#1 Tailgate Breakfast Sandwich Meal Prep Guide | Tailgate Wife (2024)

Last updated on January 6th, 2021 at 05:02 am

Breakfast sandwiches are Just. So. Good. They are the staple of tailgating! They’re also our standby Sunday breakfast, along with chocolate-chip pancakes for the kids. When Covid trashed our tailgating fun this year, hubs and I decided to still enjoy some of our favorite foods – like tailgate breakfast sandwiches – on game day. To my great fortune, he’s taken on the breakfast sandwich meal prep entirely by himself!

Y’all. That means I get to sleep in on Sunday. Wifebird for the win!

(That is, of course, as long as the breakfast sandwich meal prep doesn’t involve cutting open sausage links and patting them into patties. That’s been my job, so lately we’ve been doing pork roll or leftover turkey breast, etc. Hah!)

I think it’s worth noting that tailgate breakfasts are some of my very favorite kinds of breakfasts.

If you like this post, please also check out my Triple Crown Breakfast Stromboli Recipe – it’s my most requested Eagles tailgating menu item!

DIY Breakfast Sandwich Meal Prep at Home

So many people are super used to just getting delicious breakfast sandwiches from eager suppliers like Wawa, Dunkin, Burger King, McDonalds, and Starbucks.

It’s hard to beat a breakfast sandwich from anywhere!

There’s just something very satisfying about making your own, though.

Breakfast sandwich meal prep timing and complexity can vary from one week to the next, depending on what you like to make.

You’ll need to decide on a few factors to boil down to your perfect breakfast sandwich.

1. Meats – Cook these first as most times they take the longest.
2. Bun Style – While the meat is cooking, toast or grill your bread, if desired. When you flip the meat over, put the buns on top of the meat so they stay hot.
3. Egg Style – Make your eggs while the meat is just finishing up.
4. Cheese – Simply slap the cheese on the eggs after you flip them.

Breakfast Sandwich Meats

Here are the breakfast meats ranked in order of easiest (1) to most time consuming (5). I’ve also included the breakfast sandwich meats prep steps.

1. Pre-made Sausage Patties – Easy peasy if they come that way. Simply throw them on the skillet and brown until done.
2. Ham – When we have leftover ham, it works out great on a breakfast sandwich! So easy, too, since hubby slices with the electric knife the night we make it. All you have to do with leftover ham is warm it up!
3. Pork Roll – Simply slice and fry! We get the big daddy of all pork roll at Walmart and it lasts us two rounds of breakfast sandwich meal prep.
4. Bacon – We bake ours to limit the greasy mess. Comes out great! Simply preheat the oven to 375 and lay the bacon slices next to each other on a baking sheet. Cook for 10 – 15 minutes or until desired doneness.
5. DIY Sausage Patties – These are a bit more involved because you have to remove the casing to make the patties. Simply cut along the casing and remove the meat. Pat it into sausage patties that are thinner than hamburgers and about as wide as your roll or bun. Fry until browned on both sides and cooked through.

Egg Style for Breakfast Sandwiches

We fry our eggs over hard, but you can do whatever you like! When trying to figure out the timing for breakfast sandwich meal prep, fry up your eggs after the meat is done because they cook quickly.

1. Fried egg over hard
2. Fried egg over easy
3. Sunnyside up
4. Egg-white only
5. Scrambled eggs
6. Whatever else we’re missing…

Cheese for Breakfast Sandwiches

We usually just use American cheese but I’ve also enjoyed cheddar or provolone on my breakfast sandwiches. I think you have a lot of creative flexibility in deciding which cheese to use to complete your breakfast sandwich.

Throw it on the warm eggs when they’re done cooking and voila!

• White American (Preferably Cooper Sharp)
• Yellow American
• Provolone
• Cheddar Cheese
• Your other cheese preference

Choices of Breakfast Sandwich Buns

So many possibilities exist for a phenomenal breakfast sandwich!

