6 Pro Chefs Make Their Go-To Breakfast Sandwich | Test Kitchen Talks | Bon Appétit

Today we're in the test kitchen. And we're gonna be making our go-to breakfast sandwiches. So a great breakfast sandwich in my opinion. Must have an egg, it's good. I don't think it's gotta have an egg. Some sort of toasty bread situation. It has to have a protein. Bacon, sausage. It should have some cheese. Little carb, little savory, little meat. Breakfast sandwich. What is a breakfast sandwich? I don't know that it lends itself to easy definitions. So today I'm making a classic sausage, egg, and cheese. It's a staple of delis around New York. In almost any deli, there's gonna be a little mini flat top with scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage. I've got this nifty meat press. It's maybe a little too much, but I want an even thin layer. I'm trying to create a lot of surface area so it has the best possible chance of getting crispy. Try to go maybe even flatter with this one. I'm just trying to toast the bun. So like butter happening. So we'll do a couple eggs. Still got it. An absurdly large whisk. So it's not about movement. When you touch it, you're gonna start to form curds. And you want a sheet of scrambled egg. That's what we're talking about. And it's a kind of quadpole situation. The ideal cheese is an American-style cheese, something that's just begging to melt. So we got like some color. Going flatter, harder, definitely paid off. It's like egg stack. And then right onto the bread. Sausage sitting in a pool of cheese, sitting on a stack of egg. Nothing is going anywhere. You can eat this with one hand while drinking coffee. The cheese is adding so much richness, so much creaminess. Honestly, I'm thrilled with this. This is like Tom Hanks making fire in Castaway. Like that level of happiness. I am making a Indian-style masala omelet breakfast sandwich. Back in India, you have stalls that are dedicated to egg dishes, from boiled to fried to like different versions of this masala omelet. When I was thinking of this recipe, I knew I kind of like had to pay a little bit of an ode to them. So I'm gonna start by cracking. Okay, let me see if I can do it with one. I did it. Then some chopped red onion, cilantro, cumin seeds, red chili flakes, and then some green chili and salt. I do love like punchy, intense things first thing in the morning. I know that's not everyone's vibe. You wanna make sure that the eggs completely break. You incorporate a little air that's gonna make your omelet fluffy. My heart is always an Indian-style masala omelet that's gonna be color on this. And some of the edges might get crispy, but that's the best part. Okay, so that looks great. We're gonna go over and cook this. I have some ghee here. You could use butter. I just love the flavor of ghee. I feel like it's a little bit sweeter, more toasty. As you can see, like the edges start to kind of fluff up a little bit. Fold the omelet towards the center. That way, all of the uncooked part kind of goes under. You know, you make sure that that's getting cooked as well. And once most of the omelet is cooked, I'm gonna add my cheese. And you could certainly flip this, but I'm just gonna cover it and let the cheese melt. All right, I think that's good. Fold one side over the other like that. The color that you get on the bottom is good. Think this is ready to plate. Okay, so I have some toasted ciabatta bread. I like using ciabatta just because it gets like nice and crunchy, but it's still soft in the center. And I don't think you need like a super spicy hot sauce here just because you are adding two kinds of chilies. And I'm gonna put a mound of arugula that's gonna add some crunch and freshness and pepperiness. You get all of the flavor without it overpowering the egg. Kind of like wakes you up. The ciabatta is a bread that can like really hold on its own. You don't really miss the meat. This is the perfect breakfast sandwich. I'm not a big like egg on my breakfast sandwich kind of guy. I know, what a weirdo. I'm gonna be making Taylor ham, lettuce, and tomato on a toasted bagel. Little mayonnaise and mustard mixture, salt, pepper. It's perfect. We got the Taylor ham. So it's this thing that was invented in Trenton, New Jersey. It's tangy, it's got a little sweetness to it. This is the pro move, all right? They don't teach you this out west. You gotta cut little slits in it like that. You want even browning. Yeah, buddy. Flashbacks are coming to me now. All right, to the cast iron. Taylor ham's similar to like a bologna, right? It's an emulsified pork product. It crisps up, it gets nice and brown, it's beautiful. It's almost like a little like spammy kind of bacon rib. See, if we didn't do those little cuts, it would cup up like that and the whole