High Protein Breakfast Casserole: 21 g a Slice, Counted

One slice of high protein breakfast casserole gives 21.3 g of protein for 243 kcal. The pan holds 10 eggs, cottage cheese, turkey sausage and cheddar. Cut it into 8. Every number comes from USDA FoodData Central records, with the grams below. A slice clears my 20 g bar, and one pan makes eight of them.

How do I make a high protein breakfast casserole?

Whisk the eggs with the cottage cheese and milk, fold in the cooked sausage and vegetables, and bake. The table gives the grams for a 9 by 13 inch dish. I added the rows myself, using the specific Atwater energy where a record has it, and the sausage is weighed cooked.

Ingredient	Grams	Protein	Energy
Whole large eggs (10)	503 g	62.4 g	739 kcal
Cottage cheese, lowfat 2%	220 g	24.2 g	185 kcal
Milk, 1% fat	120 g	4.1 g	52 kcal
Turkey sausage, cooked	228 g	54.5 g	447 kcal
Baby spinach, raw	120 g	3.4 g	25 kcal
Red bell pepper, raw	150 g	1.3 g	40 kcal
White onion, raw	80 g	0.7 g	26 kcal
Cheddar cheese	85 g	19.8 g	347 kcal
Olive oil	9 g	0.0 g	80 kcal
Total	1515 g	170.4 g	1941 kcal

Cook the sausage first and drain it. Soften the onion and pepper in the oil, and wilt the spinach with them. Grease the dish, spread the vegetables and sausage in it, pour the egg mix over and scatter the cheese on top. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until the center reads 165°F on a food thermometer. The Food Safety and Inspection Service chart lists 160°F for eggs and 165°F for casseroles. I use the higher number, since this is both. Oven times vary with the dish and the oven. Trust the thermometer.

The whole pan is 170.4 g of protein for 1,941 kcal. Cut it into 8 equal slices. Each is 21.3 g and 243 kcal.

Where does the protein in a slice come from?

Mostly the eggs and the sausage. Of the 170.4 g in the pan, the eggs carry 62.4 g (37%). The turkey sausage brings 54.5 g (32%), the cottage cheese 24.2 g (14%) and the cheddar 19.8 g (12%). The vegetables and milk make up the last 9.5 g.

Over a day, the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans set 1.2–1.6 g of protein per kilogram of body weight. At 70 kg that is 84–112 g, so one slice covers 19–25% of it. If you’re unsure where your own number falls, how much protein you should eat a day starts from the same range. The International Society of Sports Nutrition gives 20–40 g per serving for exercising people, and one slice sits at the low end of that. Two slices wouldn’t be too many.

What happens to a slice if I change the add-ins?

The protein moves a little. The calories move more. Each row below is the same pan with one change, divided by 8, so the sausage and cheese rows are the ones to look at.

Change	Protein per slice	Energy per slice
Base casserole	21.3 g	243 kcal
Pork sausage instead of turkey	19.8 g	279 kcal
Part-skim mozzarella instead of cheddar	21.3 g	231 kcal
5 eggs and 8 egg whites instead of 10 eggs	21.0 g	214 kcal
Add 300 g of hash browns	22.4 g	342 kcal
No sausage	14.5 g	187 kcal
No sausage, add 250 g of firm tofu	19.9 g	232 kcal

Pork sausage costs 36 kcal a slice and loses 1.5 g of protein: its record has less protein per 100 g than the turkey one. Hash browns add 99 kcal for 1.1 g. Leaving the sausage out takes the slice to 14.5 g, under my 20 g bar. Adding 250 g of tofu lifts it to 19.9 g, a hair under. A bit more tofu would’ve finished the job. The hash brown row uses the home-prepared record, and frozen bags differ, so read the label on yours. The same egg-and-cottage-cheese idea, with vegetables doing more of the work, is the high protein zucchini slice, which gives 18.2–19.0 g a piece.

Why is my breakfast casserole watery?

The vegetables gave up their water in the oven. Cook the onion, pepper and spinach in the pan first, and let the liquid cook off before they go in the dish. Spoon off any liquid sitting in the cottage cheese tub too. Overbaking dries it out, so take it out at 165°F whatever the clock says. A wobble in the middle is normal. The casserole sets as it rests, and a few minutes before you cut is enough.

How do I store and reheat a breakfast casserole?

Cool it in shallow containers and refrigerate it within 2 hours. Eat it within 3 to 4 days, or freeze it. The USDA leftovers guidance says leftovers keep 3 to 4 days in the refrigerator or 3 to 4 months in the freezer. Slice it first. Wrap each slice so you can take one at a time, and you won’t thaw the lot.

Reheat to 165°F, covered. Casseroles can go from the freezer straight into the oven or microwave without thawing. Expect a longer reheat. A Sunday casserole carries you from Monday to Thursday, and any slice you won’t reach goes in the freezer on day 1, not day 4.

How do I log a slice?

Weigh the empty dish, then the baked casserole, and divide the difference by 8 to find a slice’s weight. A slice becomes a number of grams you can enter, the way the turkey sausage record lists food. It stays right even if the pan loses water in the oven. The same trick works for a high protein cheesecake or a high protein banana bread: weigh the whole bake, then divide by the number of slices.

With kidney disease, your doctor gives you the protein number, and pregnancy and breastfeeding change the needs as well. I wrote the slice math for adults.

Your own daily figure comes from your height and weight. The protein calculator gets there with 1.2 g per kg of a reference weight and a floor of 60 g.

Log it once and repeat it all week. Calsa keeps the pan as one of your recipes, so the nine rows above become a single entry.