Ultimate Sheet Pan Bacon, Egg, & Cheese Breakfast Slab Sandwich
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A dream to create a breakfast sandwich for a crowd made entirely on a sheet pan (or three) led to this sandwich. It’s sheet pan eggs meet sheet pan focaccia meets sheet pan bacon. Together, along with some greens, the three unite to make an ultimate breakfast slab sandwich to feed a crowd.
Real talk: This is a bit of an undertaking.
BUT with a bit of planning, you can pull it off. How much fun would this be for a Father’s Day or graduation brunch?
Breakfast Slab Sandwich Game Plan
- Mix your focaccia dough on Saturday evening after dinner.
- On Sunday morning, remove the dough from the fridge (no later than 7 am) to allow it to make its second rise.
- While the focaccia rises, cook the bacon.
- When the focaccia is ready (2 to 4 hours after it has been removed from the fridge), dimple it and bake it.
- While it cools, bake the eggs.
- When the eggs are done, the focaccia will have rested long enough to be halved and layered with all the goodness.
Once all the components are ready, assembly is fast and fun. You can do it!
PS: FREE Bacon for life. Learn more here. [Affiliate link; offer ends July 7th]
Sheet Pan Eggs …
Sheet Pan Bacon …
Sheet Pan Focaccia…
Assembly time!
Brunch time! Invite over the neighborhood!
Ultimate Sheet Pan Breakfast Slab Sandwich with Bacon, Eggs, & Cheese
- Total Time: 18 hours 25 minutes
- Yield: 12 sandwiches
Description
This is sheet pan focaccia meets sheet pan eggs meet sheet pan bacon. I wrote about this for Food52 a few years ago. You can read more about it here.
Notes:
- Plan ahead: If you are making this for Father’s Day, start your dough Saturday evening. Pull it out first thing Sunday morning to let it make it’s second rise. Count on 4 to 5 hours from when you pull it from the fridge to when it will be ready to be served. So if you pull it out at 6 am, you could potentially have breakfast sandwiches by 10 or 11am.
- While the focaccia is rising, you can cook the bacon. While the focaccia cools (post baking), make the eggs.
Ingredients
Overnight Focaccia:
- 4 cups (512 g) all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 2 teaspoons instant yeast
- 2 cups lukewarm water, made by mixing 1/2 cup boiling water with 1 1/2 cups cold water
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- sea salt
Egg Sandwich:
- 1.5 pounds bacon
- 12 eggs
- kosher salt and pepper to taste
- splash cream
- 4 ounces grated Cheddar cheese
- 1/4 to 1/2 cups finely chopped chives
- lettuce
- hot sauce, mayonnaise, and other condiments for serving
Instructions
- Make the focaccia: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and instant yeast. Add the water. Using a rubber spatula, mix until the water is absorbed and the ingredients form a sticky dough ball.
- Cover the bowl with a tea towel or plastic wrap and set inside your refrigerator.
- The following morning (or 8 to 10 hours later), remove the bowl from the fridge. Line a rimmed sheet pan with parchment paper or coat with nonstick cooking spray. Pour 3 tablespoons oil on the sheet pan. Using two forks, deflate the dough by releasing it from the sides of the bowl and pulling it toward the center. Rotate the bowl in quarter turns as you deflate, turning the mass into a rough ball. Use the forks to lift the dough onto the prepared sheet pan. Roll the dough ball in the oil to coat it all over. Let it rest without touching it for 2 to 4 hours (depending on the temperature of your kitchen).
- Set a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat it to 425°F. Drizzle the remaining tablespoon of oil over the surface of the dough. With lightly greased hands, press down on the dough, using all 10 fingers to dimple and gently stretch the dough outward. Pull gently on the ends and stretch them toward the corners of the sheet pan. When the dough begins to resist being stretched, let it rest for 5 minutes, then stretch it again, continuing until it fits most of the sheet pan.
- Dimple lightly again. Sprinkle all over with sea salt. Transfer the sheet pan to the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the underside is golden and crisp. Remove the pan from the oven, and transfer the focaccia to a cooling rack. Let it cool for at least an hour before cutting.
