This Cheesy Vegan Breakfast Potato Casserole studded with crunchy golden spuds and chewy vegan sausage, all in a creamy, cheesy cashew sauce, delivers plenty of flavor and nutrition to get your weekend off to a great start. You can make this recipe ahead of time and pop it into the oven 30 minutes before serving.
A savory breakfast like this Cheesy Vegan Breakfast Potato Casserole gets me out of bed and raring to go even on a Saturday morning. Which gives you an idea of just how delicious it is, because I’m the gal that hits the snooze button five times before I can open an eyelid.
There’s so much deliciousness in this dish even if you’re not a savory breakfast person, even if you’re not a potato person, and even if you can resist golden, crunchy food (What? Honestly? You exist?). You will still find something to love here. Perhaps it will be the delicious chunks of sausage flavored lightly with herbs and garlic. Or the creamy, cheesy cashew sauce with turmeric, so good that you’ll probably start eating it out of the blender.
I like making weekend breakfasts that are really nutritious, because mornings can sometimes get a little crazy, which means lunch can be rather late. A healthy, solid breakfast like this will sustain you for hours, and take away any need for snacking.
My favorite part about this breakfast is the ease of making it. Prep work is minimal, chop an onion, a couple of cloves of garlic, and crumble or slice some vegan sausage. Oh, and you do have to press the button on a blender.
I love getting the potato-sausage mixture and the cheesy sauce ready ahead of time– usually the night before– so I can just bung the casserole into the oven in the morning. The delicious smell wafts across the house, waking any last remaining sleepyheads and bringing them, magnet-like, into the kitchen.
Happy Saturday!
This Cheesy Vegan Breakfast Potato Casserole studded with crunchy golden spuds and chewy vegan sausage, all in a creamy, cheesy cashew sauce, delivers plenty of flavor and nutrition to get your weekend off to a great start. You can make this recipe ahead of time and pop it into the oven 30 minutes before serving.
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tbsp parsley, chopped
- 1 tsp olive oil or any vegetable oil
- 3 medium red or yellow potatoes, cut in a 1-cm dice
- 4 links vegan Italian sausage (approx 14 oz), crumbled or sliced thinly
- 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
- Salt to taste
- 3/4 cup raw cashews, soaked for at least 30 minutes in 1 1/2 cups water
- 2 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
- 1/2 tsp dry sage
- Salt and ground black pepper to taste
Make the cheesy sauce by combining all ingredients and blending into a really smooth paste. Set aside.
Place the diced potatoes in a microwave-safe dish and add 1 tbsp water. Cover and nuke on high for five minutes or until potatoes are tender.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
In a large skillet, heat the oil. You can do this in a 10-inch cast-iron skillet or any skillet that can go from the stove to the oven, to reduce cleanup.
Add the onions, garlic and parsley to the oil. Season with salt and ground black pepper and saute, stirring, for five minutes over medium heat or until the onions are soft.
Add the sausage and potatoes and continue to cook, about five minutes. Check seasoning and add more pepper and salt if needed.
If you are using a cast iron or a stove-to-oven skillet, arrange the potato mixture in an even layer and pour the cheesy sauce over it evenly. If using a baking dish, like I did, transfer the potato sausage mixture to the baking dish and pour the cheesy sauce on top.
Transfer the skillet or baking dish to the oven and bake 30 minutes or until the top starts to lightly brown. Switch to the broil function on your oven and broil for another five minutes on the highest setting, or until gold-brown spots appear on the potatoes and cheesy sauce.
Remove from the oven, garnish with more parsley if you wish, and serve hot or at room temperature.
You can make the cheesy sauce and the potato-sausage mixture the previous night. Mix them in the baking dish in the morning and proceed to bake.
More Savory Vegan Breakfast Recipes:
Vegan Zucchini Breakfast Strata
Where is the cheese in the “cheesy “vegan breakfast casserole?
You’re probably unfamiliar with vegan food. There can be no real cheese in this because it’s a vegan recipe, meaning it’s dairy free, but the cashew sauce is very cheesy with the yeast and other ingredients.
I am making this for breakfast tomorrow, can’t wait. I love the sound of that sauce. Your magic cheesy sauce is one of our favorites.
For the cheesy sauce do you use the water that the cashews are soaked in or do you strain them first?
You can use the soaking liquid!
Trying this this morning, and so far so good. I also wasn’t sure whether to include the soaking liquid based on the instructions (when I did it came out thin?), and didn’t see an instruction for which size baking dish to use. Those two clarifications would be helpful. I didn’t have any Italian sausage, so I had to substitute apple sage sausage. I think it’ll still be fantastic. Eagerly waiting for it to come out of the oven. Thanks for the recipe!
THIS WAS SO GOOD!!! We needed a vegan alternative to our traditional Christmas egg casserole and this came up in a search. We all loved it– vegans, vegetarians and carnivores. We used Hillary breakfast sausages and made it the day before. It looked like it had soaked up the “cheese” sauce and would be dry but wasn’t at all after baking. Several of us added hot sauce to it upon serving and the youngest teen ate it as made. Super new dish for us to have for dinner, Christmas, breakfast, whatever. And one I can take to the carnivore extended family gatherings if doubled or tripled. Thank you!!