Broccoli Breakfast Sandwich

Hi, good day to you. I have been eating broccoli breakfast sandwiches for breakfast since 2017, and I’m here to spread the good word to you: broccoli breakfast sandwiches are great.

New York sandwich-shop chef Tyler Kord wrote about a broccoli breakfast sandwich in his extremely good A Super Upsetting Cookbook About Sandwiches and I was intrigued, partly because it was one of the simpler recipes in the book. So I made it, and it was delicious. But why was it so delicious that I keep eating it, morning after morning?

Broccoli is wonderful. I can’t convince you of this any more than I can convince you that the color purple is pretty. Broccoli’s qualities become self-evident to you at some point later in life, when your taste buds are bored with sugar and ham and they crave something that reminds them of Mother Earth. Plus, enjoying broccoli gives you permission to eat a sandwich and feel fine about it, because if you went to a dietician and they asked what one food you think you eat the most and you said “broccoli,” they’d just back up and go “hey man, do whatever you want, I’m out.”

In case it hasn’t been made clear, the primary reasons I eat the Broccoli Breakfast Sandwich are:

  1. It’s tasty;
  2. It makes me feel good.

By now, you should be sitting there going, “alright, alright, give me the damn recipe already.” Here it comes!

Broccoli Breakfast Sandwich

Neven Mrgan’s daily version which differs from Tyler Kord’s version in ways I can’t remember right now

  • 1 head of broccoli
  • 1 slice of cheese (cheddar, sharp cheddar, whatever you like)
  • 1 egg (buy the good eggs for frying, live a little)
  • 1 English muffin, split
  • mayo (preferably Japanese kewpie brand)
  • ketchup (optional)
  • butter, oil, salt, pepper
  1. At some point during the week, roast your broccoli: break/cut it into bite-sized florets, toss with a bit of oil, place on a foil-lined sheet pan, and roast at 450º for about 15 minutes, flipping once if you’re in the kitchen at the time. Let it cool and store it in the fridge for the week. This makes like 4-6 sandwiches. (If you don’t want to pre-roast your broccoli, prep it any other way you like: steam it, boil it, microwave it, whatever gets it to like 80% cooked. But remember that roasting vegetables is the best thing in the world.)
  2. Butter one half of your muffin; put your cheese slice on the other half (folding the cheese corners in like you live on Battlestar Galactica.) Place the halves on a foil-lined sheet pan next to one sandwich’s worth of broccoli. Pop it all about 6″ under your broiler and let it go for 2-3 minutes; you want to see melted cheese, warm broccoli, and a browned muffin half; nothing darker than that. Salt the broccoli when done.
  3. Meanwhile, heat a drop of oil in a teeny little egg pan just big enough for one egg. Crack the egg in and gently pop the yolk, maybe. Hit it with salt and pepper. Let it go for a minute, then deftly flip it with a little spatula; turn off the heat pretty much immediately and you’re done with it. (Since you probably don’t own a one-egg pan yet, you can also fry or scramble the egg any other way you normally do until your cute new pan arrives from Amazon.)
  4. Arrange your broccoli on top of the melted-cheese muffin half, then top with the egg. Spread mayo and/or ketchup on the buttered + toasted muffin half. Combine the two halves and hum a triumphant fanfare tune. You’ve done it. You’ve made the Broccoli Breakfast Sandwich.

I should mention at this point that Tyler Kord’s original sandwich calls for deep-fried broccoli, but I’m not going to deep-fry anything in the morning since I’m not a restaurant. His sandwich is almost certainly even better; try it and let me know!

Which reminds me: I don’t always make the same exact broccoli sandwich. Depending on what’s in the fridge and how sassy I’m feeling, I might drop the ketchup or sub it with hot sauce; I might toast the whole thing in the manner of a grilled-cheese sandwich; I’ve been known to use black bean purée instead of cheese, for a Mexican torta vibe. The English muffin might take the morning off and have its role played by a fluffy burger bun. I used to scramble the eggs, but now I do more of an over-easy thing. All of this tastes good. Life is a journey.

You can also make a Broccoli Burger—if anyone fights you on it, have them call me and I’ll get them to apologize to you. Like, this one here has Russian-ish dressing of mayo, mustard, ketchup, diced pickle, and miso; then there’s diced onions, pickles; roasted broccoli finished in a hot pan with butter; cheddar, caramelized onions (the heavy hitter here), February Tomato™, and a bit more sauce. It’s all on a Franz Bakery burger bun, toasted of course. Does it taste like a beef burger? No. Ground beef doesn’t taste like roasted broccoli either, and it’s beef’s loss. Would I order this if places offered it? Definitely. (But they won’t.)

I didn’t want to junk up the recipe above any more by saying this when it first came up, but pre-roasting vegetables is such a smart move. You’re essentially committing to basing your weeknight dinners around practically-ready vegetables in the fridge, rather than around cold cuts or bread+cheese. So, pick up some broccoli, broccolini, cauliflower, eggplant, or sweet potatoes at the store; bring them home and send them on a hands-off journey in your oven until they’re soft and tasty—but not yet mushy!—and you’ll be the proud owner of such a good filling for sandwiches, burritos, frittatas, rice bowls, or even those fancy plates where you schmear on some tahini or whatever in the manner of a Japanese calligrapher, then top it with your veg. 

Your parents will be so proud of you. That friend of yours who exercises every day and eats salad for lunch will smile warmly. You’ll be a broccoli person.

Like me.