These breakfast egg muffins with turkey sausage and spinach are a great way to add some extra protein to meal times. They’re an easy, healthy and portable make-ahead breakfast or snack option for those crazy busy days. Best healthy breakfast muffins ever! {paleo, gluten-free & low carb}
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If you’ve been following along with me, you probably know that I am a huge fan of any food that meets the following criteria:
- Filling and nutrient-rich
- Easy to make
- Can be made in advance
- Perfectly portioned so that it’s just grab and go
- Delicious (of course)!
My latest go-to recipe that meets this criteria are these egg and sausage muffins with spinach!
They are packed with protein, filled with vitamins A, K, C and potassium-rich spinach AND you get a taste of delicious turkey sausage in each bite.
It’s basically the most amazing breakfast cup ever!
Perfect for those mornings where you need an easy no-fuss breakfast that will fill you up for hours.
If you’re looking for more simple egg recipes for breakfast, be sure to try out these Spinach Zucchini Frittata Fingers and this Egg & Sausage Breakfast Casserole!
Table of Contents
Why we love these healthy breakfast muffins
- Make ahead: These egg muffins can be made at the beginning of the week so that you have them on hand for those crazy busy mornings. The perfect option for breakfast meal prep!
- Protein-packed: Many people tend to skimp on protein at breakfast time, so this is a great way to increase protein intake which can help enhance that feeling of fullness. There’s 7 grams of protein per muffin, so if you have a couple, you’ll have a lean protein-packed breakfast or snack!
- Simple ingredients: This recipe is quick and easy to prepare since it requires minimal ingredients. Just cook up the sausage, mix up the eggs, spinach and seasonings in a bowl and divide into the muffin tin. Doesn’t get much easier than that!
Ingredient notes
- Breakfast Sausage: Adds additional protein while infusing extra flavour into each bite. I like to use turkey breakfast sausages to keep the muffins leaner, but you can use regular pork breakfast sausages as well.
- Eggs: Some whole eggs are used to provide that classic egg flavour and incorporate nutrients found in the yolk, such as vitamins A, D, E, lutein, choline and folate, which are great for your eyes and brain. You can use regular brown or white eggs, or omega-3 enriched eggs for some extra healthy fats.
- Egg whites: Egg whites are used to replace some of the whole eggs which helps to increase the protein while cutting down on the saturated fat content. I like to use egg whites from the carton, but you can also use the whites from whole eggs and leave out the yolks.
- Spinach: Adds a dose of fibre, vitamin A, K and potassium, while being very subtle in taste. I like to use thawed frozen spinach cubes for convenience, but you can also use fresh cooked baby spinach as well.
- Hot sauce: Incorporates an extra kick of flavour without making the egg muffins spicy. I typically use Frank’s hot sauce, but you can use whatever type you have on hand.
- Seasonings: Onion powder, salt and pepper are added to add some extra flavour.
How to Make Spinach Egg Muffins in Oven – Step by step instructions
- Step 1 – Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a muffin tin or use twelve silicone baking cups.
- Step 2 – Next, you’ll need to get out six turkey breakfast sausages and remove the casing. I usually just like to squeeze the sausage out of the casing right into a frying pan. That’s the easiest mess-free option. Once all of the casing is removed, cook up the sausage in a frying pan over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes or until lightly browned, breaking it up with a spoon until it forms into bite-sized chunks.
- Step 3 – Next, mix up the eggs, egg whites, spices, hot sauce and spinach in a medium-sized bowl until combined.
- Step 4 – Divide the egg mixture evenly among twelve muffin cups, filling each cup about 3/4 of the way full.
- Step 5 – Next, equally divide the turkey sausage among the egg mixture in the twelve cups. You may wish to press it down slightly so that some of the sausage makes its way to the bottom of the egg mixture in each cup. We want a bit of that sausage in each bite!
- Step 6 – Place in the oven and bake for 25-28 minutes or until eggs are cooked through and no longer runny. The end result will be twelve delicious and protein-packed cups.
Recipe Tips
When making these egg muffins, I discovered a few tips that will make your life SO MUCH easier.
- Use frozen spinach cubes: One of the food items that I always LOVE to have on hand are frozen spinach nuggets. The spinach is already chopped up finely and cooked so you simply have to defrost them and add them to your desired recipe (I also use the spinach nuggets for these Roasted Garlic & Feta Chicken Burgers). You can defrost them by leaving them in a bowl in the fridge overnight or popping them into the microwave for a couple of minutes. Be sure to squeeze ALL of the excess water out of the spinach before adding to the bowl to prevent the muffins from being too wet.
