Willy P’s Paleo Breakfast Recipe – Veggie Scramble Pizza

It has taken a few iterations to get this Paleo Breakfast Recipe exactly where I want it but I’m finally ready to share.  The goal here is to prepare the ideal Paleo breakfast that is quick, easy to consume, and sets me up for a high output lunchtime workout.  As an added bonus it turns out to be a cheap breakfast also.

Prep 30 min – Cook 45 min – Cool 30 min – Storage 15 min = Total 2 hours

Ingredients (amount used to calculate nutrition in parenthesis)

• 12 oz Lean Ground Beef (92% Laura’s Lead used)
• 1 Medium/Large Onion (130 grams used)
• 1 Garlic Bulb (12 cloves used)
• 12 Large Grade A Eggs
• 2 Medium/Large Sweet Potatoes (20 oz after peeling used)
• 3 Small Tomatoes or 3 Medium Roma Tomatoes (300 grams used)
• 1 Large Bell Pepper (2 cups diced used)
• 6 oz White Button Mushrooms (Meijer triple washed and sliced used)
• 4 Cups Shredded Spinach (120 grams used)
• ¼ Cup Shredded Cheese (Mexican style Kroger brand used)

Getting Started

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, peel your sweet potatoes and wrap them in foil.

Bake the sweet potatoes for 40 minutes, personally I prefer to microwave the potatoes for 4 minutes then bake them for only 25 minutes to save some time.

Chop up the garlic and onion and set them aside separate from other ingredients.

Dice up your other veggies (tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, and spinach).  Add them all to a large bowl and mix them up.  Note: I find it beneficial to drain the liquid produced from the tomatoes before adding them to the batch.

In a large fry pan (14” with tall sides preferred) cook your ground beef.  If you are using a very lean meat do not drain it, otherwise drain fat.

Add the onion and garlic to the ground beef when you have only a couple of minutes left.

Before moving any further make sure your sweet potatoes are done.  Generally they are, chopping all those veggies takes me a while.  If you need to pause and wait for them, turn off the stovetop and cover your beef, onion and garlic until you are ready.

Chop up your sweet potatoes into ¾” or smaller cubes (careful they will be hot).  Keep your oven on at 350, you will use it again shortly.

Place 8 large egg whites and 4 full eggs into a large bowl and mix.

Put It All Together

Fire up that fry pan with a medium flame and toss in your veggies (tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, and spinach) with the Beef, onion, and garlic.

Fold in your sweet potatoes and try not to stir and toss the pan more than you have to so you are not squishing your potatoes.  One good trip around the pan with your spatula should do the trick.

Fold in your shredded cheese, again just one trip through with the spatula should be enough mixing.

Finally fold in your eggs and give it a good but gentle mix this time.  You want to make sure the egg is distributed evenly through the batch in order to hold it all together.  You will want to move quickly, the egg will begin firming up right away.  Take a good look at it, the ingredients should be evenly distributed and level on top.

Place the pan in the oven (uncovered) at 350 for 25 minutes to firm up the egg.  Optionally I recommend kicking on the broiler for 3-5 minutes to give the top a nice quick browning scorch.

Pull it out and let it cool for 30 minutes before moving ahead.

Serve or Store

Use a thin spatula or other utensil to sweep around the edges of the pie in order to separate it from the pan.  Cover the pan with a large cookie sheet or cutting board and flip it over with a snap to pop it out of the pan upside-down.  This varies from batch to batch but you may notice some of the water from the vegetables on the bottom.  I dab it off with some paper towel before flipping it back over again.  If it cracks in two don’t worry, this happened to me the first time through.  Just put it back together again, it will be fine and you’ll see what to do differently next time based on where it stuck.

Using another cutting board, again cover it and flip it back right-side-up.  If you see more moisture from the vegetables, dab it up with some paper towel.  Fresh veggies will sweat out a lot of water, it’s all good.

At this point you will have a nice Paleo Breakfast Pizza like the photo in the header of this story.

Now simply cut up the pie and store it.  I generally put a couple in the fridge and the balance in the freezer.  8 slices covers me for two weeks.

Following is the nutritional value based on 8 equal sized slices.  As an added example for rounding out the ideal meal I have added a drink, fruit and daily multivitamin also:

paleo-breakfast-pizza-nutrition

I intentionally run the carbs a little low so you can eat this with a glass of V8 or orange juice to achieve a nice zone balance.  By keeping the carbs low you also now have the option of tossing down an apple, orange or even (dare I say) toast to achieve proper balance.

Cost – About $2.00 / slice

It’s hard to work out the exact cost because you obviously will not buy these exact quantities but it will average about $16 total.  The beef and eggs making up about half of that cost with everything else coming in at $2 or below.