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- I made Ina Garten’s bacon, egg, and cheddar breakfast sandwich.
- The simple recipe takes less than 15 minutes and includes cooking the eggs in the microwave.
- I was shocked at how fluffy the eggs tasted, and they paired great with the bacon and avocado.
As someone who spent most of her 20s in New York, few things make my heart sing in the morning as much as a breakfast sandwich.
I’ve been missing my local bodega’s delicacies, so I was excited to discover that Ina Garten included a bacon, egg, and cheddar sandwich recipe in her cookbook “Modern Comfort Food.”
And when I saw that Garten uses a microwave to cook the eggs for this recipe, I knew I had to try it.
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Almost all of the ingredients in Garten’s bacon, egg, and cheddar sandwich are pantry staples, and there’s also very little prep.
“The trick is combining the eggs with good, sharp cheddar and cooking them in the microwave!” she writes in her cookbook. “Then it all goes on a big English muffin with bacon and avocado. Done!”
“A perfect breakfast sandwich in no time at all,” she added. “It’s also not a bad ‘breakfast for dinner’ option!”
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To make this morning staple, you’ll need:
- Extra-large eggs
- Thick-cut applewood-smoked bacon
- Sharp white cheddar cheese (grated)
- English muffins
- Avocado
- Whole milk
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Garten’s recipe calls for four tablespoons of grated sharp white cheddar cheese if you’re making sandwiches for two people.
Since I was making sandwiches for my family, I doubled the recipe.
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Per Garten’s instructions, I generously brushed four small microwavable bowls with olive oil and set them aside.
Anneta Konstantinides/Business Insider
Each sandwich is meant to have two slices of that thick-cut applewood-smoked bacon, so I threw some in the pan and waited as my kitchen filled with the most delicious scent.
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I transferred each slice to a plate lined with a paper towel and set it aside.
Anneta Konstantinides/Business Insider
Garten’s recipe calls for two eggs per sandwich, so I cracked eight eggs into a bowl and beat them together with eight tablespoons of whole milk, as well as salt and freshly cracked ground black pepper.
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This is when I realized I couldn’t microwave the bowls at the same time, meaning my family would have to eat their sandwiches at different times if they wanted them nice and hot.
Maybe this wasn’t the most efficient idea after all …
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I placed two of my bowls into the microwave for 30 seconds, per Garten’s instructions. Then, I took them out and gently stirred each mixture to combine.
As you can see in the picture, little changed in those 30 seconds. And that would be the case for a few minutes.
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Garten recommends doing this until the eggs “are puffed and almost cooked through.”
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I cut each muffin in half and toasted them until they were “nicely browned,” as Garten suggested.
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Around the three-minute mark, I could tell that the eggs were cooking well.
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I sprinkled one tablespoon of cheddar into each bowl and microwaved them for 30 seconds to melt the cheese and finish cooking the eggs.
Anneta Konstantinides/Business Insider
I had never cooked eggs in the microwave before, so I was surprised to see how similar they looked to eggs cooked on the stove. They actually looked nice and fluffy!
However, the process took about four minutes, and I still had to repeat it for the other two bowls, which was more time-consuming than I had hoped.
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I misread Garten’s recipe here and smashed my avocado on the muffins rather than layering the slices on the bottom half of each. Thankfully, avocado is great no matter how you eat it!
Then, I broke the bacon strips in half and placed two halves on each sandwich, per Garten’s instructions.
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I slid the eggs on top of the bacon before sprinkling them with leftover cheddar, along with some salt and pepper.
Anneta Konstantinides/Business Insider
The fluffy eggs paired well with the crispy, thick-cut bacon, which served as the perfect base with the avocado. But I thought the sandwich needed just a bit more oomph. I’d add more cheddar cheese and a dash of hot sauce to give it some depth and heat.
Overall, though, my family loved this dish more than Garten’s smashed eggs on toast, which they had tried just the day before.
“I could have a second,” my sister said as she happily bit into her sandwich.
If you’re only microwaving eggs for one or two people, this sandwich takes less than 15 minutes to make and is a delicious and easy way to start the day.
Plus, it’s a great recipe when you’re trying to avoid the stove — or if you’re a college kid who wants to cook in their dorm.
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