- Use silicone baking cups: I also highly recommend using silicone baking cups. It helps prevent sticking so you can basically just pop the egg muffins out of the cups when they’re done baking. Say buh-bye to scraping crusted egg bits off the muffin tin for HOURS. And I say this from personal experience. There are SO many other things you could be doing with your time. Do yourself a favour and get some of these silicone baking cups. I use them for so many recipes!
- Absorb excess grease: After you’re finished cooking the sausage, dab it lightly with some paper towel to absorb some of the excess grease. This will help prevent the egg muffins from being greasy and soggy.
- Do not overfill the muffin tin cups: Be sure to evenly distribute the egg and sausage between all of the cups. If you fill the muffin cups too much, the egg mixture will spill over the top since eggs naturally rise when baking. I found that filling the cups 3/4 of the way before adding the sausage prevented spillage.
Recipe FAQs
Once cooked and cooled, you can store these egg muffins in an air-tight container in the fridge for up to four days.
You might be wondering if you can freeze these muffins. Personally, I freeze them and don’t have an issue with them. However, some people claim that egg muffins don’t freeze well and don’t taste that amazing when thawed out. It really is a personal preference.
If you choose to freeze them, allow them to cool fully and then store them in a freezer-safe container or bag (separated by parchment paper if stacking) in the freezer for up to 3 months.
From unfrozen state: To reheat these egg muffins from an unfrozen state, simply microwave them for about 20-30 seconds or until warmed through.
From frozen: If they’re frozen, they’ll need about 60-90 seconds in the microwave. You can also reheat these muffins in an oven or toaster oven for about 10 minutes at 350°F.
Yes! If you’d prefer not to use whole eggs, you can sub in egg whites. One egg is equivalent to two egg whites or about 1/4 cup liquid egg whites, so you would need to use 2 1/4 cups of egg whites total to make these egg muffins without using whole eggs.
Eggs naturally puff up in the oven and then start to deflate as they cool. To prevent the egg mixture from overflowing out of the cups, do not overfill the cups. If they are too full, the egg mixture will start to spill over the sides as the mixture starts to rise.
If you have extra egg mixture, simply make more breakfast muffins and be sure to place a baking sheet on the rack under the muffin tin to catch any egg that might spill over.
Eggs tend to expand while cooking and then shrink back down as they cool. This is because when eggs heat up, air bubbles start to form and expand. Eggs generally don’t have enough structure to maintain the air bubbles, resulting in egg muffins that deflate as they cool.
Although this is pretty hard to avoid, one way to prevent them from deflating too much is ensuring that the oven is not preheated to too high of a temperature. If this happens, the muffins will rise really high and then immediately collapse as they cool. For best results, allow the egg muffins to cool for several minutes in the muffin tin before removing them to prevent them from collapsing too quickly.
When you’re reheating the egg muffins, be sure that you don’t overheat them, or it will cause the egg and sausage mixture to become dry. Instead, heat the egg cups until they’re just warmed through.
Serving suggestions
As much as these egg muffins probably seem like a breakfast food, lately we’ve been actually having them for dinner and lunch too.
Sometimes it’s nice to keep it simple and have breakfast for dinner, and eggs just happen to be one of those foods that are great to eat at any meal.
Here are some ideas for ways you can serve them up!
- Along with a side of sweet potato hash browns. Simply bake some cubed sweet potato with a drizzle of olive oil and desired spices (I like paprika and garlic powder) for about 25-30 minutes. You can do it at the same time that the egg muffins are cooking! Or try this Sweet Potato Hash!
- Cold on-the-go (like in the car when you’re rushing off to work, the gym or running errands)
- Served on a whole-grain english muffin. Breakfast sandwich, anyone?
- Along with one of these low carb bagels.
- Served crumbled up in a whole-grain wrap if you prefer going the breakfast wrap route.
Either way, they’re super delicious and are a great way to get in that serving of satisfying protein at meal times!
Recipe variations
Feel free to switch up these egg muffins depending on your personal tastes preferences:
- More veggies: Try finely diced broccoli, peppers, mushrooms, kale or zucchini
- Add cheese: A bit of cheese would taste amazing in these muffins! Try shredded cheddar, mozzarella, Asiago, crumbled feta or sub in your favourite cheese!