Consider these bread options for your meal:

• Bagel, sliced in half and toasted
• Croissant, sliced in half
• English Muffin, sliced in half and grilled or toasted
• Biscuit, freshly warmed in the oven
• Toast, as a backup plan if you forgot any of the above

Other bread products may also work for you, but these are the ones we use the most.

Lately the croissant breakfast sandwich is proving to be the best of these as it’s not too much carb in comparison to the meat and egg.

Tailgate Breakfast Sandwiches Combinations

Our favorite breakfast sandwich combinations:

• Ham, Egg and Cheese Sandwich with bacon
• Sausage, Egg and Cheese Sandwich with bacon
• Pork Roll, Egg and Cheese Sandwich with bacon
• Turkey, Bacon, Egg and Cheese Sandwich

As you can see, bacon is very important to the success of our breakfast sandwiches.

Did I mention we actually have a toaster that is sold as an all-in-one breakfast sandwich maker?

It’s pretty cool but we have lately found it more fulfilling to do our breakfast sandwich meal prep our own way.

A steak breakfast sandwich is not yet in our repertoire but I am truly thinking about it for one of the next few breakfast sandwich meal prep sessions. I bet we could get some nice, thinly sliced ribeye or some equivalent for a delicious change.

Perhaps a steak egg and cheese sandwich would make the perfect holiday breakfast or brunch… I’ll dig into that later.

Meal Prep Breakfast Sandwiches for a Crowd

Cooking for a crowd is a little different than doing breakfast sandwich meal prep for our little family of four.

So, I’ll also give you the rundown of how to meal prep breakfast sandwiches for tailgating or a bigger gathering.

The secret to success with tailgate breakfast sandwiches is getting ahead of the game. The night before the tailgate, you’re going to want to do as much as possible.

Here’s the breakdown. (And for the love of football, don’t forget the butter!)

(Steps may vary depending on what kinds of breakfast sandwiches you choose.)

Meal Prep Pre-Tailgate

• Cook the bacon so you just have to warm it up.
• Slice the pork roll and wrap it tightly.
• Prepare any sausage patties and cook them so they just have to be warmed.
• Check that you have enough cheese for breakfast sandwiches and burgers or whatever else you’re making.
• Pack the butter. Seriously. I never remember the damn butter to lubricate the tailgate grill! #$@&*
• Put everything that will fit in a small, zippered picnic cooler in your fridge. This makes an early morning a lot easier when you’re trying to get out of the house at dawn!

Meal Prep While Tailgating

1. Reheat any pre-cooked breakfast meats.
2. Butter the tailgate grill’s plates and cook the eggs.
3. Slice the bagels, English muffins or croissants.
4. Toss the cheese on top and assemble the sandwiches.
5. Grab ‘em while they’re hot!

We find it works out pretty well to have at least two people doing the breakfast sandwich meal prep on game day.

You’ve got someone slicing rolls and assembling the sandwiches and someone completely different grilling.

Depending on the size of the crowd, you may benefit from a little extra teamwork on the meal prep.

Tailgate Breakfast Sandwiches

Serious tailgaters start early! If it’s 6-6:30 a.m. and you haven’t left your house yet for a 1 o’clock game, you’re totally doing it wrong!

(At least to keep up with our crew!)

Remember, your tailgate breakfast sandwiches can be anything you want them to be. But… I’ll give you a simple breakfast sandwich recipe that works for us using hubby’s Coleman Roadtrip tailgate grill when we enjoy our Philadelphia Eagles tailgating!

Tailgate Breakfast Sandwiches Web Story

***

I gotta say it.

My Eagles fan of a husband makes the most delicious and best ultimate breakfast sandwich. Every weekend, I think I’m eating the best sandwich of my life. Then he does it again the following weekend and it tastes even better.

In fact, the only thing that tastes better than that is a tailgate breakfast sandwich made in D Lot in 2018 a few weeks before the Eagles won the Super Bowl.

Boom. Immortal.

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