Healthy Sausage Cheese Muffins
The perfect healthy breakfast for meal prep. These high protein sausage cheese muffins are an easy and filling option for on-the-go. You’ll also love my cottage cheese egg bites, protein blender pancakes, and healthy breakfast pinwheels.
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If you need a delicious high-protein breakfast (or snack) for meal prep, you’re in the right place.
This dietitian-designed recipe for healthy sausage cheese muffins is the tastiest breakfast that happens to be good for you, too. Made with chicken sausage (we make this ourselves), eggs, and Bisquick mix, these filling muffins are lower in fat and higher in protein than other popular recipes.
Simple and nourishing breakfasts like these can help you stay more consistent with food and support weight loss goals. Save this recipe for your regular meal prep rotation.
Why you’ll love this sausage cheese muffins recipe
- 12 grams of protein per muffin
- Super filling
- Easy to make
- Perfect for meal prep
- So satisfying and flavorful
What makes these muffins healthy?
Compared to many other recipes for sausage cheese muffins that use pre-made breakfast sausage with pork, my muffin recipe has:
- More protein (because we use lean chicken)
- Less saturated fats
- Fewer additives
- Less sodium
As a Registered Dietitian, I love my version because they’re more nutritionally balanced and leave me feeling energized, not sluggish.
Ingredient notes
Here’s what you’ll need to make my easy and healthy sausage cheese muffins:
- Olive oil: You can use any cooking oil.
- Lean ground chicken: We’ll make our own delicious and healthy chicken sausage meat for these muffins! I like lean ground chicken for its delicious flavor and lean nutrition profile. If you’d prefer, you could use ground turkey or ground pork. You could also use pre-made sausage meat and skip the following seasonings and maple syrup.
- Seasonings: Salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder for flavor.
- Maple syrup: Just a hint gives the ground chicken a breakfast-sausage flavor.
- Eggs: I recommend using whole eggs for this recipe.
- Cheddar cheese: Sharp or aged cheddar works best, but you can use any cheese you like.
- Bisquick pancake mix: You can use alternative pancake mixes like Kodiak cakes too. Make sure you’re using the dry mix, not prepared pancake batter!
- Chives: Freshly chopped chives give a delicious and well-rounded flavor to these sausage cheese muffins.
How to make healthier sausage cheese muffins
Position your oven rack to the middle and pre-heat to 350 F. Line your muffin pan with silicone or paper liners, or spray with cooking spray. Set aside.
Add olive oil to your skillet and heat to medium-high. Add ground chicken, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and cayenne pepper. Crumble until chicken is browned and no pink remains. Drain any excess fat from the chicken. Stir in maple syrup and cook for 1-2 minutes before turning off the heat.
Transfer to a large mixing bowl and cool to room temperature.
To the same bowl, add whisked eggs, cheese, Bisquick mix, and chives. Stir until just combined.
Transfer batter to your muffin pan, filling each about 3/4 of the way full.
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the tops are set and lightly golden. Let your sausage cheese muffins cool in the pan for 5-minutes before serving.
Make it easier
- Use pre-made sausage meat
- Buy pre-shredded cheese
- Swap fresh chives for dried
How to serve sausage cheese muffins
Sausage cheese muffins are filled with protein and fat that make a wonderful foundation for a balanced breakfast or snack.
For a bigger and more filling meal, serve 2-3 muffins with a source of dietary fiber like:
- Berries
- Sliced apple
- Sliced pear
- Citrus fruit
- Sliced veggies
- Whole grain toast
- Whole grain crackers
- Steamed edamame
- Oatmeal
- Nuts or seeds
Tips for success
- Use silicone liners or a silicone muffin pan to prevent sticking.
- Don’t over-cook your muffins or they may be dry.
Common questions
Yes, you can use pre-made sausage meat instead of the ground chicken we suggest. If you use pre-seasoned sausage, skip the seasonings and maple syrup and simply brown/crumble your sausage in the pan. Make sure you are removing sausage from its casing, if applicable.
Instead of ground chicken, you could use lean ground turkey or pork. You could also use pre-made sausage meat instead of plain ground meat (see above answer).
You can use any brand of pancake mix you like, but I like the texture and taste of Bisquick best!
Swap Bisquick pancake mix for a gluten-free mix.
More high protein breakfasts
High protein French toast
Cottage cheese protein shake
Egg and cheese quesadilla
Protein berry breakfast crumble
Tortilla egg bake
The best cottage cheese pancakes
Protein baked oats
Did you try this recipe?
Leave your rating and review below! And don’t forget to post a picture to Instagram, and tag me @real.life.nutritionist.
Healthy Sausage Cheese Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 lb lean ground chicken
- 1 tsp salt
- black pepper, to taste
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper, optional
- 1 Tbsp maple syrup
- 4 large eggs, whisked
- 1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
- 1 cup Bisquick pancake mix (dry)
- 2 Tbsp diced chives
Equipment
- Muffin liners optional
Instructions
- Position your oven rack to the middle and pre-heat to 350 F. Line your muffin pan with silicone or paper liners, or spray with cooking spray. Set aside.
- Add olive oil to your skillet and heat to medium-high. Add ground chicken, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and cayenne pepper. Crumble until chicken is browned and no pink remains. Drain any excess fat from the chicken. Stir in maple syrup and cook for 1-2 minutes before turning off the heat. See notes.
- Transfer cooked chicken to a large mixing bowl and cool to room temperature.
- To the same bowl, add whisked eggs, cheese, Bisquick mix, and chives. Stir until just combined.
- Transfer batter to your muffin pan, filling each about 3/4 of the way full.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the tops are set and lightly golden. Let your sausage cheese muffins cool in the pan for 5-minutes before serving.
I made these for the first time today. Really easy to put together & pretty tasty! I used chicken breakfast sausage but I’ll try ground chicken w/recommended seasonings next time.
How do you store & reheat left over muffins?
Thanks for a great recipe!
These are good! I like how you made chicken sausages yourself here. I only omitted maple syrup because I’m not a fan of maple chicken. the ground chicken was so flavourful. I like how are you adding cayenne pepper to your recipes lately. Yum!
My mom and I made these and I couldn’t be more impressed with how yummy and easy! We made exactly as written. Then once fully cooked we froze them individually with plastic wrap and placed them all inside a freezer ziploc bag. We took out however many we wanted the night before and left in fridge – a quick microwave for 30 seconds and they were perfect!