Hello sandwich friends,
First, we need to clarify at least two things. One, a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich is not a sandwich that’s only sold in New York City. But also, at the same time, it is definitely a NYC thing. And secondly, that’s not a typo in the title—that’s just how New Yorkers talk.
What is this sandwich?
This breakfast-focused sandwich is a bacon, egg, and cheese, sometimes shortened to BEC, or you can just say it real quickly as one word, like baconeggandcheese. This particular style of breakfast sandwich is sold in corner stores or bodegas all across New York City, and it can also be found in other northeastern US metropolitan areas. To be clear, versions of sandwiches containing the combination of bacon, egg, and cheese will also appear on menus all across the United States and probably in other countries as well, but in New York, the sandwich has its own particular style.
A New York-style bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich is made from smoked and cooked bacon, scrambled, folded, or fried eggs, and slices of American cheese on a roll. The bread choice is the component that differentiates New York’s version of a BEC from sandwiches like bacon, egg, and cheese on a buttermilk biscuit or an English muffin. The particular roll used in this sandwich is often called a Kaiser roll or hard roll.
Note: you may also be presented with the option for a bacon, egg, and cheese in NYC that’s inside of a bagel, but for the sake of this particular sandwich blog, we’re focusing on the Kaiser roll only.
A bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich was not invented in New York, but no one really has a firm grasp on where it was originally first made. The combination of bacon and eggs served with bread goes back hundreds of years, but the sandwich in its NYC format is so ubiquitous that it has become a standard, expected sandwich that is enjoyed on a regular basis.
Fun Fact: Margot Robbie, who plays Harley Quinn in the above video, is allergic to chicken eggs, so they used duck eggs in the sandwiches they made.
This is how real New Yorkers act when they go into a bodega.
History of the breakfast sandwich?
There isn’t a whole lot of available history of the NYC bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich because, as I said, it wasn’t really invented in the city. Mentions of breakfast sandwiches go back centuries, though. Way back in the 1800s in London, factory workers needed a quick breakfast before work, and the bap sandwich fit that role (in a roll). A bap is a soft bread roll or bun made from a dough enriched with milk, butter, or lard that originated in Scotland, and it was often sold with cooked eggs or sausage, or another meat stuffed inside.
The breakfast sandwich wasn’t really conceived in one specific place. You could probably find evidence all throughout history, all over the world, of people eating sandwiches or handheld breakfast items containing meat and bread, but the introduction of fast-food breakfasts definitely helped to bring the idea to the masses. In 1971, McDonald’s launched the Egg McMuffin, which helped to popularize the concept of a handheld sandwich that you could eat on the way to work.
New Yorkers going to and from their jobs in the morning have definitely embraced a quick, affordable, simple breakfast sandwich, which they get with the BEC.
What is SPK?
We’ve covered that a bacon, egg, and cheese will often be shortened to BEC, but there’s another shortened phrase known as SPK, which is sometimes used in ordering the sandwich. SPK stands for salt, pepper, and ketchup, which is a desired combination for a lot of people to upgrade a plain BEC. You might also hear or see the phrase as saltpepperketchup if you’re standing in line for a breakfast sandwich behind an actual New Yorker.
I visited New York earlier this year and got the chance to enjoy a better-than-average bacon, egg, and cheese in Central Park that I picked up from a nearby corner store. I was doing my best to fit in with the locals. I ordered mine as a default option and did not get salt, pepper, or ketchup.
Much of my bacon, egg, and cheese experience in NYC was about the bread roll. It was slightly chewy, a little bit dense, and it worked well with the other ingredients. The bacon and eggs are somewhat less of the whole experience than the creamy and melty cheese and bread. That doesn’t mean that bacon and eggs weren’t important; they just weren’t the full focus of the sandwich like you might expect.
Other versions of bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches that I’ve made
I’ve been making bacon, egg, and cheese variants long before this site was created. And I’m sure you, as well, were also making breakfast meat, egg, and cheese sandwiches in your own kitchen since you were old enough to cook.
But what I’m writing about today is the specific type of BEC sandwich you’ll find in New York City. It’s not much different from the other types of bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches you might have made, but I’ll touch on those differences down below.
Weird coincidence I found in my own BEC content
Going through my old sandwich content to find other versions of bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches, I spotted these two sandwich photos taken almost 2 years apart, both of them with a Valentina bottle in almost the same spot. I guess I just like the same hot sauce balance in the layout of my sandwich photos?
Now that we know what a New York-style bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich is, we’re going to need a bread roll, and there’s only one type that New Yorkers would stand for.
Kaiser roll, aka hard roll or simply roll
The bread roll is one of the most important components to consider when making a sandwich that will not get New Yorkers yelling at you.
If you’ve never had one, a kaiser roll is a regular, sturdy roll that has a nice crust/exterior and a little bit of chew. This means we’re going to need to use bread flour instead of all-purpose flour, because it has a higher level of protein, resulting in a bread that has a chewier interior texture.
