How Nick DiGiovanni Makes His Perfect Breakfast Sandwich: Every Choice, Every Step

When making a breakfast sandwich,

you have to make a lot of decisions.

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You've gotta choose your bread, your eggs, your meat,

your cheese, and maybe even a sauce.

And if all those things don't come together

in the right way, the sandwich can be a sloppy mess.

I'm Nick DiGiovanni, and I'm gonna show you

every decision I make

to make the perfect breakfast sandwich.

Wow.

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First up, we've got bread.

The perfect bread for a breakfast sandwich should be sturdy,

not too messy, and very flavorful.

For me, one of my favorite breakfast sandwiches

to order growing up

was actually going through the drive-thru at Dunkin' Donuts

and getting a sausage, bacon, egg,

and cheese on a croissant.

But it put flakes all over the car

and it was extremely messy, so croissant is not the move.

I can personally say I've never tried a breakfast sandwich

on a donut.

They're fun, they're creative, but they just don't belong.

English muffins are, of course, a tried and true classic,

but they're just a touch to bland

当n you look at some of the other options

we're working with here.

Now this next one may be slightly controversial,

but a bagel is not the go-to move.

This one I'm holding here might actually be okay

given there's no hole in the middle

当re everything could fall through the center,

but the biggest problem with a bagel is this.

[seeds rustling]

It's probably gonna leave you a pretty big mess.

Now, I don't wanna hate on biscuits and gravy,

but biscuits and gravy are biscuits and gravy for a reason.

They're too dry by themselves.

I have had breakfast sandwiches in the past on white bread,

but this kind of thing for me just screams grilled cheese.

By the time you can finish it can look something like this,

and that to me can be pretty unappetizing.

So that leaves us with just the perfect brioche bun.

Sturdy, buttery, flaky, flavorful,

and you eat with your eyes.

Aesthetically, out of everything here,

this almost looks the most perfect

当n you finish making that sandwich.

I've gotta go with the brioche bun.

When it comes to food and cooking in general,

I'm all about elevating every single ingredient

in any given dish,

and I have a little trick that I like to use

当n I toast things.

I'm gonna use a combination of butter and mayonnaise.

Mayo is just oil and egg yolks.

And egg wash in baking will give something

a really nice golden brown color.

Oil, of course, is used to deep fry.

And butter is, as we all know, butter.

Putting those three things together

gives you not only the best flavor, but also the best color.

First, I'll go onto the cut side of my brioche rolls

with some mayonnaise,

and I'll make sure that as I paint it on

with this pastry brush here

I hit every single nook and cranny.

You wanna use just enough that it evenly coats everything,

but not so much that you're making any sort of layer

of mayonnaise off the bread.

Now, when it comes to actually getting

the golden brown crust that we've been talking about,

I'm gonna use quite a lot of butter.

The reason being that when the butter melts

I want it to hit up a little bit on the sides of the bread

and also get inside all those little crevices

on the bottom of our brioche bun.

And to me, this is one huge mistake

that lots of people make

当n trying to get a crust on something,

not enough oil or butter.

Once that butter is fully melted,

I'm gonna go ahead and place down my bun

and give it a little spin,

then lift it up and place it down once more.

To me, this ensures that you're actually hitting

every bit of that surface with some butter.

And now you really wanna make sure to be focused

and carefully, carefully toast.

If I lift up my bun and see this,

that means I wanna get a little bit more toasting

in the middle, so I'll try to apply some pressure

to the center of my bun.

This one, on the other hand, has more toasting on this side,

so I'm gonna push more on this side

as I continue cooking it.

But just that smell coming off the pan of all that butter

is what tells me

this is gonna be a truly delicious breakfast sandwich.

This one here is perfect.

And what I love now is that I'm actually toasting

in brown butter, so I'll sop up

some of those brown milk solids

with this piece of bread on the top.

And now we're ready to move on

with the rest of our breakfast sandwich.

Now it's time to talk about eggs.

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When it comes to the egg in my perfect breakfast sandwich,

I'm looking for something well-rounded, too.

I want an egg that's gonna perfectly fit

onto my bread once cooked,

and ideally I'd like an egg that's gonna give me

that nice, classic runny yolk.

Eggs, like many things in food,

come in many different shapes and sizes,

such as this tiny little quail egg here

that, if I was making a breakfast sandwich for my hamster,

this could work.

But for what we're doing here,

unless you wanna go with scrambled eggs,

this is too impractical.

Which brings me to the duck egg.

