Lately, I have been trying to get myself to eat breakfast more often. I actually love breakfast, but I regretfully have rarely made time to have it.
Breakfast muffins are a great thing to make. They are so easy to pull together. They look beautiful, and a nice big basket of them is always a hit for brunch. You can also make a batch the night before and toss one or two (three for me) in the oven to warm the following morning while you make coffee.
These muffins are a great way to use the pork breakfast sausage that I get from my CSA, but in all honesty, the recipe is fairly versatile. You can make them meatless, with broccoli, or any other vegetable that you like. You can use Parmesan or Asiago instead of Cheddar.
The tricks are to not over mix your batter, and to make sure that your vegetables have as little moisture as possible so that your muffins don’t turn out to be soggy.
I have been playing around with different combinations of ingredients and like the mix of roasted red peppers and spinach. I think it’s because I like the idea of starting the day with lots of color!
Ingredients:
1 pound of bulk breakfast sausage
1 large red bell pepper
6 ounces of baby spinach
1 cup of cheddar cheese, shredded
1 cup of whole milk
2 eggs
2 cups of all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt
Special equipment:
A 12-cup muffin pan, preferably non-stick
How to prepare:
1. Preheat the oven to 400°.
2. If you have a gas range, set the red bell pepper directly on the gas burner with the heat on high. Turn the pepper periodically to make sure that the skin chars evenly.
If you have an electric range, rub the bell pepper with olive oil and place it on a cookie sheet set underneath the broiler. You can also rub the pepper with olive oil and pop it into a 450° oven. Remove it when the skin is blistered and blackened.
When your pepper is nice and charred, put it in a clean plastic grocery bag or a small paper bag and wait for it to cool. When it is cool enough to handle, you should be able to gently rub off all the charred skin from the pepper. Seed the pepper, and discard the seeds and the stem. Dice the pepper and spread the pieces out onto paper towels to absorb any excess moisture.
3. In a large skillet, brown the breakfast sausage over medium to medium-high heat, breaking up any large pieces with the side of your wooden spoon or spatula. Remove the browned sausage to a large mixing bowl with a slotted spoon, leaving as much of the drippings behind as possible.
4. Wipe out the skillet and wilt the spinach in it over medium heat with a little bit of olive oil and about a tablespoon of water. When the spinach has wilted, remove it to a colander to drain. When the spinach is cool enough to handle, gently press as much liquid out of the leaves as you can without squeezing them.
5. Roughly chop the spinach leaves and add them to the browned sausage meat along with 2/3 of the roasted red pepper (reserve 1/3 of the peppers to top the muffins), the cheese, the milk and the eggs. Gently stir all the ingredients together until everything is well-mixed.
6. Sift together the flour, the baking powder and the salt. Gently fold the flour mixture, a little bit at a time, into the other ingredients until the batter just comes together. Do not over mix.
7. Divide the mixture evenly among all the muffin cups. Top each with a few pieces of roasted red pepper. Bake the muffins for about 20-25 minutes. The tops should be browned and golden. Let them cool in the tin for a couple of minutes before removing them to a cooling rack.
coolcookstyle 
Yum! Those look great, even to this (usually) non-breakfast eater!
Thanks! I have to get better about eating breakfast too. I keep thinking that as I get older, I need to start taking better care of myself like eating at regular hours, and starting the day with breakfast.
I just wish it wasn’t so hard to get rid of old habits and start new, better ones!
Wow, looks wonderful! I should try this not sweet but savory muffin which I can already tell, will be a winner with the Mr. 😉
Thanks! I love me a savory muffin. Actually, anything with sausage in it is good for me!
These look so good! I love muffins for breakfast during the week because I can just heat them up and take them with me. I made a batch of sausage cornbread muffins a few weeks ago, but I love that you added some veggies, too! I hope you don’t mind if I steal this recipe. 🙂
Oh my gosh! A sausage cornbread muffin sounds amazing! I wish I had thought of that. It just sounds like such a delicious combination. Yum, yum! And please do steal!
The cornmeal does go really nicely and gives it kind of a Southern flavor. (Which, as a Georgia native, I definitely appreciate. :)) You could probably sub a cup of cornmeal for a cup of the flour in your recipe if you wanted to try it out. I’m definitely going to throw some veggies in mine next time!
That is exactly what I was thinking! Subbing in a cup or corn meal is a great idea. Veggies in breakfast muffins is awesome! If you can put blueberries and strawberries, why not broccoli or kale!
Reblogged this on humble feast and commented:
You guys all know how much I love muffins? Well, now I’m going to have to try making some of these!
You’re awesome! Thanks for the reblog!
These sound delicious!
Thank you!
such a good alternative for breakfast! Think I might trade out boring, repetitive cereal in return for these…
They certainly beat cereal out of a box! I like that I could eat them on the run too!
Oh, I love how perfect this one-stop breakfast dish: full of veggies, proteins, and portable! Perfect!
Consolidation and portability are very important. Must be able to stuff face efficiently and move around at the same time! 😉
Thanks for the comment and thanks for dropping by!
Can I use Bisquick instead of flour and how much if I switched out? If not, wil try with Flour, just trying to find recipe like this with bisquick. Thx
Thanks for the comment!
In answer to your question, I’m not exactly sure how the muffins would turn out with Bisquick. From what I can gather, Bisquick is a mixture of flour, baking powder, some salt, some sugar, and powdered vegetable shortening. I would think that if you were to substitute it for flour, you would probably need to reduce the baking powder in the recipe. You would probably need to also reduce the amount of fat (like the cheese), and increase the amount of liquid (milk or a combination of milk and water) to make it work.
I found this online that might help you with the ratios.
http://www.ehow.com/how_8327984_substitute-bisquick-flour-leavener.html
I think you can do it, but you might need to experiment a little bit. Alternatively, you could use the Bisquick basic recipe for biscuits, and just add the sausage, the cheese, the spinach, and the red peppers. Bake them in a muffin tin. I think that would work well.
In any case, do let me know how it turns out! I hope that this helps!
Thx u! Will prob just makes yours…it looks wonderful!! Will let u know how it turns out! Thx again.
Please do let me know how they turn out! Thanks again for the comments and for dropping by!