The name says it all, this is an Italian style breakfast strata that feeds 8 depending on how many former soccer players you’re feeding. It takes about an hour to prepare. The nice thing about making a strata for a large breakfast group, is that each person can take only what they want and the entire meal is ready all at once so you are not playing short-order cook for a one person at a time meal. There are lots of ingredients, so you know it will taste amazing. I do use a can of store-bought croissant dough for the base, it just makes prep time easier than going from scratch and when you’re up late the night before, who has time to whip up croissant dough from scratch.
Ingredients
- 1 tube/can Croissant dough
- 4 oz. Ham – sliced then cut into strips
- 8 oz. Pepperoni – sliced then cut into strips
- 10 Eggs
- 8 oz Whole milk
- 1 TBL Butter
- 1 tsp Olive oil
- 1 Onion – diced
- 2 Garlic cloves – minced
- 2 cups Baby spinach – stems removed
- 2 cups Mozzarella – shredded
- 4 oz. Pepperoncini – chopped
- 1 tsp Oregano
- Kosher salt and black pepper to taste
Process
- Mise en Place – measure and prepare your ingredients prior to starting.
- Preheat oven to 400 F (205 C) and grease a 9″x13″ pan with butter.
- Heat at skillet on med. Once hot, add olive oil and let warm. Add onions and cook until translucent (~5 mins).
- Add garlic and spinach and cook 1 min.
- Unroll dough from can and place in pan. Work seams together to seal them. You may want to prebake the dough 4-5 mins., but it depends on how your oven operates.
- Layer ham, pepperoni, and pepperoncini on top of dough.
- Scatter sauteed vegetables on top.
- Whisk eggs with milk, oregano, salt and pepper. Pour on top of vegetables.
- Sprinkle cheese on top.
- Bake for 40 mins.
- Let cool 10 mins before slicing and serving. Nothing ruins your breakfast experience faster than guest burning the roof of their mouths with hot cheese, so let it cool. Also, cooling helps firm up the slices for better presentation.
Note: Sometimes I make two at the same time because the leftover slices are pretty good. They remind me of a bakery I would visit on the left bank of Paris that sold cold slices of something like this that I would take to a nearby park and causally eat while watching people hurry to their day.
