Recipe—Southwest Frittata

My current brunch obsession is frittatas. You can basically throw any combination of ingredients together in a skillet and as long as you have eggs, heavy cream, and cheese, you can make a delicious meal.

I came up with this Southwest Frittata when I was working on developing a new recipe for my live cooking demo with UNIQUE Programs. The challenge when doing live cooking demos is you need something quick to make sure you fill your time slot and don’t have any lag time. With this recipe taking less than 20 minutes it worked out great!

The key to any good frittata is to cook about 2–3 cups worth of any combination of ingredients in a cast iron skillet, and then add the perfect egg mixture, which is 8 eggs, a 1/2 cup of heavy cream, and 1 cup of any cheese. You just pour the egg mixture over the cooked ingredients, simmer for 2–3 minutes and then finish it off in the oven. It is such a great use of leftovers. Got leftover steak, make a frittata! Leftover veggies, make a frittata! Leftover potatoes, you know it, fri-freaking-ttata! You catch my drift.

Note: If you do not have a skillet that can be put in the oven, just transfer the cooked ingredients to a baking dish, add the egg mixture over the top, and bake in the oven. Just note that you will need to extend the cooking time in the oven since you won’t be cooking the egg mixture on the stove top.

INGREDIENTS
1 tbsp olive oil
1 lb ground breakfast sausage
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, sliced
8 eggs
1/2 c heavy whipping cream
1 c pepper jack cheese, shredded
salt and pepper
fresh parsley or cilantro, minced (optional)

STEPS

• Preheat oven to 400º.
• Over medium high heat, warm up 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a cast iron skillet.
• Add the breakfast sausage to the skillet and break it apart with a spatula as it cooks.
• As the sausage starts to brown up, add the chopped onion.
• While the sausage is cooking, whisk together the eggs, heavy cream, shredded cheese, salt, and pepper and set aside.
• When the sausage is completely cooked, add the red bell pepper to the skillet and continue cooking for another 2–3 minutes so the bell pepper just starts to soften up.
• Using the spatula, evenly spread the sausage mixture in the bottom of the skillet.
• Pour the egg mixture around the skillet making sure it is all evenly covered.
• Allow the egg mixture to start to cook in the pan making sure not to stir, about 2–3 minutes.
• Once the eggs have started to set around the edge of the skillet, transfer the skillet to the preheated oven and cook for about 12–15 minutes or until it is nice and puffed up and set in the center.
• Remove the skillet from the oven and allow it to rest for 5 minutes.
• Sprinkle the freshly minced herbs over the top of the frittata.
• Cut the cooked frittata into wedges and serve.