Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Sandwich Recipe

Whether or not you get yours at a deli, from a espresso store, or simply make it at dwelling, the bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich checks all of the containers: Protein, fats, carbs. Salty, wealthy, gooey, crispy. And above all, BEC is deeply satisfying—a welcome treatment for all the pieces from a hangover to heartbreak.    

Do you want a recipe for a breakfast sandwich? Perhaps not. However it may behoove you to contemplate some cautious approaches to construct a greater bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich which is able to enhance your BEC sport.

The Making of an Icon: The Key Elements for a Nice BEC

Every thing concerning the expertise of consuming a BEC ought to be simple: Simple to grasp, simple to eat, and pretty simple to make. As a breakfast merchandise, it ought to ease you into and energy your day—a certain, reliable expertise.

I’m not right here to reinvent the wheel. A basic calls for simplicity. No blatant gimmicks, no sous vide, no baked egg, no artisanal sourdough, no dry-aged, house-cured pork stomach confit. The elements ought to be accessible to all, as a result of the BEC is for everybody.

The important thing to a terrific bacon egg and cheese, subsequently, lies in its exact execution. In my view, the best BEC has the next fundamental options:

• Absolutely rendered, crispy strips of bacon
• A griddled, bodega-style egg
• Melty cheese (however not an excessive amount of)
• A griddled roll

Its layers ought to exist in steadiness. Not an excessive amount of bun, not too little bacon, not a mountain of eggs so thick you possibly can barely handle to get your tooth across the factor. It is best to be capable to style every part with each chew. Extra merely put, the sandwich ought to eat properly. To make sure this, each part ought to be kind of the identical dimension and form. The fillings ought to neither overwhelm the bread nor be overwhelmed by it, which requires scaling them to one another, as a result of who needs all bun, no filling? Or an excessive amount of filling, and no bun? Once more, steadiness and precision. 

Now let’s go deeper.

The Bacon

Bacon performs a number of roles on this sandwich. It’s crispy, it’s salty, it’s savory, and it imparts richness. It’s a serious participant and we wish to be sure that it is in each chew. To ensure this I make use of a bacon weave, which provides most protection and stability within the sandwich. As Kenji notes, a weave received’t crumble with every chew, or fall out of the perimeters as you’re consuming. Plus, its sq. form ensures that you just get some bacon with each chew. And better of all, it’s essentially the most environment friendly manner (i.e. the perfect excuse) to cram six slices of bacon on this unhealthy boy. 

The bacon weave is assembled and  baked on a sheet tray. Baking is an environment friendly technique for rendering fats evenly and crisping the bacon at a uniform fee.

Lastly, the place does the bacon truly go? I attempted high, center, and backside positions relative to the egg and cheese. Protecting the bacon on the backside produced far and away the perfect consuming expertise. Give it some thought: As your incisors pierce the highest bun, they traverse via the pillowy egg, the gooey cheese, and eventually hit a little bit of crisp and crunch in a sturdy bacon layer earlier than assembly your backside tooth. That development of textures is logical, and on the finish of the day, it’s only a satisfying expertise.

The Egg

Little question, there are a number of avenues for egg cookery right here. You would go fried, scrambled, and even baked. However right here I stick to a tried-and-true basic: The NYC bodega-style egg.Why? It’s pretty approachable, and it provides the chance to fold the egg combination right into a sq. form because it’s cooking (the identical dimensions because the bacon layer). 

This model of egg is born of short-order bodega cooks making these sandwiches for pace, cracking the entire eggs immediately onto the griddle, piercing the yolk and doing an solely partial scramble in order that yolk and whites are semi-distributed however not properly blended. The result’s a thinner sheet of egg as a substitute of a taller pile of scrambled curds, which permits for a firmer texture of individually cooked whites and yolks so the egg holds collectively if you eat as a substitute of squishing out the perimeters like scrambled eggs are likely to.  

Don’t be tempted so as to add cream, or milk, or water to the eggs when whisking. Whereas including a splash of dairy to whisked eggs is a superb approach to attain fluffy, cohesive, and tender scrambled eggs, we truly wish to keep away from this texture with this bodega-style egg pocket. 

The important thing to this model of egg is to maintain the egg whites and egg yolks comparatively streaky—not absolutely emulsified—which produces an egg with various textures. There’s additionally actually no want so as to add any salt to the eggs. The folded-in cheese (extra on that beneath) and bacon are salty sufficient, however be happy to satiate your salt lust and season away.

The important thing to success with these eggs is generally timing and approach. I discovered that leaving the eggs about 80 p.c cooked earlier than folding gave sufficient leeway for carryover cooking—an ideal alternative to introduce the cheese.        

