There is nothing I love more than an easy breakfast. When it is early in the morning, I want to give it limited thought or just grab and go. My staple for the last few months has been key lime Greek yogurt topped with granola or toasted coconut chips, however now that I am starting a new job I need something more portable and more rounded.
It was suggested in a group forum to make a bunch of breakfast sandwiches, bag them, and freeze them. This sounded like a fantastic idea so I tried it with a half a dozen first and it was a HUGE hit with my family. This time around I made a full dozen in about 45 minutes and figured I would share my under-300 calorie breakfast sandwich idea!
First, gather your ingredients. You will need:
- 1 dozen eggs
- fresh spinach, about 3 cups
- shredded cheese, about 1.5 cups
- 100 calorie English muffins or bagels
- ready-made refrigerated bacon or sausage
You will also need:
- a muffin pan
- parchment paper
- sandwich baggies
Let's get started! First,
heat your oven to 350 degrees. While you are waiting for it to warm, spray your muffin pan with non-stick spray. I use the organic one with olive oil. Grab you spinach and start stacking the leaves and plucking off the little stems. After you have a good stack, chop the leaves in to strips. I used half of a huge bag which I thing was around 3 cups.
As you
are chopping,
fill your muffin cups. Each cup holds about 1/4 cup of
shredded spinach which is only 2 calories. Spinach is loaded with fiber,
protein, zinc, vitamins A, C, E, K, iron and calcium!
Place one whole egg in each muffin cup right on top of your spinach. Your oven should be heated, so pop them in the oven for 15 minutes if you want runnier yolks or 20 minutes if you want firmer yolks. I prefer firmer ones :) Each egg is 80 calories (for the extra large) packs 6 grams of fat, 7 grams of protein, and has vitamin B-12!
Now, start toasting your English muffins or bagels! It goes by faster if you have a toaster with 2 spots, but it is the most boring part. Each of these muffins is 100 calories.
In between the English muffins popping up, open up your BACON! I use between 2-3 strips of bacon per muffin. These happen to be 70 calories for 3 strips. I divide them up into 12 piles, and then tear them in half so they fit on the muffin with out hanging over. The next time I make these, I am going to try the Morning Star sausage patties to try to reduce the fat count.
Your eggs should be done by now! And they should look just like this. Polk your yolks to make sure they are done the way you would like and grab your shredded cheese!
Sprinkle your cheese over top of your eggs while they are still hot so it will melt the cheese. I use less than 1/8 of a cup, and for this Mexican cheese blend it is 50 calories for 1/8 of a cup so that's the count I use. Cheese is a great source of calcium. If you use a reduced fat cheese, you can reduce your calories and saturated fat :)
While you are letting your cheese melt and your eggs cool, set up your assembly station! Grab your parchment paper, sandwich baggies, bacon, muffins, and a fork and knife to dig out your eggs. I like to take a sharpie and label the baggies (as I made some last time with no spinach so my dad would eat them).
Stack them up! The eggs should pop right out of the muffin cup and fit perfectly onto your English muffin. If you are going to eat one right now, don't forget to cook your bacon ;)
Fold up each sandwich in parchment paper. This will help keep them from getting frost bite in the freezer. To reheat, transfer to a paper towel and microwave for 1 minute. It will taste delicious and homemade!
Admittedly, this batch ended up being a little higher in fat than I had thought, but by having these for breakfast and not going to McDonald's or any other fast food chain you will be significantly cutting down on your fat, sodium, and preservative intake. Not to mention you will be saving money!
I have other ideas for sandwiches such as switching to veggie sausage and a reduced fat cheese and I hope they turn out as delicious as these did!
Jenn
There is nothing I love more than an easy breakfast. When it is early in the morning, I want to give it limited thought or just grab and go. My staple for the last few months has been key lime Greek yogurt topped with granola or toasted coconut chips, however now that I am starting a new job I need something more portable and more rounded.
Let's get started! First, heat your oven to 350 degrees. While you are waiting for it to warm, spray your muffin pan with non-stick spray. I use the organic one with olive oil. Grab you spinach and start stacking the leaves and plucking off the little stems. After you have a good stack, chop the leaves in to strips. I used half of a huge bag which I thing was around 3 cups.
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