Chocolate Chip Croissant Casserole

by Sabrina Snyder

Published on

20 Comments

5 from 7 votes
12 servings
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 50 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 5 minutes
Jump to Recipe

This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy.

Chocolate Chip Croissant Casserole is an easy recipe to make with leftover croissants with a sweetened cream cheese custard filling and lots of chocolate chips.

The most popular of all of our Breakfast Recipes on the site is our French Toast Bake which is a crispy crumble topped French Toast casserole that doesn’t need to sit overnight. This takes that quick casserole up a notch with cream cheese, chocolate chips and delicious, buttery CROISSANTS!

Chocolate Chip Croissant Casserole

Chocolate Chip Croissant Casserole

Most Casseroles, even breakfast ones, have an egg custard that they soak in (usually overnight). This recipe has a sweetened cream cheese custard that creates a Croissant Cheesecake Bake texture to this recipe.

You won’t find a more delicious croissant bake recipe than this one. It’s sweet, yet tangy, full of a creamy cream cheese filling and studded with lots of chocolate chips.

The inspiration for this recipe came from an old Michael Chiarello Ice Cream Croissant Casserole recipe where he baked croissants with a creme anglaise custard then topped it with a melted vanilla ice cream sauce. That recipe, if you can believe it, is even more over the top than this recipe! I love the ease of this recipe and it’s just as delicious (with significantly less calories).

Piece of Cream Cheese Croissant Casserole with Chocolate Chips on white plate

Casseroles with Croissants:

The best way to make this recipe is to use old croissants. They’ll be better in soaking up the custard and holding their texture. If you told have old croissants, buy them the day before, chop them up and leave them out overnight.

If you don’t have that much time, chop them up and add them to a 250 degree oven for 15-20 minutes until they’re dried out.

Substitute for Croissants?

  • Brioche Bread: Either loaves of brioche, or brioche buns that are dried out would be a great substitute as well. Use a 16 ounce loaf.
  • Texas Toast: Dried out Texas Toast (12 slices) would be a great substitute.
  • French Bread: French Bread has a wonderful crusty texture already built in, it would be a delicious substitute. Use a 16 ounce loaf.

MORE BREAKFAST RECIPES FOR A CROWD

HOW TO MAKE CHOCOLATE CHIP CROISSANT CASSEROLE:

  • Make The Custard: Make sure you have well softened cream cheese or it won’t mix well. Add in all the custard ingredients and whisk well.
  • Croissants: Make sure you’re using old croissants. 
  • Chocolate Chips: You can use chips or chocolate disks too.
  • Mix well: Mix them all together well and let it sit for 5 minutes to let the croissants soak up some of the custard.
  • Bake: Add to the baking dish, bake covered and uncovered until cream cheese custard is set and croissant topping is crispy.

Chocolate Croissant Casserole Bake in white baking dish shot from top down

ADD INS AND FLAVOR VARIATIONS:

  • Nutella: If you want to make the custard more chocolate-y, add in ½ cup Nutella to the mixture and mix well. Or you can add dollops to the mixture and just mix slightly  so you end up with pockets of Nutella.
  • Cinnamon: Top with cinnamon sugar for a sweet crispy crust.
  • Berries or Bananas: Add your favorite berries to the mixture. 1 ½ cups of sliced strawberries, sliced bananas, raspberries or blueberries would all be delicious additions.
  • Nuts: You can add your favorite chopped nuts to this recipe including pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts, peanuts or almonds. Top with a handful too so they toast alongside the croissants.
  • Espresso: Coffee tastes amazing with chocolate. Add 1-2 tablespoons of instant espresso to the cream cheese custard mixture. 

EASY HOLIDAY BREAKFASTS TO TRY:

Make Ahead Croissant Bake

Make this recipe up to 1 day ahead of time by making the custard and assembling it into the pan as directed. Do not bake it ahead of time. Leave it in your refrigerator covered tightly with foil and bake it the next morning. The custard will be more absorbed than if you were to bake immediately but it will still be delicious. You’ll also need 5 additional minutes of baking time to account for the temperature of the casserole being in the refrigerator.

Serve and Store:

  • Serve: Your croissant bake is okay uncovered for up to 2 hours at room temperature. Do not let this sit out on your counter all day, it has cream cheese in the custard.
  • Store: You can store this recipe in the refrigerator for up to 1 week, tightly covered.
  • Freeze This casserole freeze well up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and heat up in the oven for best results.

