There’s no need to leave your house to get a good breakfast sandwich, and no need to spend a lot of time making one, either. This delicious breakfast treat can be on your plate and ready to go in under five minutes.
I don’t give my mom enough credit for her smart cooking tricks. My dad is the more traditional cook of our family, cooking elaborate recipes from scratch, but my mom? She can get a delicious meal on the table in nothing flat and she’s not at all afraid of that technology that so many home cooks love to hate: the microwave.
People turn their noses up at microwave meals, for much the same reason they turn up their noses at boxed mixes. It’s for convenience, it’s not real food. Right? Wrong. There was a lot of science that went into boxed mixes and there’s a lot of science that goes into microwaving food. Before there were those instant pot baked potatoes, there were baked potatoes that you could make in 8 minutes in the microwave.
This breakfast sandwich is a favorite of ours around our house, but it’s so easy to make, I didn’t think about putting the recipe up until Scott suggested it. Because I didn’t really consider it a recipe. That same bias was getting in my way – that it’s just convenient food, not real food.
But you know what? Maybe someone out there needs to hear just how easy it is to zap bacon in the microwave and have it turn out crispy and perfect. And maybe someone needs to hear that it’s really, really easy to get a perfect scrambled egg patty by zapping it in a coffee mug.
Here are the tricks.
Microwaving Bacon.
Take a large plate and spread out a couple paper towels. Lay out the bacon – and use thick cut bacon whenever possible, because it doesn’t get as crispy as fast – in an even row. Cover with a couple more paper towels. And microwave the plate of bacon for as many minutes as the number of slices you have, plus thirty seconds. So you’d microwave four bacon pieces for 4:30.
Remove and let cool and drain on another couple paper towels. Unless you need to cook them a little crispier, and then you’d zap them for another 30 seconds first.
Microwaving an Egg Patty.
Butter the inside of a coffee mug or spray it with Pam. Then crack an egg into the mug and scramble it with a fork. Cover the mug with a paper towel and microwave for one minute. Turn it upside down over your sandwich and voila, you’ve got an egg patty.
Easy and delicious!
Here are some variations you might try:
- Shown here: egg, goat cheese, bacon, salt and pepper, fresh parsley
- Caprese: egg, fresh tomato, mozzarella, basil
- Blackstone: egg, roasted tomato, bacon, thyme, Hollandaise
- Denver: egg, sausage, roasted peppers, salt and pepper
- California: egg, bacon, avocado, cream cheese, sprouts, salt and pepper
- Florentine: egg, cooked spinach, Gruyere, mustard sauce
- Lox: egg, smoked salmon, cream cheese, capers, salt and pepper
Breakfast Egg Muffin Sandwiches
Equipment
- 1 8 oz microwave-safe ceramic mug
- Microwave
Ingredients
- 1 ea English muffin split
- 1 slice bacon
- butter or cooking spray
- 1 ea egg
- 1 oz goat cheese crumbled
- salt and pepper to taste
- fresh parsley chopped
Instructions
- Split the English muffin and toast if desired.
- Layer a couple of paper towels on a small plate and place the bacon strip on the paper towels. Layer another paper towel over the top. Microwave for one minute and add 30 second increments until finished.
- Butter or spray with cooking spray the inside of a microwave safe coffee mug. Crack the egg into the coffee mug and scramble it with a fork.
- Microwave the egg for one minute or until the egg is set and cooked through.
- Assemble the sandwich with bacon, egg, goat cheese, salt and pepper to taste, and fresh parsley. Enjoy!
Nutrition
One more trick to help get your morning started. The recipe above just makes one single sandwich, and that’s great for mornings you want something fresh and quick.
But if you make a more complicated version (i.e any of the above suggestions that need roasted components), you can make up a whole bunch of these, wrap them in plastic, and tuck them into the freezer for when you need them. About 90 seconds in the microwave, and they heat back up just fine.
Hope everyone’s having a good week!
I like Egg McMuffins, but adding the goat cheese sends it over the top. Thanks for posting this recipe.
The goat cheese is our favorite part! I hope you enjoy the recipe!
I like the addition of goat cheese! Thank you for this new version of “Egg McMuffin” ! The egg in a mug is brilliant. I will be making this for many meals. 🙂
Thanks! It’s such an easy little trick but we use it so often!