Sausage Drop Bites

It has been said that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Personally, I think any meal that has cheese is the most important meal of the day so I have multiple important meals in my day. But breakfast does not always happen for many folks. Trying to pry people out of bed, rushing to gather all the things one needs to work, learn or run errands in a small AM window is hard and does not leave room for a plate piled high with eggs, fluffy biscuits and sausage.

Lucky for you, I want to share a hearty and satisfying breakfast that can be made in about a half hour. More importantly, it is a hearty and satisfying breakfast that can be made and then frozen to reheat later. This is a rare and wonderful thing to have in your recipe arsenal. There are many options out there for make ahead lunches and dinners, but make ahead for breakfast is scarce at best. Eggs are a hard thing to reheat and eat since they just don’t taste the same the second time around. Oatmeal is a great choice, but a steaming bowl of oats may not make you want to sing when it’s August and it’s pushing 90 degrees before 8 AM. So give these bites a try. They combine some of my favorite things about breakfast (sausage, cheese, milk, biscuits), are portable, are super tasty and reheat well for those times when food needs to happen now but cooking does not.

Sausage Drop Bites

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Makes: Approximately 14-18 bites

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
• 1/2 lb. ground breakfast sausage, uncooked

Directions

1. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt
2. Using two forks or a pastry cutter, cut in the butter to the dry ingredients until mixture has no large chunks of butter and has a bit of crumble to it
3. Add milk to mixture and stir quickly to just combine.
4. Add sausage and cheese and mix well with hands until mixture is well combined
5. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and coat a large baking sheet with cooking spray or parchment paper
6. Roll sausage mixture into balls that are about 1 inch in size and place on baking sheet
7. Bake in oven for 14-16 minutes, rotating baking sheet 180 degrees once during cook time
8. Bites will be done when the bottom of the bites are golden and the top just begins to brown
9. Serve bites hot with desired sides and dips

Tips

• My favorite part about these bites (besides the fact that they are tiny, cute and finger food) is that they make a large amount and freeze so well. These are perfect for those mornings when everyone is all thumbs but a quick breakfast is needed. You can pop the amount out you need and bake or microwave until they are warm and ready to eat!
• I prefer to use sharp white cheddar cheese that I shred mysefl with these bites, but any type of cheddar (pre-shredded or not) will be fine.
• These bites really can go all day. Let them come out for brunch or breakfast, save them for a quick lunch, pair them up with some of you other favorite finger foods for an appetizer spread, or even do as we do and pair them up with hash browns and fruit for a tasty “brinner” (Breakfast for dinner).
• Do you recognize the flour, baking powder, salt and butter combination? This is the base for my Drop Biscuit Egg Bake and is a go to for me when I need a quick biscuit on nights where I want bread but have no time to bake a loaf or energy to go to the store. With the milk and some additional butter (2 tablespoons more), give this a try as a quick weeknight biscuit. This ingredient combination is actually just homemade biscuit mix. Look at you making your condiments from scratch!