The King of breakfast sandwiches

Read Time: 6 minutes

I get really excited about the sausage, egg and cheese biscuit. This is definitely my favorite breakfast sandwich and would be my go to selection at a fast food breakfast joint. This week I made a bunch and if you continue reading you’ll learn about the process I use to make these at home.

The biscuits

The base biscuit recipe I use is inspired by Southern Living magazine’s recipe. It requires three ingredients and is fairly easy to get right. If the idea of keeping buttermilk around in your fridge seems wasteful, you can also buy buttermilk powder at the grocery store and mix it with water to create a buttermilk substitute (this tip from The Kitchenista Diaries).

I’ve already written a little bit about biscuits and I have three different flavor versions (two savory and a sweet one) in my recipe archive. Go read that if you have never made biscuits before and then come back here to read the rest of my process for sausage, egg and cheese.

The tools

This set of biscuit/cookie cutters (Amazon affiliate link) is very similar to the ones that I have. I bought mine so long ago that I don’t know where we purchased them, but I like having many different sizes. I like to bake a bigger size biscuit if I’m making a sandwich, but we usually choose a smaller size if we’re having biscuits on the side of a plate of breakfast.

Another tool that I use even more often than a rolling pin when making biscuits is a bench scraper. This is a great scraper set (Amazon affiliate link) for right around 10 bucks. It has three scrapers included. The orange plastic one I almost never use, but the red curved one is great for bread baking and getting dough out of a bowl and the metal one is what I use for biscuits and scooping and folding during the folding/layer making process. Buy this or find another bench scraper if you’re planning to make biscuits a regular thing at your house.

The sausage

I don’t usually make my own sausage blend for breakfast sandwiches. Typically I just buy bulk breakfast sausage in the tube and I form my own patties.

Forming my own means that I can get the shapes and sizes that I want. Since I already know how big my biscuit is (because I know what size biscuit cutter I used) I use a similarly sized cutter (or a slightly larger one – meat will shrink once cooked) and I spread a tiny bit of canola oil on the inside of the ring and I use it to shape my patties. The oil keeps things from sticking. Sometimes I freeform shape each patty – that’s also a very easy option – but when I’m feeling fancy and precise I use the ring mold.

Cooking each patty for 4 or 5 minutes per side on a medium-high heat should get you to a fully done stage of sausage patty goodness.

Egg options

The folded egg

A folded egg is way better for a biscuit sandwich than scrambled eggs. If you’ve ever put scrambled eggs on a sandwich, you know that you’re about to have a mess on your hands with the scrambled curds falling out. With a folded egg, you have a solid but still soft piece of egg that shouldn’t make a mess. You’re pretty much making an omelet here, with nothing but salt and pepper added.

Here’s a short slideshow of how I prepare a folded egg. The whole process takes about 2 or 3 minutes of cooking time plus whatever time it takes you to get your surface hot. I like to do it in a flat griddle so I can flip things easier. I usually try to get the hot surface up to between 275 and 350 F (that’s around 177 C).

The round egg

EDIT: I recently found a better technique for a round egg and shared it in my Egg McMuffin post. Read on below if you want to view how I used to do it, but the newer technique is better.

A “round egg” is the egg preparation you’ll find on an Egg McMuffin at McDonald’s. A folded egg is what you’ll find on a biscuit sandwich. Many McDonald’s enthusiasts prefer the round egg more than a folded one because it requires the McD’s cook to use a fresh egg instead of a pre-cooked folded one. In our DIY make-at-home versions they’re all fresh eggs, so that part doesn’t matter very much, it’s more about the effort you want to put into it.

I don’t like to cook the round egg very much, but I still cooked one for this post. The main reason I don’t like a round egg is because you have to cook it pretty well through in order for it to retain its shape in the ring mold. I like my eggs a bit softer and less done. If you like yours more well done then this might be a fun option for you, but I much prefer the folded egg option.

If you want to cook a round egg, I would grab the same ring mold that you used to cut out your biscuit and you place that on a hot surface. Make sure if you’re doing this on a non-stick surface pay close attention so that you do not scratch the surface with the metal mold. Grease the ring mold first with some vegetable oil and pour your egg into it. I like to stir the egg a little once its in the mold and cooking to make sure that the yolk gets cracked and mixed in a bit with the white. Cook for a couple of minutes until it seems like the sides are set inside the mold. With tongs, carefully remove the ring mold and flip the egg to finish it cooking on the top side.

The microwaved egg

Chef José Andrés shared this trick on tiktok and a friend shared it with me. It’s basically one egg mixed very thoroughly with one spoonful of mayonnaise. I was skeptical, but I tried it and it worked fairly well. I like my scrambled eggs on the softer side of things so I might play around with the timing on the microwave to get a better result. Sixty seconds for me was a bit too long, but to have an egg that is the perfect size for a biscuit sandwich in less than 2 minutes is fantastic (gotta count the cracking and scooping and stirring time too).

If the idea of mayonnaise in your scrambled eggs makes you squirm, just remember that mayo is simply oil and egg yolks mixed together with seasoning (and if store bought, preservatives).

Here’s Chef Andrés explaining his technique. A photo of my attempt at the microwaved egg is below.

@chefjoseandres

Omelette in the microwave ??? #learnontiktok #tiktokpartner #science

♬ original sound – José Andrés

Sausage gravy

Gravy isn’t a typical ingredient in a sausage egg and cheese biscuit, but it’s good to know how to make a quick sausage gravy for a breakfast. Here’s my recipe but read below if you want to know my gravy ratio and methods to make gravy on the fly.

If you want to keep things really simple, the sausage gravy I usually make is made up of 2 parts oil/grease, 2 parts all-purpose flour and 16 parts of liquid. This means you can use 2 tablespoons of leftover fat/grease from cooking sausage in a pan, 2 tablespoons of flour and 1 cup of milk (16 tablespoons to a cup) to make a sausage gravy. I’ve had good success scaling the recipe up to double and halving the recipe as well. Since I was only eating one biscuit here, I used 1 tablespoon sausage grease, 1 tablespoon of flour and a half cup of milk. If you’re going to adjust anything in this gravy ratio, you can adjust the milk/liquid. If you add more, you just may need to cook it a bit longer to reduce and thicken the gravy.

If you’ve just finished cooking the sausage and your pan is still hot you can remove all but 2 tablespoons of grease from the pan (add some vegetable oil if you don’t have quite enough in the pan) and then spoon in your two tablespoons of flour. Stir this around over medium heat for a couple of minutes and this will cook off the flour taste. Add your milk and stir everything to combine. Cook over medium heat, stirring often until you get the gravy consistency that you desire. It’s that simple.

And those are some options for how you can make the King of Breakfast Biscuits. You can choose your own adventure with the egg options, but my favorite for visual appeal is the folded egg. For ease and quickness, that microwaved egg trick is pretty special. If I’m already cooking sausage patties and my pan or griddle is hot I will keep folding eggs.

The bonus biscuit

I’ll finish out this sausage, egg and cheese post with an extra cheesy surprise. This is my super savory cheddar cheese biscuit recipe with yellow mustard, sausage, cheddar and a folded egg for you to look at and think about until you make your next biscuit sandwiches. Stay tuned for next week when I’ll be writing about even more cheese!