Sausage & Grits Casserole

While organizing the pull out pantry recently, I discovered that we had several containers of quick grits in addition to the stone ground ones in the freezer and when I began thinking about another breakfast casserole, I wanted it to include grits.  I looked through my saved blogger recipes and sure enough found just what I was looking for in the form of Sausage & Ranch Grits Casserole from Steph’s Plain Chicken Blog but since I had no ranch dressing, I decided to make a southwestern version.  I did another search and found a recipe for Mexican grits so I used both recipes and things I wanted in it to get the following.

Southwestern Sausage & Grits Casserole

INGREDIENTS:

1 pound pork sausage

1 cup onion, diced

1 cup mixed color sweet pepper, diced

2 garlic cloves, pressed

6½ cups chicken stock

14 oz diced mild green chiles, drained

10 oz Rotel, drained

2 cups quick-cooking grits

12 oz Velveeta, cubed

1/2 cup butter, cubed

1/2 cup milk

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

Sliced pepper jack cheese or shredded cheddar to cover the top (or your favorite)

INSTRUCTIONS:

Note - The directions are based upon how I will do it next time based on some mistakes I made this time, such as adding the cheese at the beginning, so the pics may not match the directions.

1. Preheat oven to 350° F. Lightly spray a 11"x11" (or10”x12”or 9”x13”) dish with cooking spray. Set aside.

2. In a large skillet, cook sausage, onion, pepper, and garlic over medium heat until no longer pink and most moisture is gone then add the chiles and Rotel to a well in the skillet center to cook a little of the liquid out of it – about 5 minutes – then mix it all together. Drain fat if necessary.

3. In a large saucepan, add chicken stock; bring to a boil. Slowly stir in grits. Reduce heat to medium-low; cook, covered, 5 to 7 minutes or until thickened, stirring occasionally.  I left it on the heat at this point as I thought the grits were a little too runny.

4. Add Velveeta cheese and butter; stir until melted. Stir in milk. Slowly stir in eggs until blended. Stir in the sausage mixture.  I continued cooking until the grits had the consistency I was looking for and steam was escaping via little volcano poofs (Grandma taught me this)

5. Transfer grits mixture to a prepared dish.

6. Bake, uncovered for 45 minutes (or more) then add cheese topping and bake for 10-15 minutes (I put the cheese on first and it was browning after 30 minutes so I covered it then and it stuck to the foil - bad idea).  Before adding the cheese, check center of casserole to be sure it is plenty hot.

7.Remove from oven and let rest about 5 minutes before serving but since it is grits it still won’t come out as a cube - I guess the amount of liquid could be lowered to see if can be done, but I prefer creamy grits.

If not baked immediately, remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes before baking. Increase baking time by at least 15 minutes.

I had it for supper and absolutely loved it - and I cannot imagine you would not enjoy it.  Whether made as a casserole or just cooked in a pan, if I owned a restaurant, this would be offered as side dish for every meal.

And what could I do to make it even better when reheated for breakfast?

I would normally use two eggs but wanted to show the grits.

While I loved it, I believe next time I’ll try Mexican Chorizo to make it even more southwestern and see if I like it better - I still have lots of grits to use up.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

12/21 & 12/22/18 event date