The Cheese

Get outta right here together with your fancy gouda. American cheese in a BEC is all however a foregone conclusion. And I don’t even suppose that’s a sizzling take. You see, regardless of its repute for being low-cost, lowbrow, or decidedly not “tacky” in taste, American cheese’s means to soften, keep gooey, and keep emulsified is unmatched (we will thank melting salts like sodium citrate for that), so it’s superb for sandwiches and burgers served sizzling. By the way, it additionally is available in sq. slices, which is right for this utility.

Right here we will use that excellent squareness of the cheese slice to our benefit. By putting one slice within the heart of the eggs, it’s simple to fold the sides of the egg right into a neat sq., utilizing the cheese as an actual information. There’s no guessing, but additionally no measuring concerned. The eggs completely envelop the cheese, making a sq. packet, and the saved warmth from the eggs serves to soften the cheese.

Cheese inside the egg is nice. However for added gooey issue and decadence, I high this egg-cheese packet with a second melty slice, which ends up in a pleasant cross part of egg-cheese-egg-cheese.

The Bread

I examined 10 totally different bread merchandise for this BEC. I instantly dominated out breads like brioche and english muffins. Brioche was too wealthy and delicate to carry as much as the inside, whereas the english muffins had been too dense. However extra importantly, these spherical roll-type breads didn’t fairly match all of the fillings. As an example, English muffins had been far too small, whereas the brioche didn’t match the sq. form of the eggs and bacon, so that you encountered pockets of simply bread as you ate. I noticed related outcomes with giant hamburger buns and potato rolls.

Sq., sliced breads like ache de mie or Japanese milk bread had been promising, however once more, I discovered these choices too delicate, getting misplaced within the mixture of layers. Plus, the fillings would often fall out. And sourdough? Neglect about it—it wasn’t constant sufficient in form or crumb construction to benefit consideration. 

In the long run, I settled on two serviceable choices: The Kaiser roll and the New England bulkie roll. Each are barely enriched breads, which implies they’ve a average richness and pillowyness to them. However they’re additionally sturdier than brioche or milk bread, holding up properly to toasting, urgent, wrapping, and different types of manipulation. Plus they usually are available a sq.(ish) format due to the best way they’re baked. They’re cumbersome and sufficiently big to suit properly across the sq. filling parts.

As for the approach, I took this chance to toast the reduce sides in all of the leftover rendered bacon fats (no waste, am I proper?). By toasting the reduce sides of the rolls, the softer exterior provides strategy to a sturdier toasted floor, adopted by a cascade of texture and flavors from the eggs, cheese, and bacon. Toasting additionally mitigates any danger of soggy bread, which is necessary if the sandwich is sitting for various minutes. 

The Condiment(s)

One might argue that condiments don’t have any place on a BEC; that the bacon and cheese alone provide loads of seasoning and sauciness. A bit of salt and pepper is all you may want.

However others select to die on their condiment hill: Salt, pepper, ketchup; salt, pepper, sizzling sauce; chipotle mayo solely. Far be it from me to flame the embers of a BEC condiment warfare. Right here I included the least controversial choice (or at the very least one you’d hardly discover whereas munching on a symphony of fats and richness): A lightweight swoop of mayonnaise—no matter will get you up within the morning. The mayo is there to offset any of the residual dryness of the toasted roll, a bit added insurance coverage that each chew is completely sauced, seasoned, and accounted for.*

*In case you hate mayo, be happy to go away it off. It’s your sandwich; you’ve company.

The Wrap

Wrapping is an usually neglected step within the building of a legit BEC. However it’s arguably an important a part of this recipe. For one, it makes the sandwich moveable. Most significantly, wrapping ensures that the cheese melts absolutely and the inside steams barely, which softens and warms the sandwich simply sufficient. The wrap is the explanation why a deli-style BEC stays sizzling, stays gooey, and has a singular texture. Whereas insulated foil wrappers work finest, a roughly 14×14-inch sq. of aluminum foil will work properly as a stand in.

Why It is Value It

In order that’s the way you make a bodega-worthy bacon egg and cheese at dwelling. I imply, certain, you may go to a deli and order one up, saving you appreciable time, effort, and possibly a bit money. However this recipe captures the spirit of what makes a BEC particular, as a result of finally—whether or not you savor every chew or wolf it down in a frenzied hurry in your strategy to the L prepare—a bacon, egg, and, cheese is, at coronary heart, a consolation food. And you may’t actually put a value on dialing in consolation.