inside would just steam. It wouldn't get a nice crispiness to it. No better way to start your day than some greasy porky pork roll, baby. This is what we're looking for. Look at that. All right, crispy fried up pork Taylor ham. Pork roll, baby. Thank you, New Jersey. It is almost like a little bacon-y kind of thing, right? Crispy, porky, salty, but it's tangy. The secret, oh, it's tangy. And then iceberg, right? You know what? I'm gonna do a little slice of tomato too. Ooh, that felt good. So we got our toasted bagel, okay? I'm just gonna add a little bit of mayonnaise. Yeah, a little Dijon. Dijon mayo mix, come on. That's our little secret sauce for the breakfast. All right, I really like that. It's gonna be a little riff on a BLT. Taylor ham, a little T-L-T. Taylor ham, lettuce, and tomato. Yeah, yeah, you nailed it, Brad. So we're gonna put that down. Now add our tomato. And then with tomato, I know there's salt on there, but I always add a little bit of salt to my tomato. All right, just that little extra. Come on, look at that sandwich. Little black pepper. I should've put it on the tomato, but it's okay. It's all going to the same spot. Yeah, look at that bad boy, huh? I tell you what, every now and then, Brad, looks pretty good. If you wanna throw an egg on there, knock yourself out. I really dig this. It's almost, I'm gonna go ahead and say it, not better, but it's as freaking good as a bacon BLT. Maybe even better. Have it for breakfast. Taylor ham, tomato, and lettuce for breakfast. A breakfast sandwich, I feel like it might need an egg to be proper. However, that doesn't mean there are not other options. That's why we're gonna be working with a tofu scramble, okay? So tofu's very bland by itself, but it could be really tasty and very flavorful when you add in some veggies and some strong spices. So I've got some red onion, green pepper, red pepper, and some garlic. I'm going to crumble in my pressed tofu just with my hands. Typically, I'd like to wrap it in a couple layers of paper towel and then rest a heavy cast iron on top to drain out all of that excess liquid. So now I'm just gonna kind of get some nutritional yeast onto that tofu for some umami. The turmeric, that's gonna give this kind of eggy color. Some of that smoked paprika and our red pepper flakes. I'm not looking to recreate eggs here. I'm just looking to have a protein-packed sandwich. It needs a savory element. Shiitake mushrooms are so versatile and they are among some of the most flavorful mushrooms in my opinion. I'm using some brown sugar to create some caramelization. And you'll want to mix that brown sugar quickly so that it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan. Bit of liquid smoke, which is one of my favorite ingredients. This is browning liquid. It's something that's used in Jamaican cooking often. And it's honestly just to give some color, like a nice rich color to the dish. And all it is is burnt sugar. And then we've got some smoked paprika just to play on that smokiness a little bit more and a little bit of salt. And you're getting these deep, rich, kind of like burnt bits here, which is exactly what we're looking for. Last thing we're going to do is create our aquafaba sriracha mayo. That water that is created after cooking down chickpeas becomes somewhat of an egg white replacer. And I've got an immersion blender here. And all that I'm doing is on my turbo speed, we're going to go ahead and whip that up just like we would like egg whites. We're going to add some salt, some sugar, and some mustard powder. And then what we're going to do, this is magic. We're going to, this is going to emulsify and become mayo. What we're going to do is slowly add oil. The more oil you add, the thicker your quote unquote mayo will become. Last but not least, I'm just going to incorporate some sriracha for heat. Look at that. It is like thick. She thick. I like the English muffins because it's not too much bread and you can still really fill it up. Get those nice jammy, smoky shiitakes layered right onto that sandwich. And then we're going to get a couple of those arugula greens on there. Oh yeah. I like it a lot for so many reasons. The tofu scramble is like savory and like has all these different spices. You can taste the smoked paprika. You can taste the turmeric. The onions and the peppers really play well together. When you move up to the shiitake bacon, it's like crispy and really flavorful, very umami. Final verdict, the messier the sandwich, the tastier. My go-to breakfast sandwich is actually inspired by one of my cooks at my restaurant. A couple of months ago, I asked Kyle to show me how to make Japanese sandwiches. They're made with milk bread. And so they're really like fluffy, really sweet. My spin on it is just throwing