Maple-drizzled stuffed French toast
This is easy. So easy I feel guilty that I don’t make it for my husband and kiddos more often. It’s also a family favorite. My kids gobble it up with the relish of wild beasts. And it’s fancy enough to serve guests. A hit. As if a savory sausage and melted swiss cheese stuffing weren’t enough of a reason to try this recipe, I’m also going to share with you the secret to restaurant quality French Toast. Almost everyone makes French Toast wrong. I’ll show you how to make it the right way. Now, for the recipe. This will serve a family of four from one loaf of sourdough French bread. You may wind up with leftover sausage or swiss cheese. I generally save that for omelets later in the week.
The Players
- 1 loaf of sourdough French bread
- 1/2 lb. ground grass-fed beef (see resources)
- salt, pepper, garlic, and rubbed sage (in generous proportions) (find organic bulk spices)
- 4 oz swiss cheese, shredded
- 1 C. milk
- 4 eggs from pastured hens
- 1 tsp. cinnamon (where to buy authentic, fresh, out-of-this world cinnamon)
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- pinch of salt (find real sea salt)
- real maple syrup (eat it with maple-flavored high-fructose corn syrup and I will come after you!) (find maple syrup)
The How-To
Begin by browning the meat over medium heat. Season liberally with salt, pepper, garlic, and rubbed sage and let cook over low heat until done.
Meanwhile, pour milk into a mixing bowl. Add in 4 eggs.
Whisk eggs and milk together. Add a dash of cinnamon, 1 tsp. vanilla, and a pinch of salt and stir.
By now, your sausage should be cooked and smell like breakfast. Transfer it to a bowl to let cool. Grate your swiss cheese.
Slice the loaf in 3/4 in. slices. Next, cut a pocket into each slice being careful not to cut it fully in half.
Now for the fun part. Stuff the bread slices with meat and cheese. They'll look really full, but they'll flatten out when cooked.
Want to know how to cook French Toast to perfection? It's a two step process. First, melt butter in a skillet. Dip the stuffed slices in the custard, let them soak it up, then cook each side for 3 minutes over medium heat in your buttered skillet. This is where most people stop, and their French Toast is soggy. You'll keep going. Transfer the slices to a baking sheet and pop in a 350F oven for 10 minutes. Now they're done.
Using this quick two-part method, you'll get perfect French Toast every time. Couple that with this sausage and swiss cheese stuffing, and you have something to really drool over.
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This recipe is fabulous! My husband will love it!
Wow, I bet Grumpy would love this!! Thanks!
Oh, and we only use pure maple syrup. ;0) My family makes it!
Meg & HoneyB — This always gets rave reviews from the husbands, for sure.
HoneyB — You *make* your own maple syrup! I’m so jealous. I have to pay way too much money for mine, even when I buy it in bulk. It always seems like such a luxury.
Delicious! Glad to see I’m not the only French toast lover in the bunch.
Do you make your own French Bread?? If so, do you have a recipie for it?
I just emailed this link of this to my husband and he can’t wait!
Love your blog.
Maria
This looks killer! I will try it.
Maria — I *don’t* in fact make my own French Bread. I want to start experimenting with sourdough this year. Guess I should have put that down on my Nourishing New Year’s Resolutions.
Cheeseslave — It kinda breaks the low-carb mentality, but at least it’s got lots of fat and proteins to go with it! 😉
Looks great ! I’d eat it without the maple syrup – with relish! But for those people who haven’t broken their sugar addiction, a little maple syrup once in a while won’t hurt too much 🙂
Bryan — That’d be people like ME! I gave up refined sugar, and have cut the sweetened stuff WAY back. But I still go through too much honey, maple syrup, and sucanat to actually be proud of where I’m at.
This is an awesome recipe. I’m thinking I would enjoy it for lunch with some hearty gravy or maybe salsa.
Thank you
….sharon
Absolutely breathtaking! (for those like me who live, eat and breathe breakfast!)
OMG! That looks so good I could eat it right off my computer screen.
Superb!! I can’t wait to try it. I was scared to see if my method of cooking French toast was wrong, but it’s not!! Exactly the way I do it. Soggy French toast is disgusting. Thanks for a great idea.
Thanks for the recipe! I am making it with the beef as written, but next time I might try it with some of the venison sausage in our freezer!
Oh, yummy. It will probably taste even better with venison!
I tried this, and made it for the family, and they all really liked it! It was delicious! They’ll probably ask me to make it again…
The only problem was the french bread. It kept on breaking apart and stuff. It was hard to get everything in without the bread breaking apart or something! Maybe I didn’t cut it thick enough.
Kyle
Kyle — Yeah, until you get adept at stuffing the bread, it can really help to have thicker slices.
Oh my – I’ve just eaten breakfast and this recipe is making my mouth water! I’ll definitely be trying this one for size.
~yum
Logan Moran
This sounds and looks yummy. My mouth is watering. I have maple syrup from my brother in law’s trees in Vermont which I’ll bet would be lovely with this french toast.
I just had this now and it was great! We don’t have HFC syrup here, but we do have immitation maple syrup. However, I got some lovely organic maple syrup from the health food shop and it was so nice!
Great recipe!
Michelle.
HoLeeCow! I absolutely, positively MUST make this…I bet it’d be killer stuffed with bacon, as well. Amazing! Thanks so much for sharing this with Two for Tuesdays!
.-= girlichef´s last blog post …Extra! Extra! Read All About It! Announcing…. TWO for TUESDAYS! =-.