Whether it's a duck egg or an emu egg or an ostrich egg,

at the end of the day

they taste pretty similar to each other,

but unless you have some particular reason

that you want duck eggs over regular eggs,

I wouldn't choose these either.

现在我知道有些人,for that convenience factor

love liquid eggs.

Cracking an egg into a pan is already so simple,

so I don't know why you'd wanna simplify it

by turning it into a liquid

that sometimes can be a little bit hard to identify.

This is a little bit icky for me.

If you're vegan or plant-based

and don't wanna eat normal eggs,

then you could go with something like JUST Egg.

But this is not gonna be the egg

in my perfect breakfast sandwich.

Caviar, fun for special occasions,

but I'd be more likely to use this in a sauce

for my breakfast sandwich

than I would be to use it as a replacement for egg.

Which brings me to our last two options.

They may look different, but these are chicken eggs.

These ones here might have flashier colors on the outside,

but the only real thing that you're gaining with these

is those beautiful bright yolks.

The color of the yolk just tells you

a little bit about what that chicken grew up eating.

So I would personally save this type of fancier chicken egg

for a dish where you can actually see the yolk.

So ultimately, the very best egg you can choose

for the perfect breakfast sandwich

is a regular old chicken egg.

[bell dinging]

To really prove my point about different types of eggs

I baked one quail egg, one duck egg, and one chicken egg.

I think we can all agree the quail egg is much too small

for a breakfast sandwich.

I could eat this in one bite.

Whereas that duck egg could work,

especially if you absolutely love the yoke,

but it's a little bit too big.

This right here, just right.

My final decision, definitely chicken eggs.

And the way I'll cook them

to make them fit perfectly on our sandwich

and also look perfect is with a ring mold.

To start, you'll wanna make sure you spray the ring mold

very, very generously

because we don't want that egg to stick to it.

Once that pan starts to heat up,

I'm gonna add a little bit of butter.

Cooking an egg and butter gives amazing flavor,

and this too will help to make sure that nothing sticks.

Once our butter's melted, in we go with our egg,

little bit of salt,

and a little bit of fresh cracked black pepper.

I'm gonna add a little bit of water

to the outside of the pan, then place out a lid

so that I can start to set the top of that egg.

Once your egg is set enough

that you can pull away that ring mold

and it'll hold perfectly in shape,

you're ready for the cheese.

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The cheese for a breakfast sandwich must be melty,

flavorful, but definitely not too overpowering.

To start out we've got blue cheese

which, for me, has always been a favorite,

but it's got too much flavor

and it's gonna take over the entire breakfast sandwich.

This is a definite and easy no.

[buzzer buzzing]

When it comes to classic American cheese,

there's certainly a time and a place,

and it's definitely melty,

but the flavor for me is just not there.

Next up, we've got pepper jack cheese.

And I will say I love the color,

but similar to the blue cheese,

to me this is a little bit too overpowering.

[buzzer buzzing]

And same goes for provolone.

[buzzer buzzing]

You could also consider something like mozzarella,

but I'm gonna highly recommend

that you save the mozzarella for pizza.

In addition to all that excess moisture

that you're gonna get when you put mozzarella on a sandwich,

it's a little bit too gummy and chewy

为我寻找从结构的角度来看,

and the flavor's just too mild.

Instead, I'm gonna opt

for what is probably my favorite cheese,

a nice hunk of cheddar.

[bell dinging]

It's melty, it's flavorful, and you can customize it.

You can make it as mild or as sharp as you want.

Cheddar is the perfect cheese for a breakfast sandwich.

I like to take a few nice slices like this

so that every bit of my egg is covered evenly

with that melty deliciousness.

You can certainly try melting the cheese without a lid,

but for me, it's so much easier

with a touch of water and a lid.

That will create lots of steam over the top of your egg,

which will help quickly and evenly melt it.

Our yoke is still nice and soft and runny

and all that cheese is nice and melted.

This is gonna taste so good

on our perfect breakfast sandwich.

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Up next, we've gotta look at the meats.

A good breakfast sandwich meat cannot be too fatty,

has to have some nice texture to it,

and, of course, has to have great flavor.

For me, Spam immediate no.

Too salty, not the right texture, just not it.

These classic little breakfast sausages are fun.

If this was patty form, it might work.

You could try cutting it into little rings

or you could try cutting it this way and splitting it open.

But this one here is not the right application.

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I love a good prosciutto,

and the most creative way in my mind

that you could use prosciutto for a breakfast sandwich

would actually be making it really, really crispy.

But with that said, I do still think

it might be a little bit too salty

and it's not quite substantive enough.

