Full English Breakfast
Full English Breakfast Say it: full ING-glish BREK-fust
A full English breakfast is the great British cooked plate: sausages, back bacon, fried eggs, baked beans, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms, often black pudding and always toast, all served together hot. It is eaten on weekend mornings at home, in cafés and in hotel dining rooms, and it is as much about timing as cooking — everything ready at once. Savoury, salty and crisp-edged, with runny yolks and sweet beans to cut through the fat, it is a plate that sets up the whole day.
Full English Breakfast
Full English Breakfast
Pronounced full ING-glish BREK-fust
- Serves
- 4
- Prep
- 10 min
- Cook
- 30 min
- Total
- 40 min
- Level
- Medium
Also nut-free.
Allergens: contains gluten, milk, egg. Check labels on packaged ingredients.
Ingredients
Amounts are scaled. Cooking times and pan sizes stay the same.
Meat and pudding
Vegetables and beans
Eggs and toast
Method
Heat the oven to 200°F (100°C) and slide four plates in to warm. Warm the baked beans gently in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring now and then, and keep them barely simmering while you cook everything else.
Fry the sausages in a large heavy frying pan over medium heat for 15–18 minutes, turning every few minutes, until deep golden brown all over and no pink remains at the centre.
Lay the bacon in the pan and cook for 3–4 minutes on each side, until the fat renders and the edges crisp and curl slightly. Lift onto the warm plates.
Season the tomato halves and grill them cut side up for 8–10 minutes, until the surfaces blister and soften. In the same pan, cook the mushrooms in the butter for 6–8 minutes, until browned and tender.
If using black pudding, fry the slices in the oil for 2–3 minutes on each side, until crisp at the edges but still soft inside, then set aside with the bacon.
Melt half the remaining butter with a teaspoon of the oil in a small non-stick pan over medium-low heat. Crack in the eggs and fry for 2–3 minutes, spooning hot fat over the whites, until the whites are just set and the yolks still runny.
Toast the bread until golden and crisp, butter it with the rest of the butter while hot, and cut each slice in half.
Divide everything between the warm plates, with the beans in a small pool beside the eggs, and season the eggs and tomatoes with salt and pepper. Serve at once, while the yolks are still soft.
Regional variant: Northern full English with black pudding and fried bread
In the north of England the plate almost always carries black pudding and fried bread. Fry the pudding slices after the bacon, 2–3 minutes a side, and instead of toasting the bread, fry the slices in the leftover bacon fat for about 1 minute a side until golden and crisp, then drain briefly on kitchen paper and butter lightly.
Cook's notes
- Cook in this order — sausages, bacon, black pudding, tomatoes and mushrooms, eggs last — so nothing sits and goes cold; keep finished items on a tray in the low oven.
- Moderate heat in a heavy pan gives crisp bacon without burning the butter; pour off excess fat between batches and use a little of it for the mushrooms or bread.
- Warm plates matter as much as the cooking: a full English is only as good as its timing.
Serve with
Hot strong tea or coffee, brown sauce or tomato ketchup, and a glass of orange juice.
Make ahead and storage
The meat, pudding and vegetables can be cooked up to 20 minutes ahead and kept warm in a low oven; the beans reheat well. Fry the eggs at the last minute.
