Transform leftover mashed potatoes into a flavor-packed omelet breakfast bar! Packed with ham, cheese, spices and coated with a crispy cereal top! Perfect for brunch and entertaining!
To me, there is just something honest about mashed potatoes. They are simple food. They fill your tummy up and comfort you throughout the day. They are inexpensive and have often fed my family growing up when other foods were hard to come by. Mom could make wonders out of them. And what was awesome is that it never was just plain mashed potatoes every night (even though hers were seriously the best!). Sunday she’d always make at least 10lbs of them to go with our pot roast. Monday she’d turn them into croquettes. Tuesday was potato stacks and so forth throughout the week. By Saturday there wasn’t much left so she’d make them into some type of breakfast treat.
The thing is, she never made them the same way each and every time. Why? We didn’t always have the same ingredients on hand so she went with what she had however the basics were pretty much the same – eggs, mashed potatoes, corn flakes, and bread crumbs. After that the mix-ins were endless.
The corn flakes though didn’t happen right away. It actually happened out of error and necessity. See she was really low on bread crumbs but she still needed a binder. As she went to grab the oats she accidentally knocked over the corn flakes box spilling them into the mashed potato mixture. See my mother was a clutz. She was extremely beautiful but such a clutz. I inherited that gene from her (thanks Mom!). She kinda stood there, cursing a bit, and went to scoop them out of the mixture but realized she couldn’t put them back in the box so she just decided to mix them in.
Folks when that first batch came out my her eyes lit up. She knew she created something amazing! You could just tell from the look of them that they were going to be awesome. Now what’s funny is I’m a lot like my Mom when I cook. 90% of the time I won’t eat what I make immediately. I’m so busy doing other stuff that it’ll sit there till after the photo shoot or I’ll have Mr. Fantabulous try it. But with these, she dug in right away. That crunching sound and seeing her eyes closed and a smile form on her face…. oh yeah, she knocked this one out of the ballpark for sure!
It wasn’t until recently that I remembered this dish. See I rarely buy corn flakes (love them just rarely eat cereal – I go in spurts) and the only cereal I really buy is what Mr. Fantabulous likes – you know the bad crap; i.e., Lucky Charms. Sorry, but I cannot do sugar cereals. Those little marshmallows grating against my teeth are enough to freak me out. It’s just not natural. Well, this one day I did buy some corn flakes (only because I had a coupon for them and they were on sale). I figured I could use them to coat chicken or fish. Well as I was cleaning out my fridge I spied a bowl of leftover mashed potatoes. IMMEDIATELY images of her making these came storming back to me.
I think I literally stood there with such a smile on my face lost in my memories. God, I love when that happens!
This dish is so friggen simple to make that it’s just stupid yummy! I like to use individual baking pans to make these however you can use a regular 8×8 pan if you want. Just when they are done and cooled, cut them up into squares. The choice is really yours. You can add in whatever you want to these. I simply went with what I had on hand. Crispy bacon, caramelized onions, and gruyere would be killer in this! Roasted chopped cauliflower, broccoli, and kale would make some amazing veggie puff!
What would you add to yours?
Crispy Omelet Potato Puff Breakfast Bars
Transform leftover mashed potatoes into a flavor-packed omelet breakfast bar! Packed with ham, cheese, spices and coated with a crispy cereal top! Perfect for brunch and entertaining!
Ingredients
Bars
- 3 1/2 cups cold Creamy Perfect Mashed Potatoes
- 2 large eggs
- 2 tablespoon cream or milk
- 4 whole green onions, white and greens chopped
- 1/2 cup sour cream (full or low fat)
- 2 cups cooked ham, diced
- 1 1/2 cups sharp cheddar cheese, diced
- 2 cups corn flakes
- 1/2 cup Panko or Gluten Free Panko
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
Topping
- 3 tablespoon melted butter, unsalted
- 1 1/2 cups corn flakes
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400F, rack in the middle. Using either an Individual Brownie Pan or muffin tin brush each well with melted butter. Alternatively, you can line them with muffin papers. *You can use a 8×8” square pan as well. I used 2 brownie bar pans.
- In a plastic bag place all of the corn flakes into a bag, seal and gently crush into smaller pieces. You do not want to make a powder but you want them into smaller “crumbs”.
- In a large bowl add in the mashed potatoes, green onions, ham, cheese, 1 cup corn flake ‘crumbs’, panko, salt and pepper. Gently mix. In a bowl, whisk together the cream, sour cream and eggs then pour into the mashed potato mixture. Gently combine to where it’s just mixed. The mixture should be soft but not runny.
- Fill each well 3/4’s of the way full with the mixture (using a spoon and spatula helps). Level the mixture. In another bowl mixture together with the remaining cornflake crumbs and melted butter. Evenly divide the crumbs on top of each potato mixture.
- Bake for 23-33 minutes or until the tops are golden brown and crispy and they just start to pull away from the sides. Cool for 5-15 minutes and gently remove from the tins. If need be, use a thin spatula to trace around the outsides of the bars to help remove.
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