Sausage, Egg & Cheese Crescent Ring Recipe: A Flaky Morning Masterpiece

Recipe developer Patterson Watkins recalls eating a lot of crescent rings in her childhood, but it's not something she had at home. Instead, she consumed this tasty breakfast at many of the Avon, Tupperware, and Pampered Chef parties she attended with her mom. "Aggressive sales tactics aside," she says, "these were memorable experiences for me and my budding obsession with cooking." Her memories of these tasty treats led her to create a sausage, egg, and cheese crescent ring that is sure to appeal to all ages.

"This is a fun and entertaining recipe," says Watkins, describing her crescent ring as "snacky, but filling" with a familiar combination of ingredients that appeals to most. The filling involves a savory blend of sausage, cheese, onions, and peppers, and the ring itself is flavored with everything bagel seasoning. Canned crescent rolls make for an easy shortcut, while most parts of the dish can be prepped in advance. You're better off assembling the crescent ring on the day you plan to eat it, though, as this will keep the dough and filling as fresh as possible.

To make the filling for this crescent ring, you'll use breakfast sausage, onion, bell peppers (both red and green), scallions, eggs, heavy cream, salt, pepper, and cheddar cheese. The ring itself is composed of canned crescent rolls flavored with butter and everything bagel seasoning.

Preheat the oven to 375 F.

Cook the sausage in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat until brown, about 5 minutes.

Add the onion and bell peppers to the skillet, stir to combine with the sausage, and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes more.

Meanwhile, place the eggs, cream, scallions, salt, and pepper in a large bowl. Whisk to combine.

Add the egg mixture to the skillet, stir to combine, and cook until fluffy, about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Unroll the crescent rolls and brush both sides of the dough with butter. Season both sides with the everything bagel seasoning.

Arrange the seasoned crescents on a pizza stone or large baking sheet in a circle with the wide portion of the dough toward the center of the pan and overlapping slightly.

Spoon the sausage-egg mixture onto those wide sections of the dough, following the circle and creating a ring.

Sprinkle the sausage-egg mixture with the shredded cheese.

Pull the edges of the crescent dough up and over the filling, concealing it as best as possible and tucking the ends of the dough under the ring.

Place the stone or baking sheet in the oven and bake for 30 minutes, or until golden brown and crisp.

Remove from the oven and rest for 10 minutes before slicing and serving.

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There are a number of different ways to tweak this crescent ring recipe if you prefer a different flavor profile. Instead of breakfast sausage, you could use ground Italian sausage, chorizo, crumbled bacon, shredded chicken, or smoked salmon. Possible vegetable swaps or additions include artichoke hearts, mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, or thoroughly drained and cooked spinach. You might also want to change up the cheeses to suit your new ingredients — Swiss cheese would suit a mushroom-heavy filling, while mozzarella or provolone would go well with tomatoes and Italian sausage.

Basically, there's one rule to keep in mind when creating a choose-your-own crescent ring, and that's to follow the formula: two cups of cheese, a pound of protein, and about 1 ½ to 1 ¾ cups of chopped vegetables. You can even make it with an egg substitute or use all egg whites for a lower-fat filling, in which case you'll need about two cups of liquid to take the place of 10 large eggs.

Everything bagels — and hence, everything bagel seasoning – originated in the '80s, but the seasoning without the bagel seems to have been introduced by Trader Joe's in 2017. Numerous knockoff versions of the original are now available, but it's also pretty easy to make it yourself. If you're looking for a basic formula, try combining three parts poppy seeds; two parts each of white and black sesame seeds, dried garlic, and dried onion; and one part coarse salt. Of course, you can tweak the proportions any way you see fit. Watkins likes to go heavy on the garlic and onion but admits that she skimps on the poppy seeds since they tend to stick in her teeth.

The fun part about making your own everything bagel seasoning is that you can also play with the flavor profile. If you have any flavored salts on hand, you could use them in place of the plain kind. You might also like to add dried herbs, such as chives, dill, or rosemary. Or, spice up your seasoning mix with crushed red pepper or chipotle powder.

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