A Sheet Pan Is The Key For Whipping Up A Full English Breakfast With Ease
The full English breakfast is a culinary tradition over in Great Britain, but a recipe that contains so many ingredients can leave a lot of pots and pans to wash. If you'd like to make this dish at home (for breakfast, lunch, or dinner) you'll be pleased to know that this hearty feast can be cooked perfectly using one baking sheet rather than several different pans and cooking utensils. There's absolutely no need to broil, fry, and grill when great results can come from a single cooking method. It's all just a matter of timing.
A classic English breakfast includes pork sausages, but beef, turkey, or even vegetarian sausages work well too — just make sure to adjust the cooking time according to the instructions on the packet. Bacon is usually an essential ingredient in this dish as well, and baking it in the oven rather than frying ensures that it'll become crispy rather than greasy. Another key component in this all-day breakfast dish are the eggs that cook really well in the oven. Of course, how long you cook them depends on whether you prefer your yolks to be hard or runny.
The best order to add your ingredients
This one-sheet pan approach allows you as little clean-up as possible, but you'll need to be mindful of the order in which you cook everything. Add the ingredient that will take the longest to cook first; in this case, that's the sausages. Next to the sausages add your halved plum tomatoes drizzled with enough olive oil to stop them sticking. A few mushrooms can be included at this stage too if you like, either quartered or halved. Slide the tray into a pre-heated oven at 450 degrees Fahrenheit and cook for 15 minutes. Then take it out and add slices of bacon to the sheet pan before returning it to the oven for a further five minutes.
Now you can move the sausages, bacon, and vegetables over to one side of the hot baking sheet, and drizzle a little more oil into the vacant space before carefully cracking the eggs. Season the eggs with salt and pepper before returning the sheet pan to the oven. Cook for around five minutes until the egg whites are set but the yolks are runny — it'll take a minute or two longer if you want them hard. Once everything is cooked, arrange the ingredients on a warmed plate and serve with a few slices of buttered toast, a splash of Worcestershire sauce, and a squeeze of ketchup. For the authentic British experience, enjoy this dish with a hot cup of milky tea.