Easy and quick-just what you’re looking for! This Cheesy Veggie and Hashbrown Casserole takes just minutes to assemble yet you get a comforting meal. Now, that will make everyone in your family happy-including you!

THE INGREDIENTS: 

Frozen Hashbrowns: Frozen Hashbrowns form the bottom layer of this Cheesy Veggie and Hashbrown Casserole! We like to use 4 cups so that each serving gets a hearty amount of potatoes. However, if you would like it on the lighter side, 3 cups of frozen hashbrowns can work just as well! We don’t recommend increasing it beyond 4 cups as it makes the egg layer far less apparent. We also don’t recommend decreasing it beyond 3 cups. The hashbrown layer becomes more of just a hand-full of hashbrowns instead of a layer. 

Vegetable Oil: Vegetable oil helps to cook our hashbrowns in the oven! As they never get overly crispy, feel free to omit it if desired for a lower-fat meal. However, then ensure to grease the dish before putting in the frozen hash browns. That way, you can easily cut and serve the casserole when done. No one likes it when their food sticks to the pan! You can also use butter instead of oil, if that is what you prefer or have on hand. 

Shredded Cheddar Cheese: Cheese and potatoes-what a classic combination! Nothing screams an American casserole more than cheese. Cheddar lends its sharpness to this meal, pairing well with every single part-from the vegetables to the hashbrowns themselves. If you do not want to add cheese to this meal, feel free to omit it. However, then we do recommend going heavier on another topping. With that being said, please see our note about adding more water-heavy vegetables below. 

Milk: Whole milk has more fat than 0, 1, or 2 percent milk. So, the fattier the milk you use, the more overall richness you add to this dish. Although we personally use 2 percent milk, we believe that any milk would be a good substitute in this recipe with no extra changes. 

Eggs: The eggs really help this casserole come together, so we do not recommend omitting them from this recipe. The texture that they help form is near that of a quiche, and changing the number of eggs could drastically affect the texture. 

Onion: We would not go above the ½ onion stated in this recipe. This is because onions release a lot of moisture as they cook, leading to a soggy casserole if over-added. ½ an onion still leads to that wonderful, quiche-like texture. However, if you want to be careful or simply want more “real estate” to add other water-heavy vegetables (such as more red bell pepper or tomato), feel free to replace this with between 1 and two teaspoons of onion powder. 

Red Bell Pepper: Red bell peppers are a classic vegetable found in omelettes, quiches, and many other egg-based dishes and casseroles alike. Their versatility makes them a perfect vegetable for this casserole. We do not recommend increasing the amount of red bell pepper in this recipe. This is due to the fact that, as bell pepper cooks, it releases moisture. Too many bell peppers means too much moisture and a wet texture for this casserole. You don’t want that!

However, feel free to replace this red bell pepper with whatever vegetables you like. Good examples would be spinach, mushrooms, broccoli, and summer squash. Although we have not tried this, if you are still determined to have a casserole packed with even more veggies, you could pre-cook the bell pepper or other vegetables you are using to release some of their moisture before adding them to the casserole. Another specific note for the red bell pepper is that, although it cooks, it retains enough of a bite that it adds a nice texture to our Cheesy Veggie and Hashbrown Casserole. This is incredibly helpful because many casseroles are only mushy with no relief! 

Tomato: Tomatoes are another classic vegetable found in many egg-based dishes and casseroles alike. Tomatoes especially go well with bell pepper! We do not recommend increasing the amount of tomato in this recipe because, as a tomato cooks, it releases moisture. Too much moisture means a very undesirable, wet casserole texture. You can replace the tomato with another vegetable. If you wish to add more of it to this Cheesy Veggie and Hashbrown Casserole anyway, a possible (but not tried and true) solution could be to pre-cook the tomatoes in a pan so that they release some of their moisture, allowing you to pack more tomatoes in the casserole without ruining the texture. 

Lawry Salt:  Lawry Salt is not just a brand, but it is a salt with other seasonings added. We find it goes well with potato or cheese-focused dishes. Don’t have Lawry salt? Make your own by combining salt, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, and turmeric. Turmeric is incredibly strong, so be light handed unless you enjoy the flavor!

Black Pepper: Lawry Salt is not heavy on the black pepper, so adding some on our own makes up for that! Black pepper is a classic breakfast spice-who doesn’t eat their eggs without a little black pepper? Adjust to your preference, please. 

Paprika: Paprika is a mild spice that we like to use in our American cheese sauces, so it makes sense that it would go well in our Cheesy Veggie and Hashbrown Casserole. After all, it’s pretty generous with the amount of cheese! You can adjust it to your preference. 

Garlic Powder: Although Lawry Salt does have a nice amount of garlic powder in it, we really like to double down on our garlic to ensure a flavorful casserole. Many casserole recipes are under-seasoned, but we have gone out of our way to make sure that is not the case here! Adjust this to your preference. 

Dried Parsley: To be honest, dried parsley is pretty flavorless. However, in rich meals like this, we like to add it. Why? It gives this dish a nice, fresh appearance-offsetting the cheesy hashbrown-ness that it actually is. However, don’t worry! We add freshness to the flavor itself via our vegetables. Feel free to omit this if you don’t have it, it is not worth buying just for this! 

KEY INFORMATION:

Texture: Even when we have pre-baked the hashbrown crust for 45 minutes, adding the egg mixture causes the bottom layer to lose its crispiness. However, that does not mean the texture is unpleasant! The potatoes are wonderfully cooked through and hold the texture more of a roasted potato than a crisped up hashbrown. The egg layer itself pairs well with it and they come together as almost a quiche in texture.

If you are looking for more of a crunchy layer, here are some possible recommendations. The first is to spread the hashbrowns in a larger pan so that they are a thinner layer, this will allow them to crisp up better. The second is to spread the hashbrowns into a pie pan and push them up the sides as well to form a “pie crust”. In addition to that, for the pie crust pan, you can reduce the potatoes used to 3 cups to prevent too thick of a layer preventing it from crisping up. The potatoes should be brown in color before you add the egg mixture if you would like to have a crispy crust. This likely means you’ll be cooking the potatoes for at least 20 minutes, but perhaps a little more!

Since frozen hashbrowns are also a bit wet, you could dry them with a towel firmly before proceeding with the recipe. You could even use fresh potatoes, but make sure to pat our excess moisture with a towel as well! To do this, the best method is to put salt on the potatoes and let them “sweat” out some excess moisture. Then, gather a towel and squeeze out the moisture.  Finally, you could reserve some of the hashbrowns to fry up in a pan and serve this casserole on top of the fried hash browns. For other added texture, you could replace the soft tomato with a harder vegetable, such as broccoli. 

Alternative Add-Ins and Flavors: Everyone likes their casserole a little different! Other mix-in ideas for this quiche would be: different kinds of cheese, meat, or other vegetables, Switch it up with some mexican cheese and poblano pepper for a southwestern casserole. Or, try out swiss, chicken, and mushrooms for a slightly elevated dinner. Feel free to also make a sauce to put on top of it! Homemade hot sauce, hollandaise, tomato sauce or ketchup, and green sauce all go well with this recipe! 

What Goes with This Casserole? Serve this Cheesy Veggie and Hashbrown Casserole with breakfast meat, cinnamon rolls, some fresh fruit, or even a simple side salad with our homemade croutons!