According to Wikipedia, the phrase “Kaiser roll” was mentioned as early as 1825. Some stories tell that the bread rolls were named in honor of Emperor Franz Joseph I, who ruled over Austria from 1848 to 1916, which is AFTER the first mention of the name of this style of roll. There are other theories for the naming, such as maybe a baker with the family name of Kayzer, invented the rolls, or possibly that it is related to when the bakers’ guild reached out to Emperor Joseph II in 1789, asking him to deregulate the price of bread rolls.
Regardless of the reason for Kaiser rolls’ name, they became a very popular choice of roll for bakers along the East Coast of the United States due to the influx of immigrants, including bakers from Austria and Germany who brought their traditions to the new world.
A Kaiser roll typically will have a distinct knotted appearance on the top. You can roll a Kaiser roll into a knot, much like a pretzel, or you can do what I do, which is use a unitasker called a Kaiser stamp to press a starfish sort of an indentation into the top of the unrisen dough.
I mentioned this the last time I shared my Kaiser roll recipe, but someone named Joyce mentioned in the comments of the recipe that they use a “silicone meat chopper” to press the Kaiser roll stamp into the dough, which I think is a genius idea. I haven’t tried it personally, but the shape seems right, so if you have one of those, you might want to bust it out and skip buying a dedicated stamp for the process.
Once the dough is shaped and stamped, you should flip the dough over onto a small 4 or 5-inch square piece of parchment paper. You do this because it helps to keep the design on top of the roll while the dough rises. Once it’s doubled in size, carefully flip the dough over onto a parchment-lined sheet pan to bake. The small piece of parchment helps you to be able to move the risen dough and flip it without pressing out all of the gas that has built up during the rise time.
Here’s my Kaiser roll recipe. Or you should be able to find a somewhat suitable Kaiser roll at your regular grocery store or deli that you can use to make your own version of a BEC.
Kaiser rolls
Some areas call a Kaiser roll a "hard roll," but this roll is anything but hard. The outside is a tiny bit crusty, and the interior is firm, but still squishy where it counts. This is a great roll for sandwiches or burgers.
Get RecipeBacon
I like to bake my bacon, but for one of the BECs that I made this week, I cooked three slices of bacon in a cast-iron pan. To me, the bacon gets to the same level of crispiness when it’s cooked in a pan or in the oven. But the oven process allows you to cook a lot of bacon with minimal cleanup.
I do like to reserve the bacon grease that is produced by both methods, and if you want an even more decadent sandwich, you can use that reserved grease to toast your roll and also cook your eggs. In a New York corner store or bodega, they’re definitely cooking their bacon and eggs on the same flat top griddle, which means they probably do get some of the bacon grease into the toasted roll and the eggs.
Oven-baked bacon: 400°F (205°C) for 20 to 30 minutes should do the trick. Save the bacon grease to use to toast bread or cook eggs.
Here’s my recipe for baking bacon in the oven. It’s simple, and as long as you cover your pan in foil properly, you won’t have to clean anything.
Oven-baked bacon
Want a super easy way to make a lot of bacon for sandwiches with very little effort or cleanup?
Get RecipeEgg
The eggs in a NY-style bacon, egg, and cheese are either fried or folded eggs. I personally find it much easier to prepare eggs in the folded style, which also gives you a place to add cheese where it will definitely get melty.
If you’re going to make your eggs the way I do, you’ll definitely need a pan that is liberally lubricated with butter or bacon fat so that nothing sticks. I like to make sure the eggs are in an even layer in the pan, and I use a silicone spatula to ensure that the edges of the egg aren’t sticking to the pan. I rotate or swirl the pan so that some of the liquid egg on top gets a bit of surface contact with the pan.
Once the top layer of the eggs seems mostly cooked, I toss in one slice of cheese and fold my eggs around that slice. I know that my Kaiser rolls are about the same size as the cheese slice, so that helps me visualize what size my bundle of eggs needs to be.
If I’m using a second slice of cheese, I will put that on top of the folded egg.
Cheese
The default cheese that you’ll find in a bacon, egg, and cheese in NYC will be American cheese. So that’s what I used. You can choose to use cheddar or another cheese if you want. You’re in charge of your own BEC—make yourself happy.
I tried bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches with one slice, two slices, and ended up feeling like one and a half slices was the sweet spot. I put one slice inside the folded egg and added extra cheese on top of the egg to melt while the bacon warmed or after the sandwich was assembled. The cheese inside the egg got melty and runny, and the additional cheese stayed a little less melted but brought some extra creaminess that was appreciated in this comforting sandwich.
SPK?
I personally do not think additional salt and pepper are needed when you make a bacon, egg, and cheese at home. Bacon is very salty on its own, and if you season your eggs properly, the sandwich will not need any extra salt. But I imagine that asking for more salt and pepper originated because the bodegas that were selling these sandwiches likely underseasoned their eggs so that they could also appeal to people who didn’t want quite as much salt and/or pepper in their food.
