Many people think about meal prepping lunches and dinners, but you can also meal prep breakfasts! One breakfast that we ALWAYS have on hand in our house is frozen breakfast sandwiches. No, not Jimmy Deans or McDonald’s. We make our own for a very reasonable price that are healthier, more filling, and tastier.
For our breakfast sandwiches, we use Thomas’ English muffins (we have tried the Shaw’s brand English muffins and didn’t think they were as good despite being cheaper), Al Fresco apple maple chicken sausage patties (a little on the pricey side, but soooo tasty), sliced cheese (here we used Sargento and Lucerne), and eggs. This particular picture was taken when we made 36 breakfast sandwiches at once.
We always wait for these items to go on sale to make breakfast sandwiches. The English muffins and sausage patties can be frozen until a day when cheese and eggs go on sale. Altogether, we paid $1.50 per breakfast sandwich when we made 36 because we waited for Thomas’ to go on buy one, get two free, we waited for the Al Fresco to go on 2/$7, and we waited for eggs to go on 99c/dozen. These breakfast sandwiches clock in at 350 calories a breakfast sandwich, and they keep you going for hours without getting hungry again. Plus, they are super easy to have on hand and reheat as needed.
The process is simple once you get the hang of it. Begin by slicing all of the English muffins and toasting as many as will fit in your toaster. While those are toasting, in a large pan, cook 2 eggs in egg ring molds and 2 sausage patties (which are precooked, but you want to get them warm to melt the cheese). Once the eggs are done, put a slice of cheese on top, then top with a sausage patty. By this time, your English muffins should be toasted, so take them out and add your tower of fillings to one half, top them with the other half, and let the cheese melt as they cool before wrapping each in aluminum foil. If you wrap these while they are still hot, they will form condensation on the inside of the foil which will turn to frost when you freeze them, which is no good! We label ours with the type of cheese we used (I like pepperjack, whereas Erik likes cheddar) and the date we made them, then stack them in the freezer.
When it comes to time heat them up, we find that they are best reheated by taking them out of the freezer the night before and then popping them in the toaster oven for 10-15 minutes, foil still on. However, you can toast them right out of the freezer – you’ll just want to add some additional time. The best part is that some of the cheese melts onto the foil and you get that fried cheese that everyone secretly adores about using shredded cheese for grilled cheeses!
We hope you’ll give these breakfast sandwiches a try (maybe not 36 at once like us!), and if you do, be sure to share it with us on Instagram using hashtag #economicaleats!