Yes, it’s definitely possible to make a whole breakfast bake, complete with biscuits, smoked bacon or sausage, breakfast potatoes, eggs and cheese, using only your Saffire Grill. One beautiful, sunny Sunday morning, I set out to prove it. This breakfast bake recipe makes enough for approximately two.
Ingredients
- 1 lb breakfast meat (sausage, bacon, etc.)
- 1 cup frozen potatoes (diced or hashbrown style)
- Can of Pillsbury Grand Rolls
- 4 tbs of butter (for sausage gravy)
- 4 tbs of flour
- Salt and pepper
- 1 cup milk or heavy cream (for gravy)
- Egg mixture (4 eggs, 1/3 cup milk or heavy cream, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper)
- 1 cup shredded or grated cheese (I used cheddar for this recipe.
Tools
- Cast-iron skillet/pan
- Saffire heat deflector
- Saffire secondary cooking grid (recommended for more cooking space)
Recipe
Smoking Sausages (or Other Breakfast Meat) for the Breakfast Bake
The first step should be smoking your meat of choice in your Saffire, before the grill gets too hot. I used a mild breakfast sausage for both of the breakfast bakes I made, but honestly, I’ll switch it up next time and smoke either ham, country sausage or even bacon.
I didn’t have a heat deflector for smoking on my kamado, so I used my pizza stone instead. To get the pizza stone to sit down near the charcoal, I had to flip my triangular Cooking Grid Elevator upside down. Once you have your heat deflector in, smoke a pound of sausage on the Saffire at 200° F for 30 minutes over Saffire’s All-Natural Lump Charcoal. I used three handfuls of maple chips for extra smoke flavor, using my handy dandy Smokin’ Chip Feeder to add them to the fire, and then let my Saffire do the rest while I moved on to other things.
Prepare Your Egg Wash
My last recipe called for 6 eggs and more milk. I wasn’t sure how high the biscuits would rise so I thought I’d use fewer eggs just in case. It turns out that 4 eggs and a 1/3 cup of milk and heavy cream was perfect.
Prepare the Heavy Cream for the Gravy
Beat 1/3 cups of heavy cream frothy while the sausage is smoking and set it aside for later.
Back to the Smoked Sausage (or Other Breakfast Meat)
After 30 minutes on the grill the breakfast sausage was almost completely done. I used a metal spatula to break the smoked sausage into small crumbles of pieces while they were still in the cast iron pan. I pulled the pan from the grill and drained most of the grease.
We are now ready to add the breakfast potatoes!
Add the Potatoes to Your Breakfast Bake
We want our breakfast potatoes to have a nice crispness to them, so take out the cooking grid and remove your pizza stone/heat deflector to grill instead of smoke. Once the cooking grid is back on, put the cast iron pan over the open fire and add the breakfast potatoes. Fully open the bottom air vent, shut the grill lid and then fully open the top vent. Let the grill temperature climb until it reaches 500° F, then partially close the bottom air vent to stabalize the temperature there.
After a few minutes, open the grill lid to mix the sausage and potatoes. They may not be quite browned yet, so you may need to close the grill lid and let it sit for a few more minutes before taking them off the grill. Once browned, remove all but about a quarter cup of breakfast sausage and potatoes from the grill and put the rest in a ceramic bowl covered with aluminum foil.
Mix up the Gravy and Cook It down
After taking the meat and potatoes from the fire and putting them in a bowl, partially drain the skillet again. There should be about a quarter cup of smoked sausage and breakfast potatoes left in the pan. Add the butter and flour, salt and pepper to the cast iron skillet while it sits directly on the grill grate. Mix the ingredients thoroughly. Add the milk and heavy cream, and let it thicken and reduce. While it’s thickening, crack some black pepper over it for added spice. Take the skillet off before it gets too thick and add it to the meat and potatoes in the ceramic bowl. Cover your breakfast bake again with foil.
Bringing the Breakfast Bake Together
Cut the biscuits from the dough and use them to line the bottom of the skillet. Top the biscuit dough with the smoked sausage, gravy and breakfast potatoes, then top that with half the shredded cheese. Add the egg wash and top everything off with even more cheese. By now you should be pretty hungry!
The Last Part:
Cooking Your Breakfast Bake
Next, close down the vents on your Saffire to bring the temperature down to 350° F and put the skillet on the main grid without a heat deflector. I baked an extra biscuit on my secondary grid and added some bacon around my skillet. The bacon was finished after 10 minutes or so and made for some decent snacking.
Cook the bake for about 40 minutes, and it should be ready to eat!
I can’t wait to try baked french toast next weekend!
