Sometimes if Nate and I have had enough of the breakfast burritos I'll switch over to breakfast sandwiches for a while. Though I really do love the breakfast burritos, too much of anything in a row can get old! These are easy to change up with different meats, cheeses and veggies. Boy oh boy though... these took some serious tweaking! I studied recipes online and I'm sorry to say I found all of them somewhat lacking. These are trickier than the burritos to make so they reheat into something delicious.
The eggs... They must be scrambled all the way and divided into a large muffin pan or ramekins. If you crack and egg and bake it with the yolk in tact it is extremely rubbery and reheats into a tough fibrous cake. Also if you just puncture the yolk and bake, nope, still not good. Scramble six eggs and add 1 tablespoon of water or milk. Really fluff these up if you can. Bake for 20 minutes at 325°F. Don't cook these any higher than 325°F! It is ok if they are a teeny bit boogery on top when 20 minutes is up. Remember you'll be freezing and heating them again so they will get additional cook time.
I add salt and pepper to the eggs and ladle them into the muffin cups. I use this jumbo muffin pan.
While the eggs are cooking slice and arrange six English muffins on a cookie sheet.
If you are using sausage on your sandwiches now is a good time to cook that too. Below is an extra lean turkey sausage I made with a package of ground turkey and Alton Brown's breakfast sausage spices. I use dry spices and halve everything (even the salt and sugar). Since it was so lean I cooked it in a little olive oil. Just like with the breakfast burritos turkey instead of pork helps keep the fat content down. Sliced ham is also very good and less time consuming!
After 20 minutes remove your eggs from the oven and set it to a HI broil.
Broil the muffins to toast. Remember not to forget about them! I find toasting them keeps the bread nice when reheated. It's not crispy, but it's definitely not soggy.
Nice and browned.
Assembly time! Cheese. Most cheeses I've tried have worked. Any of the below would be great for this application. The one that hands down FAILED was American cheese. The melt temperature of American cheese is too low. When you reheat these in the microwave it all liquefied and melted off the sandwich, making a cheesy mess- not the good kind. Use a higher melt temp cheese like swiss, cheddar or gouda.
When I first made these I used an adorable little 3" circle cutter to stamp out perfect cheese rounds. Obviously that was completely unnecessary. I've made these so many times since I've learned that broken up cheese slices work just fine. I generally do egg and meat (in any order) then top with cheese then veggies.
Jalapenos are great on these. I remove the seeds because I'm a wimp, especially in the morning.
Spinach leaves work really well on these too! I haven't tried any others but I'd imagine any drier veggies (not cucumbers or tomatoes) would work fine.
You could wrap these in plastic I'm sure, but I like the deli style paper wrap. Freezer paper or parchment paper work really well too. The only annoying thing about these papers is that to tape them you must tape them all the way around, so tape touches tape. Otherwise the tape won't stick to the coated paper. I've even found this true with the papery matte side of freezer paper (!?). I like these deli sheets because I don't have to cut each sheet to wrap.
Assembled sandwich! Looking good.
All wrapped up, bagged and ready to go to work. The "C" is for chipotle cheese, "G" for Gouda and "J" for jalapenos. I just like to know what I'm getting. Plus then we can make the winning combos again!
About reheating. These work best when you take them out of the freezer and store them in the fridge overnight to defrost. They don't take well to strong heat so even if the sandwich is totally defrosted, cook it on a defrost(or half power) microwave option. The slow heat keeps the bread soft and the cheese melted but not liquefied. Remember a microwave heats the water in something and if you heat it too much it will evaporate away- hard bread, dry meat. IF you are like Nate and I and frequently forget to overnight defrost these, you can cook them from frozen. Just remember the low power defrost rules. From frozen I cook these for two minutes on timed defrost, flipping the sandwich every 30 seconds, then blast it at the end with 30 seconds of normal heat. Flipping helps a lot.
So remember if you are cooking these from frozen or defrosted: LOW HEAT, FLIP OFTEN!
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