Breakfast
Freezer Breakfast Burritos
A breakfast sandwich from a coffee shop runs about six dollars. These cost about a dollar fifty, take an hour once, and sit in your freezer for three months. If you buy breakfast on the way to work, this single recipe will save you more money than anything else on this site.
Cost a serving$1.50
Time1 hour, makes 8
Serves8
Protein21g
Coffee shop breakfast sandwich costs about $6.50. This costs $1.50 a serving.
You save about $5 every time you make it instead.
What you need
Large skillet, Foil or parchment, Freezer bags
No special tools
No Food processor for the potatoes?Buy frozen diced hash brown potatoes. They are already cut, already blanched, and cost about two dollars a bag. There is no version of this where cutting your own potatoes is worth it.
No Second skillet?Cook in stages in one pan and pile things on a plate as you go. Everything gets rolled together anyway.
Ingredients
- 8 large flour tortillas (10 inch burrito size)
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 4 cups frozen diced hash brown potatoes
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 can (15 oz) black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 8 eggs, beaten with 1/4 teaspoon salt, or 1 lb plant-based sausage crumbles
- 2 cups shredded cheddar or pepper jack
- 1/2 cup jarred salsa
How to make it
- Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a large skillet over medium-high. Add the frozen potatoes in a single layer and leave them alone for 4 minutes. Moving them early is why home fries come out pale and steamy.
- Flip, season with the salt, paprika, and garlic powder, and cook 6 to 8 more minutes until browned in spots. Scrape onto a plate.
- In the same pan, warm the black beans with the cumin for 3 minutes, mashing about a third of them. Scrape onto the plate.
- Wipe the pan, add the last tablespoon of oil, and scramble the eggs over medium-low. Pull them off while they still look slightly wet. They will finish cooking on the plate, and they get reheated later, so undercooking them now is deliberate.
- Lay out a tortilla. Down the center put potatoes, beans, eggs, cheese, and a spoon of salsa. Do not overfill. Half a cup of filling total, max. An overfilled burrito bursts when it thaws.
- Fold the sides in first, then roll from the bottom, keeping it tight. Wrap in foil or parchment.
- Freeze them on a sheet pan for an hour, then move to a freezer bag. Freezing them separately first keeps them from fusing into a brick.
- To eat: unwrap, wrap in a damp paper towel, microwave 90 seconds, flip, microwave 60 more. For crisp edges, finish in a dry skillet 2 minutes per side.
Protein
About 21 grams each with eggs, 19 with plant-based sausage. That is a real breakfast that will actually hold you until lunch, which is the whole point of not buying one.
Ways to add more
- 1 lb plant-based sausage crumbles instead of eggs
- 1 block firm tofu, crumbled and cooked with turmeric and salt, for a vegan version
- Add a second can of beans and skip the eggs
Keeping it
Three months in the freezer, wrapped individually. Label them with the date, because you will forget.
Change it up
- Swap potatoes for cooked rice to make them cheaper still
- Add roasted frozen peppers and onions from the freezer aisle
- Green chile version: add a can of diced green chiles to the beans