Italian Breakfast Strata

Italian Breakfast Strata is a quick and easy breakfast recipe. This delicious casserole is a great option for a holiday or weekend brunch!

Italian Breakfast Strata

What’s the best way to start your day? With a hearty, flavorful meal like my Italian Strata Breakfast Casserole! It’s so good with its combo of Italian sausage, peppers, and eggs. Of course, you’ll want to eat it at lunch and dinner, too. 

For those who don’t know, a strata is a kind of layered casserole, just FYI!! (Strata means layer. The ingredients may also be mixed together without the layers, though!)

I generally see them made for breakfast or brunch because they tend to use eggs and cheese. Traditionally, there’s also some kind of bread involved, sandwiched between the fillings. 

So: this Italian strata breakfast casserole is a twist on a standard overnight breakfast casserole! It uses Italian bread, Italian cheese, etcetera. So basically, it’s got all your favorite Italian-style flavors thrown in. So good, y’all. My mouth is watering while writing this. 

We actually had this recipe on Christmas morning. (It tastes particularly good on a holiday, trust me.) I forgot about writing the post until I went through my picture folders and ran across it again! It was a real head-smacker moment because this recipe is too delicious not to share with y’all.

Italian Breakfast Casserole: Ingredients & Substitutions

To make this overnight breakfast casserole, you will need …

Ingredients

• Italian sausage – the meat of your strata, and one of the ingredients that provides the Italian flavor you know and love! You’ll want to remove the casing.
• red and green bell peppers, sun-dried tomatoes – you’ll mix this in with the sausage at the beginning of the recipe. The tomatoes in particular really add to the “Italian-ness” of this strata. It’s the little things sometimes!
• Italian bread – stratas tend to use bread, and here’s the best choice for an Italian strata breakfast casserole!
• basil – your key herb in this casserole.
• eggs – can’t have a breakfast casserole without eggs, in my opinion.
• milk – provides structure to your strata while it bakes.
• Mozzarella cheese – the final component of your casserole, mixed into and on top of it.

Italian Casserole recipe: FAQs

Other recipes you may enjoy

• Italian Pasta Salad
• Sweet Potato Casserole
• Easter Sprinkle Cookies
• Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta Casserole
• Italian Muffins

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Servings: 10 servings

Italian Breakfast Strata

By Jamie Sherman

Italian Breakfast Strata is a quick and easy breakfast recipe. This delicious casserole is a great option for a holiday or weekend breakfast!

Prep: 20 minutes mins

Cook: 1 hour hr

Total: 1 hour hr 20 minutes mins

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Equipment

• Heavy Duty Aluminum Foil
• ClingWrap Plastic Food Wrap – 300 Square Foot Roll – 4 Pack (Package May Vary)
• rubber spatula or wooden spoon
• mixing bowl
• Ground Meat Chopper
• Simply Calphalon Nonstick 10 Piece Cookware Set
• baking dish
• measuring cups and spoons
• measuring cups and spoons
• cutting board
• knife

Ingredients 

1x2x3x

• ▢ 1 pound Italian sausage, casings removed
• ▢ 1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
• ▢ 1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
• ▢ ½ cup sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained, and chopped
• ▢ 1 loaf Italian bread, cut into 1-inch cubes, 14-16 oz.
• ▢ 8 large eggs
• ▢ 1 cup milk
• ▢ 1 tablespoon dried basil
• ▢ 2 cups Mozzarella cheese, shredded

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Instructions 

• Grease (or spray with cooking spray) a 9-in. x 13-inch baking dish and set it aside.
• Cook and crumble the sausage with the peppers in a skillet over medium-high heat until the sausage is cooked through. Drain. Return the sausage mixture to the pan and add the sun-dried tomatoes. Set aside.
• Place the bread cubes in a very large bowl.
• In a medium bowl, beat the eggs with the milk and basil. Stir the sausage mixture into the bread. Add 1 cup of the cheese and mix well. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish. Reserve the remaining 1 cup of cheese for later use. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight – or at least 8 hours.
• Preheat oven to 350°F.
• Sprinkle the strata with the remaining 1 cup of cheese. Spray one side of a piece of aluminum foil big enough to cover the dish with cooking spray and place sprayed side down over the casserole. Seal.
• Bake covered for 45 minutes. Uncover and bake for an additional 15-20 minutes.
• Allow the casserole to cool slightly before serving.

Notes

• PLEASE NOTE – I would personally suggest removing glass baking dishes from the refrigerator 30 minutes prior to baking. If you are using a metal/aluminum baking dish, it is ok to go directly into the oven.

Nutrition

Calories: 567kcal, Carbohydrates: 29g, Protein: 22g, Fat: 40g, Saturated Fat: 18g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 6g, Monounsaturated Fat: 13g, Trans Fat: 0.1g, Cholesterol: 201mg, Sodium: 739mg, Potassium: 474mg, Fiber: 3g, Sugar: 17g, Vitamin A: 883IU, Vitamin C: 31mg, Calcium: 231mg, Iron: 3mg

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

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Originally published on March 7, 2013. Updated on March 23, 2022.