Of course you need to eat this with real Maple syrup-is there any other kind-I have never thought of stuffing french toast before.
You are totally right, this is something to drool over! It sounds SO amazing! My husband would love this! I would love this! We are making this! Wish I could make it right now… maybe a trip to the store is in order. Thanks so much for joining us for our Two for Tuesday blog hop and for adding this great recipe! I LOVE IT!
Kristen, This looks so delicious, and I never thought of a savory filling for french toast! Thanks for supporting the two for tuesday recipe blog hop. It means a lot to me! Keep it REAL! Alex
.-= Alex´s last blog post …Guest Post! Healthy eating on a budget! =-.
Aha!! So THAT’S how to make sure that French toast isn’t soggy. How brilliant.
.-= Elizabeth´s last blog post …fully dressed scones (real food) =-.
Made these for Christmas breakfast this morning. They were a huge hit! I’m sure they will become a tradition:).
You have so many great recipes! Any suggestion on how to print them without copying & pasting in a Word document?
Thanks
Under the “Sharing is Rebellious!” tag, the first option is to Print using Print-Friendly. It will take you to Print Friendly’s website where you can preview a live demo of what you’ll print. You can opt to hide pics or keep them, hide paragraphs you don’t care about, etc. It’s all really easy to do with just a click or two. When it’s set up like how you want it, just tell it to print. Voila! Fully customizable and EASY.
Hi! I love your site and your recipes! But I’m a little confused here… is this white flour sourdough? How is this in line with WAP principles? Or is this recipe meant for a rare indulgence?
Just asking because I really trust your recipes to be in line with WAP principles so this one threw me off…
Thx!
I have to agree with Anna. you have a wonderful site and I am very appreciative of your recipes, but this one really threw me.
Everyone else seems to really love the recipe. I am concerned that when we present ourselves as experts in a field that we gain the trust of our readers they trust us raise the bar for them. We are all entitled to splurg but it might be helpful to stipulate that this is not in line with the usual principles of healthy eating that you follow.
with respect and appreciation for your contributions.
Just think of it this way, if you are recieving this comment it IS because you have earned our respect.
thanks again for all you do!
Lise
You’re welcome, Lise! You’ll notice that this recipe is three years old. I was just happy to be finding real sourdough bread at a local bakery that didn’t use commercial yeast.
The recipe will still work with a whole grain sourdough (in fact, I still make it sometimes using just that) so long as it’s shaped as a baguette.
Is that correct that you make your sausage with beef and not pork?
I’ve used both. When this recipe was posted three years ago, I didn’t have access to free-range, humanely raised pork. So I made beef sausage. VERY YUMMY. Now we’ve finally scored a hog to buy, AND we’ve got a decent source of pork sausage from a local farm.
I am wondering – if you know, could you make these up to the point of putting them in the oven and refrigerate them. Then the next day pop them in the oven??? I have a family of 11 and that would make the morning meal so much easier. I can try it myself, I was just hoping you had already attempted this and knew the answer ;o)
I don’t know if you could do that. Let me know if you figure out how to work it out! It’d make some holiday mornings around our house oh so much easier.
This looks great and I can hardly wait to try it! Sadly, the maple syrup is not do-able because of my geographic location (Philippines). Two or three years ago I found a small container of the real thing for twenty-five dollars, but since then I haven’t found a drop of it.
I often hold french toast in a warm oven around 200F so I can bring a platter full to the table. I will try turning the oven up and see if it improves.
These look completely decadent!
I continue to ask for a Printer Friendly Button for your Recipes. I am certain that the rest of your subscribers feel the same way and it would be a great asset to your website. Thank you in advance and I would welcome others to chime in and voice their opinion on this matter. Happy Holidays!
This is one of our family’s favorite!
sausage? not good!
Ah, but it’s grass fed organic beef….not bad!
Sausage! Very good!!! Though I would use our mild breakfast pork sausage or plain ground pork instead of ground beef in this. I am a bit of a traditionalist and want pork for breakfast and beef for lunch and dinner.
What’s wrong with sausage? As long as there are no nitrites or nitrates added, it’s just spiced ground meat! 🙂
Spiced ground meat? You people should hunt and get elk sausage. .. who am I kidding.. keep eating your spiced ground meat. .. I’d like to see a paleo “french toast”
Oh my……..I’ve spent waaay too long browsing through your recipes this morning (usually do) as I love your offerings. This one sounds wonderful, but not sure I want to get involved with making a new gluten free bread and I don’t purchase any gluten free ‘stuff’.
I do make a couple gluten free breads but I doubt they would be willing to receive the stuffing mixture, although I just thought of a couple ideas that might work. Will experiment when I have a little time.
And we only use Grade B pure maple syrup, usually some local, but I found some online that’s organic, but more expensive.
Thanks for all your neat recipes.
This sounds like an incredible idea and must be tested. This could be the ultimate comfort food. Think I’m going to pick up all the ingredients and next time i come home from a particularly bad day give cooking it a try.
I tried this with organic beef from a local farm near where I live in Minnesota. SO GOOD! Thanks for posting!
My favorite!
Omg! I so need to try this.
Amanda, you won’t regret it!!
This sounds…mmmmmmmm, good…….*
It was very difficult to read this…the print is VERY small
Muchas Gracias Kristen!
This is my husband’s fav. B-day Breakfast for the past 5 years. It’s a family tradition now!