Tater Tot Breakfast Casserole

Greetings breakfast and 'tater lovers alike. Here you will see my quest for a tater tot casserole, free of creamy soup. A casserole that combines the best of both worlds, tater tots and breakfast!

Ingredients

• 12 Eggs
• ~80 Tater Tots (most of a 32oz. bag)
• 6-10 Slices of Bacon
• 6oz. Sausage
• 2/3c Milk
• Cheese -I can't tell you how much to use, you'll know

For a vegetarian-friendly option swap those meats for some veggies, a green pepper and an onion are a good start, but add whatever your go-to omelet toppings are. If you add anything too juicy (think, tomato) add a little less milk.

Supplies

• 9x13 glass baking dish (sides of ~2" tall)
• Mixing bowl
• Mixing object (whisk or fork)
• Frying pan
• Paper towel
• Measuring glass
• Baking sheet (optional)
• Tin Foil (optional)

This is the time to decide what you're adding and prep it.

I cooked my bacon in the oven, for an easy clean up, cover a pan in one sheet of tin foil and fold up the edges to create a bacon grease-trapping wall. This keeps you from having to pour, scrape, and scrub bacon grease off. But otherwise I laid out my bacon strips and cooked them for ~20 min. at 375F in the oven.

For the sausage, I used a tube of sausage, pop that whole log into a pan, smush it up to the best of your abilities and babysit that pan on medium heat, chopping to your preferred size and moving the sausage until it is a nice grey/brown. (I wanted mine pretty finely chopped so I don't get big clumps).

If you want a veggie option, (I didn't this time), Dice up all your veggies now.

Crack 8 eggs and add your two-thirds cup of milk into your mixing bowl. Mix it together, making sure to break all the yolks, as if you were making scrambled eggs. Add some cheese, I use a nice mild cheddar. Bonus points if you can shred your own (it melts better that way). As previously mentioned, I can't tell you how much cheese to use. If you're from Wisconsin, like me, you know there can never be too much cheese. I probably used a loosely packed 1/2-2/3cup.

If you didn't cook bacon (meaning your oven is not already to temp) start preheating your oven to 350F now.

While that's preheating, dab the grease off your bacon with some paper towel, then crumble up your bacon. You can do this by hand or with some handy dandy food-safe kitchen scissors. Dump that bacon and your sausage (I used half a tube) into your egg mixture.

Once your egg bowl is mixed fill your pan with tater tots! Make it pretty, dump em in a lump, scatter them about...you do you.

Pour your egg bowl over the tater tots. Spread your cheese/toppings evenly over the pan of tater tots, some tater tots may start to float, ignore them.

If your dish is looking a little empty, mix up the other 4 eggs and remainder of the milk and add it over the top of your pan. This should give you a better egg-to-topping ratio.

Add some more cheese on top (this is optional, but I mean, why wouldn't you?)

Pop that dish in the oven and cook for ~45min. or until the eggs are stiff.

The final *chef's kiss*