Cut out Chocolate Chip Croissant Bake in white baking dish shot face forward

Pin this recipe now to remember it later

Pin Recipe
Dinner, then Dessert

Chocolate Chip Croissant Casserole

Chocolate Chip Croissant Casserole is an easy recipe to make with leftover croissants with a sweetened cream cheese custard filling and lots of chocolate chips.
Yield 12 servings
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 50 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 5 minutes
Course Brunch, Dessert
Cuisine American
Author Sabrina Snyder
Chocolate Croissant Bake
PrintRate

Ingredients
 

Instructions

  • Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
  • In a large bowl, whisk together the cream cheese, sugar, eggs, milk and vanilla.
  • Add in the croissants and chocolate chips and toss well to combine.
  • Pour into greased 9x13 baking dish.
  • Let sit for 5 minutes.
  • Bake, covered for 30 minutes.
  • Remove foil, bake an additional 20 minutes.

Nutrition

Calories: 538kcal | Carbohydrates: 49g | Protein: 10g | Fat: 34g | Saturated Fat: 19g | Cholesterol: 137mg | Sodium: 302mg | Potassium: 336mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 34g | Vitamin A: 903IU | Calcium: 123mg | Iron: 3mg

Want to save this recipe? Create a free account to easily save your favorite recipes

Chocolate Chip Croissant Casserole collage

About the Author: Sabrina Snyder

Sabrina is a professionally trained Private Chef of over 10 years with ServSafe Manager certification in food safety. She creates all the recipes here on Dinner, then Dessert, fueled in no small part by her love for bacon.

Sabrina Snyder is a professionally trained personal and private chef of over 10 years who is the creator and developer of all the recipes on Dinner, then Dessert.

She is also the author of the cookbook Dinner, then Dessert – Satisfying Meals Using Only 3, 5 or 7 Ingredients, published by Harper Collins.

She started Dinner, then Dessert as a business in her office as a lunch service for her coworkers who admired her lunches before going to culinary school and becoming a full time personal chef and private chef.

As a personal chef Sabrina would cook for families one day a week and cook their entire week of dinners. All grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning was done along with instructions on reheating. As a private chef she cooked for private parties and cooked in family homes in the evenings for families on a nightly basis after working as a personal chef during the day.

Sabrina has been certified as a ServSafe Manager since 2007 and was a longstanding member of the USPCA Personal Chef Association including being on the board of the Washington DC Chapter of Chefs in the US Personal Chef Association when they won Chapter of the year.

As a member of the community of food website creators Sabrina Snyder has spoken at many conferences regarding her experiences as a food writer including the Indulge Food Conference, Everything Food Conference, Haven Food Conference and IACP Annual Food Professionals Conference.

Sabrina lives with her family in sunny California.

See more posts by Sabrina

Dinner, then Dessert, Inc. owns the copyright on all images and text and does not allow for its original recipes and pictures to be reproduced anywhere other than at this site unless authorization is given. If you enjoyed the recipe and would like to publish it on your own site, please re-write it in your own words, and link back to my site and recipe page. Read my disclosure and copyright policy. This post may contain affiliate links.

Categories

Leave a comment & rating

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Comments

    1. Not sure how to answer your question. I am told that 1 large croissant is (85 g) 3.0 oz. But I have never weighed the croissants I use. Did you try the recipe and if so, how did it turn out?

      Reply

  2. Made this today. I changed the recipe a bit to reduce cholesterol and fat. I used 16 oz Lowfat small curd cottage cheese plus 8 oz Neufchatel cream cheese. Then I added 2 cups of 2% milk, 3 eggs, and the 1 Cup sugar and 2 Tsp vanilla bean paste. I put all those ingredients in my Vitamix and blended for about 3 minutes. Poured this over 7 Large cut up croissants. Cooked the same amount of time. I did bake in a deep oval 4 5 inch deep Corning french white casserole dish and the second dish is a 5 x 7 x 3 inch deep glass baking pan. This tastes absolutely heavenly. Giving the smaller dish to a friend to try. Awesome dessert! Thank you for sharing.

    Reply

  3. Made this today using 1-1/2 cups chocolate chips and added 3/4 c chopped toasted pecans. It was awesome and tasted just like our favorite chocolate croissant from Atlanta Bread. Thanks for another great recipe. I have many of your and enjoyed each one.

    Reply

  6. What a delicious casserole! Can’t wait to start my day with this tomorrow; taking my breakfast to a whole new level!

    Reply

  7. I made this for Christmas breakfast, and everyone loved it! I’ve already made it 2 times since. Thanks for sharing the recipe!

    Reply

  9. This combination of ingredients cannot be messed up…it’s delicious and flexible (You can add dried fruit, I added a bit of homemade eggnog once,)
    Guests cleaned their plates or asked for seconds…Yum!

    Reply