One of the things the holidays bring with them is family meals. But not just the multi-course dinners. No, breakfasts are just as important when the whole family is gathered together. Still, with all the presents to wrap, trees to trim, gifts to buy, cookies to bake, and togetherness time to be had, spending any more time slaving away over the stove to out a delicious, mouth-watering breakfast on the table can be daunting and overwhelming. But there’s a solution to that!

The crockpot. Yes, usually we think of this kitchen item as helping us prepare dinner while we are away or running around, but it works well in the reverse too! Go ahead. Put together a breakfast casserole the night before, turn the crockpot on low when you go to bed. 8 hours later you’ll have a delicious breakfast ready and waiting for you - the perfect meal to wake-up to.

I tested it out over the Thanksgiving weekend, sticking with my Paleo diet which requires using fresh ingredients and Johnsonville Natural sausages. Be honest, you’ve probably heard of and love Johnsonville brats, but consider your favorite summer grill item company for breakfast too. The company makes a line of products that provide a clean and simple label, with familiar ingredients. All the Naturals products are free of artificial ingredients, flavors, colors or preservatives. Heck, yes!

Overnight Breakfast Casserole:

Ingredients:

• 2 shredded sweet potatoes
• 2 packages of the Johnsonville Naturals breakfast sausages, lightly browned.
• 1 chopped yellow pepper
• 1 chopped green pepper
• 1 half of a white onion, chopped
• 18 eggs, scrambled
• 1/2 cup of almond milk
• salt, pepper, spices to taste

Directions:

• Dump shredded sweet potatoes into the bottom of the crockpot. Press lightly to compact a little.
• Mix together your chopped veggies and slightly cooked sausages. Dump that on top of the sweet potatoes.
• Scramble the almond milk into the eggs.
• Slowly pour the scrambled egg/milk mix over the contents in the crockpot. Try to evenly distribute. The eggs will likely cover the majority of the contents - that’s fine!
• Turn crockpot on to the lowest setting between 7-9 hours before you plan to eat.
• Sleep.
• Scoop, or slice to serve at breakfast time. Consider sprinkling cheese or slicing avocados for the top for a little something extra.

You can pretty much use any veggies you want in the mix, although I would recommend veggies that are a little crisper to begin with, otherwise after a night of cooking you are going to have some soggy veggies.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Johnsonville. The opinions and text are all mine.