Add A Subtle Sweetness To Breakfast Sandwiches With This Bread Swap

The breakfast sandwich is among the world's most perfect foods. For one, a breakfast sandwich can be made from almost anything, including French toast. Even the classic bacon, egg, and cheese variety can be personalized in all kinds of ways — by adding hot sauce, charring the bacon, or serving it on a bagel, bialy, or roll — and still maintain its iconic appearance. And there's another subtle ingredient swap that can shake up not only those famous BECs, but all breakfast sandwiches: Hawaiian rolls.

Still a relative youngster, the Hawaiian roll's creation can be credited to U.S. Army interpreter-turned-baker Robert R. Taira in Hawaii in the 1950s. Taira perfected the sweet, soft, light bread in the eponymous bakery that he would later move to Honolulu's King Street. That, of course, became the celebrated King's Hawaiian brand still recognizable by its orange packaging from a grocery aisle away. Other large and small bakeries produce their own contributions to the Hawaiian roll landscape, but King's reigns supreme. As a result, if your breakfast sandwich ends up on a Hawaiian roll, odds are it'll be on King's bread.

Although they're mass-produced, your closest bodega, deli, diner, or corner store is unlikely to stock the shelf-stable baked goods for morning meals ordered out, so Hawaiian roll breakfast sandwiches are probably going to be a home-cooked treat. That means that you can stack them however you please, with some common-sense exceptions. For instance, the Hawaiian roll should be your singular source of sweetness. Sugary jams, jellies, or even fruit compotes will likely be overwhelming. Instead, find a balance with subtler cheese and savory protein.

To zhuzh up that quintessential bacon, egg, and cheese, for example, prepare the seasoned slices of bacon to your desired doneness and choose a nice, mild Swiss for a masterfully calibrated breakfast bite. You can also swap the typically salty American for lower sodium cheddar in your sausage alternative for the ideal flavor balance of creamy, salty, and sweet. Prepared in your own kitchen, the possibilities are unlimited. And you won't even need any deli paper, a must for a bacon, egg, and cheese taken to go, to keep it all together.