Full English Breakfast

December 30, 2024

Sometimes called a fry up, a full English is a hearty, hefty breakfast plate served in the UK and Ireland. Full English breakfasts are so popular that they’re pretty much offered throughout the day as all-day breakfast. Full English breakfasts contain: sausages, back bacon, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, fried bread, and beans.

Summary

  • Prep Time: 5 min
  • Cook Time: 25 min
  • Other:
  • Total Time: 30 min
  • Servings:
  • Yield:

Ingredients

  • 1 can beans Heinz preferred
  • 4 links sausages breakfast sausage preferred
  • 4 slices back bacon or Irish bacon
  • 4 slices black pudding optional… some say
  • 1 cup mushrooms halved or sliced
  • 2 small tomatoes halved
  • 4 slices bread
  • 4 eggs

Directions

  1. Heat up the beans over low in a small pot. Keep warm on low.
  2. Cook the sausages over medium to medium low heat, turning occasionally, until brown and cooked through. In the same pan, cook the bacon, flipping as needed. Fry the blood pudding slices over medium heat for 3-4 minutes per side.
  3. In another pan, heat up a bit of oil and cook the mushrooms, without moving, until brown and caramelized. Remove from the pan, then sear the cut side of the tomato briefly. Remove from the pan, season everything with salt and pepper.
  4. Wipe the pan down and heat up a bit of oil or butter over medium heat. Fry the bread until golden, flipping and adding more oil or butter as needed. Remove and set aside. Finally, fry the eggs to your liking. Plate everything up: sausages, bacon, black pudding, mushrooms, tomato, bread, and eggs. Enjoy immediately!
    • Note on plating – Scoop the beans in the middle of the plate then add the bacon at 1-2 o’clock, add the sausages at 3 o’clock, then the eggs at 6. If you have blood pudding, pop that on at 8 o’clock and then fill the rest of the plate with the tomatoes at 11 o’clock and the mushrooms at 12. Fried bread can get tucked in wherever or placed on a side plate.

Adjustments

  • None

History

  • 2024-12-30 – Since I couldn’t find black pudding and almost everyone else told me they wouldn’t eat it even if it were here, I made up some breakfast sausage patties to go with typical breakfast sausage links from the store. Not easy to do this for 9 people but I got help from Dustin during the rush of eggs and toast. I enjoyed the result very much.

Notes

  • Sausages – I think everyone just goes with whatever sausages they like, but sometimes there are 2-3 kinds on a plate. We went with regular breakfast sausages and we also got a bit of black pudding, which seems like most people insist on having as well.
  • Back Bacon – This isn’t your regular bacon, which is made from pork belly, nope, back bacon is bacon that includes a little bit of the loin, kinda like a super thin pork chop but smoked. From what I can see, this kind of bacon isn’t really crispy.
  • Eggs – Pretty straight forward, all the full English plates I’ve seen have sunny side up eggs.
  • Tomatoes – These guys are cut in half along the equator and then seared in the pan and seasoned with salt and pepper. They aren’t really cooked, just given a little bit of color.
  • Mushrooms – Seems like a take or leave it item, but we’re going all out here so of course mushrooms are needed. They’re cooked in the usual way, nicely browned and caramelized.
  • Toast – Don’t call it toast because I’ve seen some internet fights break out about the bread. You can’t just use a toaster and call it a day. The bread has to be FRIED, either with butter or oil
  • Beans – You have to have beans! I mean, I’ve never really had beans at breakfast, but it’s classic. We went for Heinz because that’s what they do in England and because their teal cans are too cute.

References