Okay, I admit some mornings I skip breakfast, and others are a bowl of cereal with oat milk or even a fruit smoothie, but when I have all the ingredients, I love cooking up a quick breakfast burrito and tossing it on the panini grill to finish it off, ready to eat. My core ingredients are a few scrambled eggs, some protein source or other, and some cheese since I am a big cheese fan. This morning when I started to cook up yet another of my breakfast burritos, I thought I’d document the process for your edification. It’s really easy and one of the best arguments for getting a panini grill too (and they are fantastic for sandwiches too. We use ours at least weekly).
To start out, I add two organic eggs to my frying pan and then maybe a half-teaspoon of Cholula. Because let’s be candid, there’s no food that isn’t enhanced by some Cholula! 😉
While that’s starting to cook up, I then take a tortilla and put it directly over my gas burner. This is the trickiest step because ya gotta move fast, sliding it around to warm it up on both sides without burning your fingers in the process.
Yeah, there are probably better ways to do this with tongs or similar, but the goal remains the same: Warm up your tortilla and it’s more flexible and less susceptible to breaking or tearing when you fold it.
Now it’s time to dump the rest of the ingredients into the frying pan after giving it an enthusiastic stir to break up the eggs and get that hot sauce all blended nicely.
I added organic sliced turkey from Whole Foods (their local in-house cracked pepper variety) along with about a half-cup of veggies & rice leftovers from last night’s dinner. All tossed in the frying pan, it’s looking – and smelling! – delicious:
Bright and colorful as food should be. Once it looks done, I flip it all over once, turn off the burner and let it sit in the frying pan while I prep the tortilla. Since I like to add cheese, I will put it directly on the tortilla. Shredded is best, but since I didn’t have any in the house today, I opted instead to tear up a slice of organic American cheese and spread it out.
Dump all the ingredients onto the tortilla and it’ll immediately start melting that cheese. Ahhh, the smell…
If you’ve popped by your local tortillaria you might think “dang, it’s easy to fold a burrito”, but turns out that it isn’t so much! Fortunately, you don’t have to get it neat and square, so whatever ya gotta do to close up the ends, it’ll work. I generally roll mine up like a soft taco, then fold up the ends as best I can.
Carefully place it on the panini grill – mine is a Cuisinart unit that they don’t appear to make any more, but this model is probably closest – and it’s ready to be browned up to a crisp:
Does that give you a sense of claustrophobia? 😁
The good news is that it’s about a 3-4 minute process, all told, and when done, I just cut my hot breakfast burrito in half. Placed on a plate, ya gotta admit, it looks delicious, doesn’t it?
I can happy report that it tasted delicious too, and is plenty enough food and protein to keep me going through a busy morning. Cleanup is easy too: I quick rinse my frying pan while it’s still hot, and the panini grill is super easy to clean as long as the burrito doesn’t leak!
So that’s my go to breakfast. What could you add to it? Quite a lot. I’m sure some breakfast sausage or bacon would be amazing, and salsa would give it a more Mexican or Central American vibe if you’re so inclined. Regardless, give it a shot: Your kids will love ’em too.