegetables.  So, having a recipe that includes smaller amounts of several kinds of vegetables can easily work.

#4: Limit high carb breakfast casserole recipes …especially if you might eat it for dinner!

Now, there are some special days of the year, like Christmas, when it’s okay for most of us to indulge in a French toast style breakfast casserole, but generally, I don’t recommend it for anything other than special occasions.

Far too often, breakfast casseroles, especially “breakfast strata” ones, have more than 40 grams of carbohydrates per serving.  If that’s balanced with a good amount of protein and some good fiber, that can still work for breakfast sometimes.

But I’d recommend passing on that recipe if you are going to use it for “breakfast for dinner” night.  Why?  Because if you’re trying to avoid gaining weight, lose weight, or control your blood glucose because you have diabetes or pre-diabetes high carb casseroles at night are not your friend!

Click the picture for a recipe that meets all 5 requirements for a healthy breakfast casserole.

#5: Choose a recipe that’s easy to make with familiar ingredients

If your life is busy, a healthy breakfast casserole can make your life so much easier…but only if you make it!  That’s why having a recipe that uses ingredients you typically have at home is so important.  Having to remember to get that “special” ingredient means you’re less likely to make it.

This is why my recipe for “An Easy Egg Casserole With Spinach”  gets such frequent use in my busy household.  Even if I don’t have all the ingredients, it’s easy enough to substitute something else.

Bonus Tip: Skip the muffin pan egg bakes!

Generally, I’m not a fan of recipes that involve baking eggs for breakfast in a muffin pan or muffin tin. Why?

The first is that it’s hard to fit a half cup of vegetables into a muffin pan. Sure, you could eat two “egg muffins,” but in most cases, that means you’re getting more saturated fat than I recommend above. (Go back and read tip #2 on saturated fat in breakfast casseroles and tip #3 on non-starchy vegetables!!!)

The second reason I don’t recommend breakfast recipes that have you use a muffin tin is because all those little cups take longer to get completely clean.  It’s far easier and faster to wash a regular baking dish.   Who wants to spend more time washing dishes?!

Get started with easier and healthier mornings

So now that you know the 5 things to look for when choosing a healthy breakfast casserole recipe, pick a day and make one!  Here’s a quick recap of them:

1. Look for a recipe that provides a balanced meal in one dish.
2. Avoid breakfast casserole recipes that have more than 5 grams of saturated fat per serving.
3. Choose a breakfast casserole that has at least a half cup of non-starchy vegetables per serving.
4. Limit using “high carb” breakfast casserole recipes.
5. Choose a recipe is easy and uses familiar ingredients.

For other tips on how to change how you eat, instantly download your free copy of  “5 Secrets to Successfully Changing How You Eat” by clicking here.

For personalized help,  schedule a free discovery call with me. We can talk about what you’d like to accomplish and how I can help you.  Your insurance may even cover part or all of the cost of working with me!