How To Hack Your Own Breakfast Bowl At 11 Fast Food Joints

If you want even more breakfast options at your favorite fast food place, it's time you learned how to hack the breakfast bowls that are already on the menu. Breakfast bowls aren't as popular as they used to be, with many fast-food joints no longer serving them. However, they're still available at enough eateries that breakfast bowl lovers can rejoice. After all, we don't always want a breakfast sandwich. The breakfast bowls on our list range from savory and sweet to fruity and can be as simple or fancy as you'd like.

The main trick to hacking a breakfast bowl on the menu to make it even better is to look at what else is being offered and what's in other bowls and mix and match those ingredients. We've even got an insight into how to turn your breakfast platter into a bowl if your favorite fast food place doesn't sell breakfast bowls anymore. Just remember that every extra food item you add has the potential to change the price. However, a simple ingredient swap may be free in some cases, like the type of cheese you want. Once you've read about how you can hack fast-food breakfast bowls, we feel confident you'll be making all kinds of happy combinations for unique breakfasts you'll love.

Krystal has three breakfast bowls you're likely to find on the breakfast menu, and they're some of the best-looking ones around, in our opinion. But hacking the menu can make them even better. There's the Original Scrambler Breakfast Bowl, which has a base of grits topped with scrambled eggs, American cheese, and your choice of breakfast meat. There's also a Sausage Gravy Biscuit Scrambler, which adds eggs and American cheese to your bowl of biscuit, sausage, and gravy. A third option you might find is the Low Carb Scrambler Breakfast Bowl, which omits grits or biscuits in favor of higher protein options like eggs, your choice of breakfast meat, and American cheese.

Several items from the breakfast menu can make your hacked Krystal breakfast bowl even better. One option is to order tots and add them to the bowl with everything else. Since one of the bowls already comes with gravy and a biscuit, it's not a far reach to ask for either one as an add-on for another bowl. Obviously, tots, a biscuit, and gravy add-ons aren't ideal if you're ordering the low-carb bowl to maintain a low-carb diet, but they'll work fine if you're not.

On the regular menu, you'll sometimes find chili, an interesting flavor addition to breakfast bowls that you might not have considered before. So, try ordering a bowl of Krystal's meat and bean chili when it's on the menu.

You can order a breakfast bowl at Whataburger. It has biscuit and hash brown sticks as base items, and they are topped with scrambled eggs, sausage, shredded cheese, and gravy. While this bowl sounds delicious on its own, plenty of items on the menu can give it an upgrade. Just keep in mind that most of the add-ons will cost extra. So, the more you add, the more expensive your hacked Whataburger Breakfast Bowl will be.

Looking at the add-ons from the online menu can give you an idea of how to upgrade it. These options include getting it with a jalapeño cheddar biscuit instead of a regular buttermilk biscuit, substituting or adding bacon, or including grilled or regular jalapeños. However, you can also look at other breakfast offerings and add-ons to see what else might be possible. For example, you could ask for grilled peppers & onions or avocado, which you'll find as options for the Pancake Platter. You can also switch to Monterey Jack cheese or ask for your eggs picante style (with sauce and jalapeños mixed in), similar to the options available for Taquito With Cheese.

If you're not a fan of biscuits, then there's one more option: Order your bowl with Texas toast instead. You'll find Texas toast available on Whataburger's Patty Melt. With all these options, you can get quite a wide range of flavor profiles.

If you've ignored Salad and Go as an option for breakfast, you've been missing out. You can order any burrito as a bowl. Plus, the chain prioritizes organic ingredients. A couple of the bowls have all their food items in their name, like the Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Bowl and the Turkey Sausage, Egg, and Cheese Bowl. However, the Southwest Bowl features a base of eggs and turkey sausage topped with roasted poblano peppers and pepper jack cheese. 

Another option is the Fiesta Bowl. It has a base of eggs, potatoes, and turkey sausage topped with a fiesta of pepper jack cheese, tortilla strips, and pico de gallo. Remove the pico and tortilla strips and substitute the sausage for bacon; this will give you the Traditional Bowl. As you can see, many of these ingredients can help you to customize any of the five bowls. You can switch out sausage for bacon or ask for both. And you can also opt to add potatoes, tortilla strips, or pico de gallo to any bowl. 

You can also look at the salad menu for substitution or addition ideas. For example, you can switch the cheese in your bowl for any other cheese you find on the menu, like blue cheese crumbles, feta cheese, pepper jack cheese, or Parmesan cheese. You could also ask for veggies like tomatoes, red onions, banana peppers, or kalamata olives for your breakfast bowl. Although, you will likely have to pay extra for any upgrades.