- To cut the focaccia for the slab sandwich, trim off the very outer edges—this exposes the crumb, which makes it easier to halve. I like to start the halving process by cutting through each corner, then running the serrated knife through the short end until I get to the midway point, then starting from the other short end until I get to the midway point. A sharp, serrated knife is helpful. Try to keep your knife as parallel to the bread as possible, and I find if I hug the top layer as opposed to aiming for the center, I get a more even cut.
- Make the Egg Sandwich. Preheat the oven to 425ºF. Lay the bacon on a sheet pan. You will likely have to overlap pieces and lay pieces on top of one another to start, but don’t worry, they will shrink. Cook 10 minutes, remove pan from oven, and, using forks, spread out/separate the slices of bacon. Return pan to the oven, and cook for 10 to 15 more minutes or until the slices are looking crispy. Remove pan from the oven and transfer crisp slices to a paper-towel lined plate. If necessary, drain off some of the fat, and return the pan to the oven one last time to crisp up the remaining pieces. Transfer bacon to plate.
- Turn oven off to let it cool down faster. You can leave the door open, too, to expedite the cooling. You need it to be at 300ºF. Grease a half sheet pan (I use a cheap, nonstick Baker’s Secret sheet pan purchased from a grocery store—it measures 11×16.5 inches) very well with butter. Crack all 12 eggs in a big bowl, add salt and pepper and the splash of cream, then whisk until well combined. Add the chives, and gently fold until mixed. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan. Sprinkle with cheese evenly. Bake until the eggs are just set, about 15 minutes.
- Transfer the bottom half of the focaccia slab onto a cutting board. When the eggs have cooked, use an offset spatula to loosen them from the pan, then transfer to the bread. Trim off any excess, overhanging eggs. Lay the bacon on top. Scatter the lettuce on top. Top with the top half of bread. Cut the sandwich into 12 pieces (2 cuts through the short end; 3 cuts through the long end). Serve with hot sauce, mayonnaise and any other condiments you like.
- Prep Time: 18 hours
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Sheet Pan
- Cuisine: American
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9 Comments on “Ultimate Sheet Pan Bacon, Egg, & Cheese Breakfast Slab Sandwich”
Very handy. I’ll be making this, this summer when I visit family.
Yay!
How well would this freeze? It sounds like a great breakfast before work.
I can’t say! The focaccia freezes beautifully, but I don’t know how it would re-heat assembled. Were you thinking about oven? or microwave?
This is a really interesting recipe. I have the same question as a previous commenter, how would this freeze assembled? Any tips on this? I would be willing to reheat it in either microwave or the oven. As well, would I be able to make these eggs in the USA pan (just a 9×13 batch, not the large half sheet pan), or would the lines on the bottom of the pan make the eggs get stuck? Of course I would use less eggs. Thank you!
Absolutely re USA pan — go for it.
Regarding freezing, I just don’t know. If you want to freeze, I would leave out the lettuce. I worry that microwaving frozen sandwiches will give you soggy bread and a soggy total product?? It might be ok, but it’s so hard to say, and I hate thinking about you wasting a ton of ingredients.
Made these and they were a hit! I was making them for a bigger crowd so I cut each rectangle diagonally into two triangles. I also needed them earlier in the morning, so I made/assembled/cut and wrapped each in parchment paper the day before I served. Then in the morning I heated them in the oven at 250 until they were warmed through. They were great!
Wow, amazing to read all of this! Thank you so much for writing and sharing your make-ahead and re-heating tips… brilliant!!
Love the idea for this–but the idea of a morning project seems more work than necessary (not to mention a stressful 2 to 4H second rise which will depend on how cold the initial dough was and how warm the kitchen is…hungry kids will need a predictable feeding time). )Why not make the focaccia the day before? And bake the bacon? The focaccia will slice better cold and can easily be reheated in the oven for a few minutes in the residual heat from cooking the eggs. The bacon can either be reheated with the focaccia or crumbled into the egg mix before cooking (you lose the crispy but gain a less messy sandwich).
I make focaccia both with and without the fridge step (using ¼ the yeast and using a 6-8H ish first rise at room temp), and I honestly can’t tell the difference other than speeding things up. I add dried rosemary to my dough and I skip deflating the oiled dough from the first rise—just dump it from bowl to oiled and lined dish and I then let the soft and wet dough spread out and rise another hour or so before dimpling, oiling and topping with smoked salt, herbs and whatever catches my fancy (olives and cherry tomatoes are esp nice).