The breakfast sandwich is one of America’s great contributions to global gastronomy. A lot of people like to talk about the U.S. as though it has no original food traditions of its own, or if it does, it's limited to things like fast food and Twinkies. But this attitude ignores some of the most sublime delicacies to be found anywhere in the world. Things like barbecue (and yes, other countries have their own BBQ traditions, but I’m talking specifically about American BBQ, which is distinct, and superlative), New York-style pizza (for my money, the best style of pizza in the world. Yes, better than Neapolitan), hamburgers (some people will insist hamburgers aren’t actually American and that they come from Germany, but this is no more true than saying Italian ragu with tagliatelle is Mexican because that’s where tomatoes came from), and of course, breakfast sandwiches.
The traditional breakfast sandwich is incredibly simple. Many of the most perfect things in life are. It's just an egg, typically fried over hard or scrambled, some breakfast meat most commonly ham or bacon, melted cheese (always American cheese if were keeping it original), stacked between a lightly toasted English muffin (or roll, or slices of soft bread, but not a bagel). This configuration is perfect and doesn’t need to be changed to rise to maximum levels of deliciousness. However just because something doesn’t need to be changed, doesn’t mean that variations on it won’t be incredible in their own right. Variety is, as they say, the spice of life.
To that end, I’m going to show you how I make a breakfast sandwich that I think is quite good, and adheres to few of the original ingredients choices, but does hew to the most important tradition of the sandwich: simplicity. When chefs chef-up a dish to make it cheffier, or when laypeople wonder why a restaurant’s version of a dish is so good, a lot of the focus often falls on addition. People want to know what the ‘secret ingredient’ is that makes something so good. The reasoning being, I assume, that if they just knew the right things to add their version could be just as good as the chef’s. Even professional chefs fall into this trap. The first thing they think about when trying to put their own spin on a classic is what they can add to it. However adding superfluous elements or ingredients to a classic dish is almost never a recipe for improvement. In my experience, the best way to improve an established dish is through impeccable technique, selection of high quality ingredients (not extra ingredients, jut really good versions of what the dish calls for), and restraint.
Keeping this in mind, my breakfast sandwich will stick to the four components of the original, but just switch them up a little. It will have a bread element, a cured meat element, an egg element, and a cheese element (plus condiments). For the bread, instead of using an English muffin I'll use a croissant. I’ve been making a lot of croissants recently (more on that in a later post), so I did happen to have a few lying around, but any good croissant will do well here.
I sliced it in half and toasted it lightly in a pan.
Next up is the meat. My favorite breakfast sandwich meat is actually breakfast sausage, but that was not on hand. What was on hand were a few slices of deli ham that I cured and smoked from a pig I broke down this fall. In case you didn’t know, most ham available from the grocery store is terrible. The completely practical and accessible solution? Make your own from scratch starting from a whole hog.
I used the residual heat from the pan I toasted the croissant in to just warm up the sliced ham.
For the egg component, I swapped out the typical fried or scrambled egg for a classic French omelette. Besides being delicious the French omelette has the added benefit of being roughly the same shape as a croissant, so it makes the perfect egg component for a sandwich based around one.
Still dead simple in terms of ingredients and flavor, but the addition of refined technique really elevates the egg component of the dish. It doesn’t complicate the classic in terms of flavor profile or eating experience, it just adds nuance and dimension that differentiate it from the original. This is my preferred philosophy when I approach classic dishes. Don’t add extraneous nonsense. Take what’s there and make it nice.
For the cheese I cut a thick slice from a wedge of raclette style cheese from the Ozarks.
I placed it on top of the omelette and quickly melted it under the broiler.
From here, I just applied my preferred condiments: a little squiggle of Heinz ketchup, some sriracha, and a light spread of kewpie mayo.
Pop the top of the croissant on, and enjoy.
Hopefully this post inspired you to live your best breakfast life in your home kitchen. And if you want to expand your breakfast repertoire to impress your friends, I recommend checking out our upcoming Bagel Brunch class. Just please don’t use your newfound bagel-making powers for evil by turning them into breakfast sandwiches.
