Save Your Leftover Mashed Potatoes For An Easy, Cheesy, Slow-Cooker Breakfast

Potatoes have to be the most versatile carbohydrate on earth, with numerous different types that can all be cooked using every imaginable method and transformed into countless different shapes and textures. Mashed potatoes are, of course, one of the most famous potato recipes, but they can be transformed further. So, if you're wondering what to do with leftover mashed potatoes, a cheesy slow-cooker breakfast casserole is in your future.

Our recipe for slow-cooker breakfast casserole is an easy dish that layers frozen hashbrowns, crumbled browned breakfast sausage, shredded cheese, and scrambled eggs in a slow-cooker. But you can swap the frozen hashbrowns for leftover mashed potatoes. Simply slather a layer of mashed potatoes as the foundation, topping it with crumbled sausage and shredded cheese, then pour half the mixture of scrambled seasoned eggs over top before repeating the process a second time. The eggs will seep into the layers below, seasoning them and binding them altogether as they cook and fluff up. The fat from the cheese and sausage drippings will likewise season the mashed potatoes and instill moisture. Unlike shredded slivers of hashed brown potatoes, the mashed potatoes will bring a silky, luxurious, melt-in-your-mouth consistency to contrast with the chewy sausage and melted cheese. If you don't have a slow-cooker, you can easily layer each ingredient into a casserole dish to bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for an hour.

While our slow-cooker breakfast casserole recipe uses sausage and cheddar, you can swap the proteins just as you swapped the hashbrowns for mashed potatoes. You can draw inspiration from our repertoire of other breakfast casseroles. We have an oven-baked cheesy sausage breakfast casserole that would lend easily to the mashed potato swap; in addition to cheese, sausage, and egg, this recipe adds sour cream into the mix for a hearty and tangy complement.

Another idea is to add whole eggs instead of scrambled eggs to the mashed potato base. To do this, you can combine mashed potatoes with seasonings, cheese, and any type of breakfast meat like bacon. Pour the mixture into a casserole dish, then hollow out egg-sized nests. You'll crack eggs into these nests and garnish with extra cheese and fresh herbs before baking the eggs till they set. If you want a vegetarian casserole, you can swap sausage crumbles for soyrizo or another form of plant-based sausage. You can also incorporate veggies into the casserole, like sauteed mushrooms or bell peppers, and onions for more complexity and color. Blend drained and thawed frozen spinach and sauteed leeks into the mashed potatoes with garlic powder and parmesan cheese as the foundation for an eggs Florentine-inspired breakfast casserole to top with ricotta salata and sun-dried tomatoes.