You'll currently only find an Eggflip in a handful of locations in Minnesota and California, but it's expanding. This Korean-fusion breakfast chain already has some great breakfast bowls that feature tater tots, eggs, signature egg sauce, and chives. The one with bulgogi (Korean BBQ beef) is the Eggs & Bulgogi Bowl, which contains grilled onions, mozzarella, and bulgogi sauce. For turkey sausage, choose The Loco Moco, which has grilled onions and gravy. Mr. Bacon is the chain's bacon bowl; it has mozzarella and gochujang aioli (here are some facts about this sauce). The Eggs & Ham Bowl also features mozzarella and gochujang aioli. If you prefer Spam, you can get The Spammer, which also offers mozzarella and spicy mayo. The Eggy adds on mozzarella and gochujang aioli.

You'll find a wide variety of ingredients when you review the ingredient list for breakfast bowls (which can also be employed for burritos), egg sandwiches, and side options. Many of these can substitute another item in a bowl or serve as an add-on. Your choice of meats to switch out or add include bacon, beef bulgogi, ham, turkey sausage, and Spam. Sauces you can substitute or add include bulgogi sauce, gochujang aioli, gravy, spicy mayo, and hottie sauce. Additionally, you'll find two cheese options: cheddar cheese or mozzarella. Browsing the menu reveals that you could also ask for grilled onions or avocado add-ons. So, your bowls can get quite fancy.

Like several other fast food restaurants, McDonald's no longer has a breakfast bowl. However, it has some breakfast platters you can turn into a bowl. The Big Breakfast platter comes with scrambled eggs, sausage, and two carb-y items: biscuits and hash browns. Meanwhile, the Big Breakfast With Hot Cakes has everything the Big Breakfast comprises with the addition of hotcakes, butter, and syrup. The hack to turn McDonald's breakfast platter into bowls is to crumble or cut up everything and mix them all together.

Beyond turning a platter into a bowl, some items can be added or substituted. First of all, you can substitute Canadian bacon or regular bacon or add cheese, all of which you can find in various breakfast sandwiches. You can ask for syrup with your Big Breakfast even if you don't upgrade to the one with hotcakes. You can also get round instead of scrambled eggs (like what you get on the chain's breakfast sandwiches). And if a Sausage Gravy Biscuit is on your menu, you could get a side of gravy for your bowl creation. So, there's so much more you can do to create and customize a breakfast bowl at McDonald's than you might originally think. Some items may cost extra, but it's worth it for a tasty bowl.

Yes, some Subways open for breakfast, and it turns out that you can upgrade any breakfast wrap into a chopped breakfast bowl, just like you transform its subs into salads. If you look at the menu, the breakfast wraps available can be turned into a bacon, egg, and cheese bowl; a Black Forest ham, egg, and cheese bowl; and a steak, egg, and cheese. However, according to social media, with all the regular sub sandwich makings already on the bar, you can ask for other add-ins from the regular menu. With there not being a bready base to these bowls, it turns out that it's a great place to get a highly customizable keto breakfast bowl at Subway.

One thing to note is that there may be an option for a complete egg or egg white. There's also a choice of pepper Jack, provolone, or Monterey cheddar cheese. You can even add veggies to your breakfast bowl. Ingredients you often see in omelets are nice, like tomatoes, green peppers, red onions, jalapeños, spinach, and banana peppers. Although, you could certainly opt to add in non-traditional veggies, like lettuce, cucumbers, pickles, or black olives. There's also a whole array of sauces you could add. Some interesting ones include creamy sriracha, Baja Chipotle, and roasted garlic aioli. Plus, you can pull meat from other sandwiches, like chicken, turkey, steak, or Italian meats, to make things interesting.

If you're a Chick-fil-A fan, you'll find a singular breakfast bowl on the menu: the Hash Brown Scramble Bowl. Based on our taste test, it has the distinction of being one of the best foods on its breakfast menu. This breakfast bowl has a base of hash browns and scrambled eggs, and it's topped with chicken nuggets and two types of cheese: Monterey Jack and cheddar. Plus, it comes with jalapeño salsa so that you can turn it into more of a Mexican-style breakfast bowl.

If you're ordering online or through the app, you'll already notice that substitutions are possible. First, you can switch out the plain nuggets for spicy nuggets, a grilled fillet, or traditional breakfast meats like sausage or bacon. It's also possible to get it without hash browns if you want to cut down on the carb content.

Looking a little closer at the breakfast menu, you'll find other ways to hack the Chick-fil-A breakfast bowl. For example, you can switch out the cheese for American, Colby Jack, or pepper jack cheeses. There's also an option of egg whites instead of a complete egg. You could also add or swap out the hash browns for another breakfast carb, like biscuits, English muffins, or mini yeast rolls, which are available to order separately. We ranked everything on Chick-fil-A's breakfast menu; check out our verdict. 

