Meat Lover’s Strada Recipe

November 2, 2010

What do you do when you can’t decide between bacon or sausage for breakfast?  Use BOTH of course (duh…!)! This recipe was inspired by one of those moments recently, and the result got lots of thumbs-up and recipe requests, so I thought I’d share it with all of you this month!

Ingredients:
12 slices thick-cut bread (I use our homemade Italian Herb bread)
1 lb. hickory smoked bacon
1 lb. mild breakfast sausage
2 tomatoes, thinly sliced
1 1/2 cups Irish Cheddar Cheese
12 eggs
1 cup whole milk
1 cup Ranch Dressing
1/2 cup butter, melted

Directions:

  • Spray a 9 x 13 baking dish with non-stick spray
  • In separate pans, cook bacon and sausage.  Crumble each & allow too cool.
  • Cut bread into cubes.  Line bottom of baking dish with half the bread.
  • Distribute all of the bacon over the bread.  Top with 1 tomato (sliced), then half the cheese.
  • Top with remaining bread
  • Add remaining layer of sausage, tomato and cheese.
  • In a separate bowl, combine eggs, milk and ranch dressing.  Pour evenly over strada.
  • Drizzle butter over top.

Cover.  Refrigerate overnight. (can be frozen at this point)

  • In the morning, remove from refrigerator 30 minutes before baking.  Pre-heat oven to 350.  Cook for 30 minutes covered with foil.  Remove foil and cook for 30 additional minutes or until cooked through. put foil back on if top becomes too brown.
  • Allow to cool for 5 minutes, cut and serve.