Ketchup, on the other hand, brings a whole new component to this sandwich. I do feel that it’s a fairly love-it-or-hate-it component, though, because there are a lot of people who get angry about ketchup on the internet. If you are one of the ketchup enjoyers out there, I think it works well. It brings a tiny bit of tart and a whole lot of sweetness to balance out all the savory flavors in bacon, eggs, and melty cheese.
Wrapping things up
A New York BEC that you can buy at a corner store or bodega will ALWAYS be wrapped in paper and/or foil for sanitary reasons. Those New Yorkers are always on the go, so they might need to eat their sandwiches on the run, and paper will help keep things neat and tidy. But the wrapping serves other purposes than just keeping melted cheese off your shirt.
Wrapping this sandwich in paper or foil is very important in your attempt to replicate the bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches that you might get at the corner store in New York.
The wrapping time gives the sandwich extra time to steam, it softens the bread and ensures that all the cheese will be melty and the ingredients will meld together. You do not have to wrap your sandwich in your own kitchen, but you probably should do it at least once to see what I mean. You simply need a square piece of butcher paper, parchment, or aluminum foil, and you can watch how I do it in this very short video that I’ve shared.
Bacon egg and cheese recipes and photos
Scroll through to check out some of the photos of all the bacon, egg, and cheese action I got up to this week. Just a bit further down the page is a pretty simple recipe for this comforting New York-style classic. Make your own BEC and SPK it if you want. Or just enjoy as is for a great breakfast.
New York-style bacon, egg, and cheese
Live too far away from a corner store or bodega? I've got you covered with this easy and super tasty recipe for a close-as-I-can-get to an authentic NYC BEC comforting sandwich experience.
Ingredients:
- 3 slices of bacon
- 2 large eggs
- pinch of salt and black pepper
- reserved bacon grease
- 1 Kaiser roll or hard roll
- 1 to 2 slices American cheese (or cheddar cheese)
- mayonnaise and/or ketchup plus any extra salt and pepper (optional)
Directions:
Cook bacon: you can either cook three slices in a pan until its crispy, or you can bake the bacon in the oven. I typically bake a whole bunch at a time and reheat it as needed. Here is my baked bacon recipe. Either way you cook it, make sure you reserve the bacon grease to be used in other parts of this sandwich.
In a small or medium bowl, crack two eggs and scramble them together well with a fork or whisk. Add a small pinch of salt and any black pepper if desired. Move the bowl of eggs to the side to rest while you toast your roll.
Add a teaspoon of bacon grease to a non-stick pan over medium heat, and when the grease is liquid and hot, place a split roll in the pan and move both pieces around to make sure they are coated in the grease. Toast the bun for 2 to 3 minutes or until the roll is just starting to get toasted and has just a tiny bit of golden brown color.
Remove the pan from the heat and wipe it out. Place the roll on a plate or cooling rack while you cook the eggs.
Add 2 teaspoons of bacon grease to the wiped-out pan and place it back over medium to medium-low heat.
Pour in the eggs and using a spatula or turner, scramble them for a few minutes until some small curds start to form. Clean up any eggs at the edges of the pan, and if there's still a lot of liquid on top of your eggs, tilt the pan so that the liquid runs to the sides and starts cooking faster. Continue cooking, tightening the edges until the top of the eggs is still moist looking, but not super wet.
At this point you can add a slice of cheese right to the middle of the eggs. After the cheese has been added, we're going to use it as a guide for how to fold the eggs. Start lifting up and loosening the edges of the eggs near the sides of the pan. Flip all four edges over on top of the slice of cheese, forming a folded egg package around the cheese slice.
After the eggs are formed into a folded package, add any additional cheese slices on top, and add the already cooked bacon to the pan. Turn the stove heat off and let everything sit in the pan, warming while you prepare the roll.
Add any mayo and/or ketchup to your toasted roll.
Build the sandwich by adding the egg and cheese package, and then top with bacon. I typically cut each slice of bacon in half so that I have 6 pieces to arrange in layers on top of the eggs. Top everything with the top of the Kaiser roll, and the sandwich is built.
For an authentic NYC-style bacon, egg, and cheese experience, you probably should wrap the sandwich in paper or foil for just a couple of minutes before eating. This will steam all of the ingredients and ensure that everything is warm and melty. Wrapping is easy. You just need a square of paper or foil (NYC bodegas typically use both).
Check back next week
Next week will be 2026, and maybe that’s the year we get jetpacks and flying cars that we can drive to get sandwich ingredients!
Christian Givens says:
Just confirming that the kaiser roll rising process is done with the stamped side down. It’s clearly what you write, but there’s no photo of them stamped side down, so I’m just checking.
Jonathan Surratt says:
Yes you’re right. I’ll update the post when I get a chance. Thanks!