One of the secrets you might not have known about Jersey Mike's is that some serve breakfast. If you live near a branch that does, the concept is similar to Subway's breakfast bowls. Since Jersey Mike's is willing to turn any sandwich into a chopped bowl, the treatment can extend to breakfast sandwiches. Breakfast sandwiches you can turn into a breakfast bowl will likely include those with egg and cheese. Add meat like pork roll, bacon, sausage, ham, steak, or turkey for a delicious treat.

To hack a Jersey Mike's breakfast bowl, all you have to do is look on the regular menu to see what you might like to add. Some more breakfast-y offerings include onions, tomatoes, banana peppers, and jalapeño peppers. You could also consider non-traditional ingredients like deli meats, pepperoni, hot honey, red wine vinegar, olive oil blend, and chopped hot pepper relish. And don't forget that you can order food items like onions and grilled peppers, which can take your breakfast bowl to the next level.

The final three fast food joints on our list serve a variety of sweet rather than savory breakfast bowls, like the ones at Tropical Smoothie Cafe. The breakfast bowls here vary quite a bit. There are two with an acai base: the Acai Bowl and the Acai Bowl With Nutella. Three have a Greek yogurt base: the PB Protein Crunch, Chia Oatmeal Pudding, and Mixed Berry Greek Yogurt bowls. For a dragon fruit base, you can choose the Dragon Fruit Bowl, and for a Bahama Mama base, opt for the Bahama Mama Bowl.

Already, you can likely see that the bases could be switched out, with the top ingredients of one bowl sitting atop an acai, dragon fruit, Bahama Mama, or Greek yogurt base from another bowl. You can also look at the ingredients available in the various bowls to hack your Tropical Smoothie Cafe breakfast bowl. Substitute and add available fruits like dragon fruit, pineapple, mango, goji berries, coconut, acai, strawberries, blueberries, or bananas. Ask for nut or seed additions such as almonds, chia, or red quinoa. Granola is another possible add-on. Plus, you can switch out or add different drizzles, opting for honey, Nutella, or peanut butter where there wasn't any before.

Jamba has a dizzying number of delicious, beautiful breakfast bowls. In the smoothie bowl category, you have the Acai Primo, Chunky Strawberry, Dragon Fruit Delight Bowl, Vanilla Blue Sky, and Acai Peanut Butter + Nutella bowls. The oatmeal bowls include Berry Brown Sugar Oatmeal, Peanut Butter Banana Crunch Oatmeal, and Strawberry + Nutella & Coconut Oatmeal bowls. Then, there are the brilliant waffle bowls, which include a Greek Yogurt Strawberry Blueberry Waffle Bowl, a Coconut Whip Strawberry Blueberry Waffle Bowl, a Greek Yogurt Peanut Butter Banana + Nutella Waffle Bowl, and a Coconut Whip Peanut Butter Banana + Nutella Waffle Bowl.

As you can tell by the names of these bowls, there are many ingredients you can plunder to hack your Jamba Breakfast Bowl. The bases might be the first place to look to make switches, as those include an acai grape base, a banana vanilla pineapple base, a strawberry peanut butter granola base, or a dragon fruit base. The fruits you can ask to add on or switch out in your chosen bowl include banana, strawberry, blueberry, coconut flakes, and pineapples. You can also steal topping and drizzle ingredients, like granola, honey, peanut butter, brown sugar, Nutella, and waffle pieces. Plus, there are a variety of boosts available, such as ginger, blue spirulina, kale, coconut whip, soy protein, whey protein, vitamin mixes, and energy mixes. So, go wild; your only limit is your imagination.

The final fast food breakfast bowls on our list that are great for hacking are the ones at Smoothie King. When the chain launched its bowls in 2023, customers went wild for them. This chain is another that relies on just a handful of bases to mix and match ingredients. There are the ones with acai bases: the Acai Cocoa Haze Bowl, Berry Goji Getaway Bowl, Go Go Goji Crunch Bowl, and the PB Swizzle Bowl. Then, you have the ones with a pitaya base: The Bee Berry Sting Bowl, the Coco Pitaya-Yah Bowl, the High Five Bowl, and the PB Delight Bowl. Finally, we have options with a coconut sorbet base, like the Coco Colada Bowl and the Go Coconuts Bowl.

Like the other smoothie breakfast bowls on our list, the easiest way to hack Smoothie King bowls is to switch out the bases, choosing an acai, pitaya, or coconut sorbet to go with the toppings in a bowl you like. You can switch out or add fruits from the bowls, including bananas, strawberries, mangoes, blueberries, coconut, goji berries, and pineapple. There are a few other add-ins to consider, like granola, cacao nibs, turbinado, and the papaya juice blend. Finally, a few drizzles you could add or switch out include hazelnut, honey, and peanut butter.