some Spam on there. Usually when I've made egg salads in the past, I will cut up my eggs and then just mash everything together. This technique actually, you separate the yolks and you make a cream out of the yolks. Gonna cut these into bite-sized pieces. We're gonna add some Kewpie mayo. It's a Japanese mayo. It's made just with yolks. It's creamier, it's sweeter. I'm gonna add a hint of mustard. It's kind of like if you were to make deviled eggs, but like in a sandwich form. Sometimes when you eat eggs, you only get a bite of the yolk. Then you're stuck with all the whites, but this way you get a little bit of both. I'm gonna add a tiny bit of salt and then you can add scallions or chives. It adds a nice kind of pop of green in there. My favorite part of the sandwich is the Spam. The Spam is like a great kind of like salty, savory component to this. I know it seems really scary, but don't be afraid of it. I grew up eating Spam for breakfast in my Filipino home. It was one of those things that you would wake up from bed and just like smell the distinct smell of frying Spam. Spam bacon, let's go. I like the texture of Spam when it's thin because it gets really crispy. It like comes out almost like a chip. It's got a nice kind of caramelization. It's got a little bit of color on the sides and I think we're ready to go. And the last piece that is really important is your milk bread. This is called shokupan. Traditionally, Japanese sandos use this for like their egg salad or their katsu sandwiches. So it's like milky, buttery, kind of similar to white bread. It's very fluffy, but it also has a lot of like hold to it. Whereas I think with white bread, it's like collapsible. Egg salad on both sides. I'm gonna take the Spam and I'm gonna just layer it here. I'm gonna put my egg in here like this. When you have Japanese sandos or if you see them at the store, they're usually without the crusts. I also don't like crusts, so this is the perfect to-go breakfast sandwich for me. And then you're gonna see how amazing that looks. The creaminess of the yolk is in there. The texture of the egg whites holds up. Gosh, the bread is just so, so fluffy. And then the saltiness of the Spam, like the savoriness comes through. And because there's a little bit more texture, it definitely feels like if you had like a bacon in an egg sandwich. This is my ideal because I want herby, bright herbaceousness, and I also want cheese, and I also want egg, and I also want a fluffy roll. A frittata is inherently a clean out the fridge dish. It's a really good way to make use of miscellaneous bits and bobs. It's also really neat, so you won't end up with like drippy yolk bits all over your shirt. So we're gonna do some sour cream and that just adds some like extra richness and fat. And then dill, my favorite, plus some parsley, plus some scallion for a little allium bite. And we have our goat cheese. And the reason I'm not whisking is because I don't wanna break these up very much because I want those pockets of cheese when you bite into it, which I think is really nice. And we're gonna put our mixture into our prepared pan. So you can see, this is a very green, very herby frittata. We're gonna throw this into the oven at 350 for about half an hour. When we lift it out of here, you'll see nice and puffy. The eggs really lifted. We toasted our buns and buttered them. And then I'm just gonna rub it with the flat side of a garlic clove. It gives you the vibes of garlic without like that too punchy of a bite if you don't want that first thing in the morning. So nice and like look into that cut, just like very fluffy. The herbs kind of like come to the top, which is kind of nice too. And we're just gonna load that up. I think hot sauce is a perfect condiment and it goes so well with the richness of eggs that I want it on my breakfast sandwich. Look, that's so fun. You've got a lot going on here. I like a sandwich to have some height and the fluffiness of this bun means that you can like press it down and get it all into your mouth in one bite. Mm, a bacon, egg, and cheese can sometimes feel like heavy duty, but you still get that creamy cheese, bright herbiness, the spicy hot sauce, and the tomato really killing it. I'm gonna eat the whole thing. I used to work at delis and stuff when I was younger and they come in these logs like this and they're stuffed in a casing. So you would peel back the casing and you're left with this big, you know, this round, giant, it looks like a giant salami, right? And you would take the knife and you would cut the slits in the whole log and then you put it on the deli slicer and do like two of them, three of them. You know, we just burn through them. Everyone, tell her I'm making cheese. Tell her I'm making cheese. Everyone orders that.