Recipe: Ham, Egg & Broccoli Strata

You guys.  This one was SO easy and we all gobbled it up this morning.  I was looking for a quick something to make the night before when one of my son’s had a sleepover.  Wanted something I could just pop in the oven the morning we woke up that would be no work.

I mixed a couple of ingredients I had in my fridge and made this one up.  Definitely making it again – I think the bread really made it amazing too.

Ham, Egg & Broccoli Strata by Mommies with Style

Ingredients:

1) Your favorite bread to layer the bottom of the casserole dish.  I used Kings Hawaiian Sweet Bread.  I think the sweetness of this really made the dish.  Also would work REALLY well with Challah.

2) 1/4 cup of chopped up red onion.

3) 8 oz package of your favorite shredded cheese.  I used cheddar.

4) 10 eggs.

5) 1 cup of milk

6) Broccoli, as much as you want, pre-boiled.  I used about 1.5 cups.

7) 6-8 slices of deli ham.

8)  Fresh ground pepper, optional.

First I greased the 9×13 casserole dish with unsalted butter.  Then I took my round of Sweet Bread and broke it into random chunks/bites and layered the bottom of the dish.

Next, I tossed in the broccoli. (Note: I had boiled the broccoli for about 3 minutes first.  We like our broccoli al dente.)  Then I layered the ham which I just broke up into bites with my hands.  I put the package of cheese on top of that.

In a bowl, I then mixed whipped the 10 eggs and mixed in the milk.  I ground some fresh pepper into the egg mix.  The last thing I did was pour the egg mix over the layered casserole.

I put it in the fridge overnight.  It’s definitely not required but it helps set the egg and flavors if you let it chill overnight.  Overall prep time was about 15 minutes!

Since it was already made, the morning was easy!  I popped it into the oven at 325 for an hour.  The kids loved it, hubby loved it and we even had a kid here who spent the night who loved it.  One to make again for sure!

By the way, wondering what makes this a strata and not a casserole?  The layering and the bread.  The strata is actually typically a dish that has layered cubes of Italian bread at the bottom and then all the ingredients get layered above, rather than one cooked dish that is a bunch of mixed ingredients.