- Different meat: Try pork breakfast sausages, ground turkey, or use cooked diced bacon or ham.
- To make vegetarian: Leave out the meat and sub in some shredded cheese or use feta or goat cheese.
- Switch up the seasonings: Try garlic powder, Italian seasoning, dried oregano or mustard powder.
More similar recipes
- Spinach & Bacon Low Carb Quiche
- Crustless Asparagus Quiche
- Healthy Breakfast Sandwiches
- Sheet Pan Sausage and Veggies
- Healthy Breakfast Burritos
- Egg White Wraps
- Egg Bites
- Avocado Egg Salad (5-Ingredients)
Did you make this recipe? Scroll down to leave a rating and review!
Recipe for Sausage Egg Muffins with Spinach
Ingredients
- 8 turkey breakfast sausages casing removed
- 6 eggs
- 3/4 cup egg whites
- 6 frozen cubes of spinach thawed and drained of excess water (or 1/2 cup cooked and chopped fresh baby spinach)
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 2 teaspoons hot sauce
- 1/4 teaspoon each salt and pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a muffin tin or use twelve silicone baking cups.
- Remove the casing from the turkey sausages. Once the casing has been removed, cook up the sausage in a frying pan over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes or until lightly browned, breaking it up with a spoon until it turns into bite-sized chunks.
- Next, mix up the eggs, egg whites, spinach, onion powder, hot sauce, salt and pepper in a medium-sized bowl until combined.
- Divide the egg mixture among twelve muffin cups filling each cup about 3/4 of the way full.
- Next, equally divide the turkey sausage among the egg mixture in the twelve cups. You may wish to press it down slightly so that some of the sausage makes it's way to the bottom of the egg mixture in each cup.
- Place in the oven and bake for 25-28 minutes or until egg is cooked through and no longer runny. Allow to cool several minutes before removing from muffin tin. Serve warm or store in the fridge or freezer for later.
Notes
- Use frozen spinach cubes: One thing I always try to keep on hand are frozen spinach nuggets. The spinach is already chopped up finely and cooked so you simply have to defrost them and add them to your desired recipe. Defrost them by leaving them in a bowl in the fridge overnight or popping them into the microwave for a couple of minutes. Be sure to squeeze ALL of the excess water out of the spinach before adding to the bowl to prevent the muffins from being too wet.
- Use silicone baking cups: I also highly recommend using silicone baking cups. It helps prevent sticking so you can basically just pop the egg muffins out of the cups when they’re done baking.
- Absorb excess grease: After you’re finished cooking the sausage, dab it lightly with some paper towel to absorb some of the excess grease. This will help prevent the egg muffins from being greasy and soggy.
- Do not overfill the muffin tin cups: Be sure to evenly distribute the egg and sausage between all of the cups. If you fill the muffin cups too much, the egg mixture will spill over the top since eggs naturally rise when baking. I found that filling the cups 3/4 of the way before adding the sausage helped prevent spillage.
Nutrition
This recipe was originally posted March 2019 and was updated November 2021 to include more helpful tips and photos.
I doubled this recipe, following directions and adding only a little Asiago and cheddar cheese. Baked in two small Pyrex casserole dishes for about 35 minutes. Cut them into 8 sticks width wise per pan and wrapped the sticks in low carb tortillas. Wrapped them in foil, popped into a freezer bag and into the freezer. I can pull out a couple for me and hubby and heat them in my Ninja Foodi while I shower in the morning. These are much better than the recipe I used before, thanks for a healthier tasty option!
This is so brilliant!! I love how you’ve adapted the recipe and made it into breakfast wraps. Such a great idea for meal prep! Thanks so much for returning to share this idea and leave a review :)
Are 2 muffins really 219kcal? That would mean they are 219000 calories!!!!!!!!!
Kcal is the short form for calories. So roughly 110 calories per egg muffin. Hope that puts your mind at ease :)
Could I make these and freeze them? Then reheat for 30 Seconds whenever I was ready to eat them? Looks like a great meal prep!
My apologies I just reread the instructions!! Disregard!! Thanks!
No problem Kelly! Hope you enjoy the recipe! :)
Looks great!
What serving size is the nutrition info based upon?
Sorry for the confusion! The nutrition info is based on 2 egg muffins. I’ll update that in the recipe.