This creamy, fluffy, flavorful breakfast casserole is made with basic ingredients and no bread. Chili Cheese Souffle Squares require no overnight sitting so this dish can be on the table in just about an hour! Perfect for breakfast, brunch, or even a make-ahead prep for the week. Scroll past the recipe to find step-by-step photo instructions. *Note: Readers have reported success when using gluten free flour in this recipe. It’s tagged gluten free for this reason- feel free to make that substitution as needed for your dietary restrictions.
My First Homemade Cook Book
Have I ever showed you guys my very first cook book? Long before our bestselling hardback, and before the days of easily-generated hardback photo books, and food blogs where you could store your favorites. This was back in the day where you formatted documents in Word, then printed them out one by one, sliced each page by hand, and took everything to your local Kinkos to copy and bind. Talk about labor of love! For Christmas one year I gathered all of my family’s favorite recipes. We are definitely a family bonded through food, and my Mother was notorious for her scraps and paper clippings organized in file folders and old cook books and lots and lots of post-its. I wanted to have them all in one place to pass on to my siblings who were all in pivotal life stages (one going off to college for the first time, one a newlywed, etc.) so we’d all have a little piece of home to take along with us.
The Best Kind of Treasure
This proved to be even more of a treasure as my Mom started getting sick around this time, and none of us could have predicted what would evolve in the years to come, as she lost the ability to cook, and all memories of these simple things that were such a big part of my family’s growing up years quickly faded away. I’m so happy I took the time back then to collect everything so we can all still have that part of her that we treasure so much.
I interspersed photos of everyone throughout the book, so it’s kind of like a food scrapbook. I noticed the other day, that while many of these recipes are now here on this blog, like my Mom’s Mint Brownies, or her beloved Peanut Butter and Jam Bars, and now that I have actual published cook books of my own, not to mention hundreds of other awesome cook books written by well known chefs, this book is still the one I turn to more than any other. For holidays, for inspiration, when I’m feeling in a cooking slump. It’s the book that takes me back to my roots and reminds me where I fell in love with cooking. It was at home.
I’ve been cooking and eating these Chile Cheese Souffle Squares since I was a little girl; it’s on tattered page 90 of this book, and you know which recipes are the most loved by how dirty the page is. This page is splattered in all sorts of things. It was one of my Mom’s go-to’s for and it’s become one of mine, too, and let me tell you why. My Mom called these “Appetizers” and would often cut them into little bite sized squares for parties, where for me, this falls into the breakfast casserole category.
Ingredients Needed
This is just a preview of ingredients and method, keep scrolling for full printable recipe.
- Butter – Use real butter.
- All-purpose flour – Gluten free flour works as well.
- Baking powder
- Salt
- Eggs
- Fire-roasted green chiles – If you love chiles, you can add extra!
- Cottage cheese
- Monterey Jack cheese – Freshly grated. For an extra kick, feel free to use pepper Jack cheese.
How to Make Chili Cheese Souffle Squares Breakfast Casserole
- The first thing you’ll do is slice up your butter and place it in your pan, then pop your pan in the oven and turn it on to preheat. By the time you’re ready for the butter, it will be nice and melted.
- In the mean time, you’ll mix up the rest of the ingredients all in one bowl- this is seriously easy. It looks weird. I know. But something magical happens in the oven and what comes out is puffed, gloriously creamy, cheesy and flavorful.
- Bake, then let it sit for a few minutes. Cut into squares and serve.
Storing and Other Tips
- Store leftover souffle squares in an airtight container in the refrigerator and enjoy within 2-3 days for best results.
- Serving suggestions: These chile cheese squares are nice paired with another type of bread dish, like our Overnight Baked French Toast, or one of our many Sweet Roll recipes, but this one is just creamy and cheesy and it’s amazing what happens with such few ingredients.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Cool completely and store, tightly covered, in the fridge and enjoy within 2-3 days for best results. Heat individual portions in the microwave at 15 second intervals (it will reheat quickly!) until hot.
The chiles really make this dish. If it’s a texture issue, you can blend the chiles with the eggs briefly before mixing everything together! If you really need to leave them out, it won’t affect the structure of the final product, just the flavor.
Chile Cheese Souffle Squares
Equipment
Ingredients
- 8 tablespoons butter 1 stick
- ½ cup flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- dash of salt
- 10 eggs
- 7 ounce can fire roasted green chiles drained (if you love chiles, add more!)
- 1 pint cottage cheese 2 cups
- 1 pound monterey jack cheese shredded (don’t use pre-shredded, bagged cheese, shred your own.)
Instructions
- Slice butter into large chunks and place in a 9×13 pan. Place pan in oven and preheat to 400℉. (Keep an eye on this if you get delayed in the following steps so your butter doesn't burn!)
- Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add 1-2 eggs and whisk mixture until there are no lumps. Add in remaining eggs and whisk until smooth. Stir in green chiles, cottage cheese, and jack cheese and stir until just combined.
- Remove pan from oven and tilt pan so the butter coats all over then carefully pour butter into egg mixture and stir to combine. Pour mixture back into warm pan.
- When oven is preheated place pan in oven and cook for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350℉ and cook for an additional 35-40 minutes, or until top is golden and slightly browned. Let cool for 10 minutes before slicing into squares and serve.
Notes
- For an extra kick, feel free to use pepper jack cheese!
- Store leftover souffle squares in an airtight container in the refrigerator and enjoy within 2-3 days for best results.
- Serving suggestions: These chile cheese squares are nice paired with another type of bread dish, like our Overnight Baked French Toast, or one of our many Sweet Roll recipes, but this one is just creamy and cheesy and it’s amazing what happens with such few ingredients.
Questions & Reviews
This looks like such an easy, quick and delicious “I don’t feel like doing any heavy cooking” sort of meal. I’m saving this for this weekend and am preplanning to be too ill to cook a big dinner 😀
I make this with cornmeal instead of flour, it’s very good!
CORNMEAL! High five!
Haha. This is in OUR family cookbook — called “Jelly’s” after my stepdad — as Mexican quiche. It’s been a go-to for potlucks and breakfasts for years. 🙂
How awesome! My mom made this every Christmas morning. She always left out the green chilis, but now I add browned ground sausage into mine. It’s a family favorite!
How naughty would it be to add a little sausage to this? It looks delicious! And I love your cookbook scrapbook.
Love the cookbook. I would rather have a cookbook in my hand any day as to have to go look a recipe up on the computer. Did you have those fixed at Kinkos?
I make this every year for breakfast on Christmas morning! I got the recipe from my mom but it’s called Ty’s Eggs. (I have no idea why.) I use sharp cheddar cheese and it’s awesome.
These look so yummy! Breakfast dinner tonight? Thank you and btw I love your cookbook/scrapbook…what a treasure to have! The top left picture is you isn’t it? You’re just as beautiful now as you were cute back then.
Those are actually all me!
This is probably my favourite post ever. Not the recipe (although it looks tasty and I actually went and made scrambled eggs with green chiles and cheese on top…) but because of the family history and the fact that you have dirty cookbook pages, too.
Do you think this would work/taste good if I had to leave the green chilies out? I can’t eat them due to a a medical condition, but the rest of the recipe sounds great and like it’d still be yummy.
Yep, definitely! You could make it plain or it would be really good with some diced ham, too!