A good breakfast burrito is outstanding, but the apprehension is understandable since it's actually harder to do well than a "supper" burrito. (Many commercially available breakfast burritos are insipid mounds of repurposed scrambled eggs with bacon shards and perfunctory bottled salsa.) I hardly ever eat breakfast burritos outside the home for this reason. When I make them at home, the contents are as follows:
- Scrambled egg with aged white cheddar and chopped green onion
- Some sort of bean (typically black beans, drained and well-rinsed; avoid canned refried beans, which look and smell like cat food).
- Potato (salty crunch is important here otherwise the sort of slimy mushiness of scrambled eggs is overdetermined; leftover potatoes diced and fried are fine, but I I think frozen hashbrowns or even tater tots have a perfect crispy greasiness, season them with smoked paprika, cumin, garlic powder, and salt).
- A final dash of red and green colour (red and/or green peppers, chopped tomato, chopped coriander, that sort of thing).
Wrap them properly (don't just fold the the tortilla over itself as I see some people do), then wrap in tinfoil. Give them a few minutes in a 350 oven. Even if your fillings were warm you'll want them to mingle a bit more, plus there's nothing more heartbreaking than a storebought tortilla that hasn't been reheated.
Serve with hot sauce, something like cholula if you can find it but tabasco or sriracha will do in a pinch. That's right, hot sauce, no bottled salsa, and no sour cream. (Scrambled egg and sour cream is a flavour profile nonbo). If you're lucky to live somewhere where good avocadoes are available, go for it, but they're rare enough here that I tend to skip it (bad avocado is worse than no avocado).
You'll note I have not included any reference to meat here, but that's because my dear wife is a vegetarian. If I was making these just for myself I would consider smoked ham or chorizo ahead of bacon. I have had many breakfast burritos where the bacon was a nonbo, either by being overcooked or not chopped enough such that an entire strip of bacon would drag the contents of the burrito out when bitten. Chorizo is thematically appropriate but sometimes insanely greasy. Plain old ham, chopped, is the probable winner here and it provides for the most even meat agenda density throughout burrito R&D.
Holy shit I'm starving now! Later dudes.
