Brunch Strata

This year we had a Zoom family brunch for easter. With time differences, that meant the brunch was a little earlier here in California than in Colorado or Minnesota where the rest of my family is located. I knew I would want to make something I could prep ahead and then slide into the oven morning-of. Plus, we had some dried-out leftover bread (fancy Buckwheat Pave that had been on sale and was delicious). Strata seemed like the perfect marriage of all these factors.

For those unfamiliar, strata is basically a savory french toast casserole situation. You layer bread, egg/milk/spice mix, and toppings like cheese, meat, and veg into a casserole dish and bake until it’s crisp on top and soft on the bottom from the bread soaking up all your eggy goodness. Growing up, I didn’t love strata because I was often disapointed with the bread-to-egg ratio. I do not like eating half-dry bread. Also, I’m a huge savory, eggy breakfast person (see Shakshuka). So for this recipe, I made sure I had plenty of eggs and delicious filling to go with my bread.

Ingredients

• Bread (as I mentioned above, a great use for older or almost-stale bread)
• Eggs
• Milk of choice (I used oat)
• Smoked paprika
• Garlic powder
• Black pepper
• Onion powder
• Salt
• Choice of fillings! (meat, cheese, veg, etc…)
• Cheese

Prep Your Bread

Grease up a casserole pan/dish with butter or butter-like substance. We have vegan Earth Balance butter because the store was out of dairy butter and it worked perfectly.

Then start with prepping your bread. I tore up my dry bread into relatively-cube-shaped pieces. This was definitely a rustic approach; you could also choose to cut your bread into actual cubes with a knife. Chef’s choice.

Toss your bread cubes into the casserole dish. The amount of bread to fit your casserole dish is up to you. Like I said, I don’t like too much bread-to-egg ratio, so I did a single layer of bread cubes, but a two or three cube layer is more standard. It’s Coronavirus time, so use as much or as little as you have or want!

Cook Up Your Fillings

We went vegetarian for our strata, so the filling was mushrooms, seitan bacon, and vegetarian breakfast sausage. As always, if you use mushrooms, don’t wash them like a normal vegetable because they are little sponges. Just clean off dirt with a damp paper towel. Chop up your veg/meat into nice, bite-sized pieces and sauté away.

Make Your Egg Mix

While your filling is cooking, prep your egg and milk mix. This is where I incorporated my spices, but you could also add those directly into your filling as it cooks. Like everything I do and recommend, the egg-to-milk ratio is chef’s choice. Here I did 6 eggs and ~1 cup oat milk. To that I whisked in my spices. I did a pretty typical spice blend of paprika, garlic, onion, pepper, and salt. You could take this any direction you choose— for my next strata I plan to use black beans, garlic, onion, tajin, and coriander, for example.

Start Layering!

On top of your bread cubes in your buttered dish, go ahead and sprinkle on your cooked filling. Then pour on your egg mixture, making sure to get some egg on all your bread cubes across the entire casserole pan. Then grate your cheese directly over all the deliciousness already in your pan.

If you’re prepping ahead, go ahead and stick that whole thing in the fridge with some foil on top. After a night in the fridge, mine looked like this:

When you’re ready to bake, stick that entire thing in the oven at 375 F for about 30 minutes. Keep the foil on top to prevent your cheese from burning. Cook time might vary if you did a huge, multi-layered strata.

The final product will be an eggy, cheesy, bready brunch dish that has everything you want all in one bite. Add hot sauce if you didn’t overdo the spices in your egg mix (or you just love hot sauce).