I’m fairly certain I’ve said it before- but I am a breakfast food fiend. It’s my favorite meal of the day and the meal I could eat any time of day, really. With that being repeated, I’m always looking for new and delicious ways to kick-start my morning so that I’m left feeling full but not bored with the same old routine (I can’t eat the same thing every single day- even if I love it!) so when I first saw this recipe for “Breakfast Cups”, using hash browns as a sort of bowl to hold the ingredients together- I knew I had to give it a try. Worst case scenario if the cups didn’t come out as planned was that I’d have a very funny shaped omelette- but I’m a firm believer that there’s no such thing as a bad omelette.

Having recently and unexpectedly been snowed in (I did NOT anticipate the storm that hit us last week to be as bad as it was!) my mother was kind enough to lend me some of the ingredients for this concoction until I can drag myself to the market- as well as her mother (my grandmother’s) antique muffin pan- which looks rusted, I know- but I SWEAR it’s just discolored from years and years (50+!) of use. It’s completely clean and sanitary for anyone looking at the photos in this post and recoiling in horror.

Give me a little credit, please!

WHAT YOU’LL NEED:

• 12 breakfast sausages
• 6 eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 cups (8 ounces) of shredded 4-cheese Mexican blend cheese (or any cheese you prefer!)
• 1/4 cup chopped red bell pepper
• 3 cups of frozen country-style hash brown potatoes, thawed
• 3 tablespoons of melted butter
• 1/8 teaspoon of salt
• 1/8 teaspoon of pepper
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh chives or green onion

OKAY, HERE’S WHAT YOU DO:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 400°F.

2. Prepare the breakfast sausages according to the package instructions, cool slightly, and cut into 1/2-inch pieces. Set the sliced sausage aside.

3. Combine/whisk the eggs, cheese, and pepper in a bowl- and set that aside as well.

4. In a separate bowl, combine the hash browns, butter, salt and pepper. Divide evenly into 12 greased muffin cups.

5. Press the mixture into the bottom and sides of the muffin cups to create a bowl-like shape to hold your egg/cheese mixture and sausage.

6. Cook the hash brown bowls for approximately 15 minutes or until lightly browned.

7. Once you remove the muffin pan from the oven- divide sausage pieces into the hash brown bowls. Top each bowl evenly with the egg/cheese mixture. Sprinkle each bowl with chives and onion.

8. Return your muffin pan to the oven and bake another 12-15 minutes or until set.

9. Serve and enjoy!

I was really pleased with how well these little cups turned out- and even more pleased with how good they tasted. They were the perfect combination of saltiness, crisp-ness and cheesy-ness- and were very, very filling. I managed to scarf down two before I felt stuffed- and I also felt inspired to re-create these for my next brunch gathering (I do love a good brunch, too!)

One word of advice, though- just make sure you grease the muffin pan properly! A couple of my cups got a little stuck around the edges, which made for a not-so-clean removal when it came time to serve these. Other than that- these are incredibly simple to make an I urge anyone who may be finding themselves in a dreaded “breakfast boredom rut” to give them a try!

xx