While visiting a taqueria in San Diego, I discovered the breakfast burrito: sausage, ham, cheese, egg and potato all steaming hot inside a tortilla. As all the components of a full English breakfast are readily available here in the UK, I decided to make my own version of this dish at home.

Here is my recipe. I didn’t skimp on prep time but there are definitely some convenience shortcuts, which I have included within the method.

Preparation and cooking time: 30 minutes

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Ingredients

Per burrito (one burrito per person kept us full for hours):

  • One sausage (or corresponding amount of sausage meat)
  • Two rashers of streaky bacon (or ham - thick cut is probably best)
  • Three eggs
  • Handful of grated mild cheddar cheese
  • Medium-sized potato, about the size of two eggs
  • One soft tortilla wrap
  • Dash of cooking oil

Method

Preheat your oven to gas mark 7 / 425f / 220c / 200c (fan).

Peel and wash your potato.

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Cut it in half across the width, then slice it into short, skinny chips (eg 3cm * 0.7cm * 0.7cm). You don’t want them too fat or too long, otherwise they will take a long time to cook and you’ll have a lumpy burrito.

Put them in a baking tray / ovenproof dish and add a dash of cooking oil. Make sure all the chips have a thin layer of oil on them. Season according to your own taste (I like garlicy chips).

Cook them for 20 minutes in the oven.

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While they are cooking, skin your sausages. Divide the sausage meat into small pieces, about the size of peanut M&Ms. At this point, I removed any obvious big pieces of fat from the sausage meat. Yes, I know this fat is present when I cook the sausages whole, but when you can see it, it’s different…

Cook the sausage pieces over a medium heat in a pan. Don’t be tempted to turn the heat up high, as you want the sausage to be cooked all the way through.

Convenience shortcut: Leave the sausages in their skins and cook them under the grill, then cut them into small pieces.

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Whisk your eggs. No need to add salt, as there is loads in the processed meats and cheese. Scramble the eggs over a low to medium heat until they are almost cooked.

Fry the bacon rashers in the sausage pan or convenience shortcut: put them on the grill with the sausages.

Cut the bacon rashers into bite-sized pieces.

Wrap the tortilla in foil (I laid them out flat) and heat them in the oven per the instructions on the packet (mine said eight minutes). Convenience shortcut: you can heat them for eight seconds in the microwave instead (don’t use foil with this method).

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Grate the cheese.

A minute or two before the chips are cooked and the tortilla are warmed, add the sausages, bacon and cheese to the eggs in the pan and turn the heat back on. Finish scrambling the eggs. The cheese should melt by the time the eggs are cooked.

Remove the chips and tortilla from the oven. Blot excess oil from the chips if necessary.

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Transfer the egg mixture from the pan to the tortilla.

Add the chips to the mixture, distributing evenly.

Tuck both ends of the tortilla in and roll your burrito.

Enjoy!

What I’ll do differently next time

  • I didn’t get much of a stretch on the cheese, and I love stretchy cheese, so next time instead of adding it to the pan, I will spread a layer of it over the tortilla so it encases the mixture and is not cooked into it.

  • I will probably heat the tortilla in the microwave because it’s much quicker and will therefore help me manage my time better.