Dutch Oven Breakfast Casserole

We’ve spent years putting our efforts into making you fancy schmancy meals to impress your co-campers, and we recently thought we’d start focusing on some of the old quintessential camping favorites. It’s not as if we aren’t craving a good chili or hash brown casserole every time we get to camp ourselves. So we’ll start with just that- a hash brown casserole. You could also call it “Mountain Man’s Breakfast”, as does Lodge’s “Camp Dutch Oven Cooking 101.” This breakfast includes just about every favorite breakfast item in one pot, and it forces you to spend a long morning relaxing around the campfire.

We made this on our Idyllwild trip about a month ago. It was a lovely Sunday morning treat that kept everyone from running on back to the “real” world too soon. This recipe is a perfect one to help you get back to the basics. I’ve been practicing this myself, since I’ll be teaching a Dutch Oven Cooking class with REI Outdoor School at the end of November.

We layered all the parts in, one at a time, and it all came together in the end like a slice of pie, thanks to the eggs and cheese melting their way through. Mai-yan described the texture as “pillowy biscuits on top of melty, gooey, cheesy scrambled eggs with crispy hash browns on the bottom. Yum!”

We want you to be able to find all your favorite camping recipes here, so if you’ve got a family heirloom you’d like us to post, send us the recipe or idea. You can send them to
contact@dirtygourmet.com, or just put them right here in the comments below. Thanks!

Dutch Oven Breakfast Casserole

Yield

8 servings

Prep Time / Cook Time

20 minutes / 20-30 minutes

Activity Guide

Car Camping

Ingredients

• 3 cups hash browns
• 16 ounces fresh sausage, crumbled
• 6 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup cheddar cheese, grated
• biscuit dough, enough for 6 biscuits
• 4 tablespoons butter or oil

Tools

• Dutch oven
• Small bowl
• Spatula
• Spoon
• Plate

Method

1. Preheat the dutch oven in the campfire or on a grate.
2. Place the sausage in the dutch oven with half of the butter or oil, and cook until browned, stirring occasionally. Remove from oven and set aside.
3. Add the hash browns with the rest of the butter or oil. Brown on one side and flip.
4. Layer back in the cooked sausage on top of the hash browns.
5. Add the beaten eggs atop the sausage, which is going to run down into all the lower layers.
6. Sprinkle cheese on top of the egg.
7. Spoon big dollops of biscuit dough around the top of the eggs until generall covered.
8. Place lid of the dutch oven on top, making sure it fits tightly around. Place the dutch oven directly in the campfire over some glowing coals but away from the flames. Add 4-8 large glowing coals to the top of the lid.
9. Check and rotate the oven occasionally, ensuring that no ash spills into the food when you open the lid.
10. Breakfast is done when the biscuits are browned and fluffy on the inside. Slice big hunks out as a serving.