[buzzer buzzing]

If you wanna go plant-based,

you could always go with something

like this Beyond Breakfast Sausage,

and the picture on the box here is showing

the assembly of a breakfast sandwich.

It also in really fine print says,

Enlarged to show detail.

Let's see how much they've really enlarged these patties

to show that detail.

(话说嗖的)

[buzzer buzzing] Too small.

Canadian bacon.

Sort of similar to the prosciutto,

I don't quite feel like it's enough.

[buzzer buzzing]

As with these sausage links here,

this, of course, is not the right form

to put on a breakfast sandwich,

but you can take these out of the casing

and make a great patty out of them.

I myself personally prefer getting the stuff in the casing

as opposed to the ground meat that might be sitting out.

The casing protects it inside there,

and it's very very easy to squeeze outta here.

So this, for me, is the very best way to buy meat

that you're gonna make into sausage patties.

Aside from sausage, bacon is probably the most popular meat

you'd find in a breakfast sandwich,

and it just so happens that I love both.

The best decision is two decisions,

Italian sausage and bacon.

[bell dinging]

But make sure to never cook your bacon in a pan.

It makes a mess. It doesn't cook evenly.

Do yourself a favor and throw it on a sheet tray

and stick it in the oven.

For my Italian sausage, I'll cut off the top,

then squeeze it out of its casing.

It's gonna shrink a lot when you cook it,

so make sure to shape that patty

a little bit wider than you might think.

Now, as we place this down in our cast iron,

we don't need any extra oil or fat.

Once it starts to cook, leave it and let it go.

We wanna develop a nice crust.

It'll release when it's ready to release.

[patty sizzling]

Then I'll press it down just a bit

and let it cook the rest of the way through.

What I'm working on here

is getting that really nice crispy texture.

And this much smoke means you're actually doing it right.

So don't be afraid if your fire alarm goes off.

Once we have a nice crust on our patty,

we can take it off the heat.

A few chunks may break off in the process

of cooking Italian sausage like this,

but as long as you've got that nice cook-through patty

with those crispy and crackly bits on the edges,

this is the perfect addition to your breakfast sandwich.

It's time now to get saucy.

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When I'm looking at the sauce in a breakfast sandwich,

I want something that's nice and well balanced,

something with a little bit of acidity,

maybe with a few spices that you want in there.

I happen to be a purist

当n it comes to my breakfast sandwiches

and I'm not gonna be using a sauce today.

[buzzer buzzing]

Instead I like to look at the egg yolk as a sauce.

但在作出决定的利益,

I'm gonna go ahead and use the maple syrup and get creative.

So this bacon is par-cooked, but it's missing something.

I'm gonna add a bit of my maple syrup to a bowl,

then over my bacon I'll add a nice little pinch

of brown sugar.

Anytime you add sugar to something like this

that you're gonna put in the oven or heat,

it's gonna caramelize and give that incredible flavor.

Then I'll brush my bacon with some of this maple syrup

just enough that you get that nice light and shiny coating

over the top.

And to finish, one of my favorite ingredients

to use when cooking, just a little bit of lemon zest.

This will give a little bit of that acidity

that we probably put in there.

And now back into the oven we go.

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Now for a little side-by-side comparison,

check out the difference between this normal bacon

that I've cooked without anything on top

and then this one over here

which has that maple glaze on top

with a little bit of brown sugar and lemon zest.

This maple glazed bacon is just so much better looking,

so much more flavorful.

Don't get me wrong, regular bacon's good,

but this is better.

So we went with a brioche bun, an egg with cheddar cheese,

and Italian sausage patty, and candied maple bacon.

It's time to put it all together.

Very simply, I'll start with my bottom brioche bun.

Then on we go with our nice Italian sausage patty,

and I'll follow this with some candied maple bacon,

which I'll break to make sure it fits perfectly

on top of my sandwich,

then my egg with some cheddar cheese,

and to finish the top of my brioche bun.

It's simple, but every single layer in here

is gonna be packed with flavor.

Before I bite, let's let this egg do its thing.

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Ooh.

Make sure you have a plate under it,

which you can use as a sauce.

And you've got that for every single bite.

Wow.

I'm experiencing right now the perfect balance

of everything in food,

that crunch of the crispy maple bacon,

the chewy and meaty texture of the Italian sausage,

and, of course, the nice, soft over-easy egg

with that melty cheese on top.

Not to mention the buns that hold it all together,

which are incredibly buttery

and have a nice crust right on the inside.

I don't know how you can possibly get

a better breakfast than this.

These are all the decisions I made,

and I think it's a pretty perfect sandwich,

so I urge you to try it at home.

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