Sheet Pan Breakfast

In our busy lives, eating well has taken a real hit. Whether it’s the full court press of work and family schedules or being stuck at home and now responsible for feeding the whole family 3 times a day, food is a challenge. Sheet pan meals have become quite the hot ticket both in terms of prepping and clean up. A long time fan of my roasting pan which is easily the most used piece of equipment in our kitchen, making the leap to sheet pan meals is proving to be a winner too.

Recently the NYT food newsletter referred to a sheet pan breakfast. I took a quick look and it was a super simple breakfast. I decided to go for it and am now ready to share and make future amendments. This is great for weekends and I highly recommend it for pandemic home bound mornings too.

I’m a fan of cooking, not a fan of clean up, so I take some extra steps on the front end of pretty much any use of our sheet pans to help reduce scrubbing time on the back end.

For the basic breakfast you will need:

• 1 large baking sheet
• Parchment paper, Exopat* silicone mat or both (non-stick aluminum foil would also do the job, just be careful not to pierce it while turning the bacon)
• Bacon
• Eggs
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees
2. Line the baking sheet with parchment so it extends up the sides of the pan all around (see photo) and place the exopat down in the pan.
3. Line the pan with bacon and place in the preheated oven for about 8 minutes or until the bacon begins to brown and curl.
4. Remove the pan. Turn the bacon over and condense the now smaller slices to a smaller space in the pan.
5. Crack the number of eggs you wish to serve onto the free end of the pan. It’s okay if the whites run together. Season lightly with salt and pepper to taste and return to the oven.
6. If you are making toast, now is the time to put the toast down!
7. The eggs will cook while the bacon completes crisping. This will take anywhere from 3-5 minutes depending on the thickness of the bacon and how you like the yolks of your eggs cooked. If some eggs are not quite ready but you don’t want to overcook, you can remove the pan a tad early and then tip the sheet just enough to gather some spoons of hot bacon grease and pour that over the egg yolks to help them finish cooking.
8. Voila! Sheet pan breakfast!

I plan on experimenting with this in the future. Some ideas are to add diced potatoes for a bit before the bacon to add roasted potatoes to the meal. I also want to add some sliced onion and or bell peppers to roast. In the summer adding some fresh tomatoes to the sheet to roast would be delightful. With a little tweaking I can see this working well for sausage, tofu and any kind of fresh produce (mushrooms anyone?!) you would like to add. Don’t want that leftover bacon grease to go to waste? Toss some veggies or hash browns on the pan and toss it back in the oven. Lunch will be ready by the time you are done eating breakfast. Have fun and use one pan to get it done!

*After many years of using a silicone mat for cooking, I strongly recommend only the Exopat mats made in France. They are readily available online and in cooking stores. They are far better than basic silicone baking mats, they can take heat, clean up great and like any good pan, the coloring the get over time doesn’t change their quality or usefulness. I use them routinely for everything from proteins to pastry. Regular silicone doesn’t compare and in my experience often requires a cooking spray to keep from sticking which defeats the purpose of the mat.