Breakfast for dinner is this weird meal that straddles the boundary between “fun-time treat” and “food of despair.” I’m all for breakfast for dinner, since like Leslie Knope, I don’t understand why anyone would want to eat anything other than waffles, but I also recognize that breakfast for dinner is a sign that my life is spiraling out of control faster than one of those spiro-doodles that was so ubiquitously info-mercialed in the 1990s.
I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but when I reach the point in my day when I decide to have breakfast for dinner, it’s also right around the time when I say, “This day is terrible and I am going to give up being human.” It is the crispy, buttery, syrup-covered end-cap to a soul-crushing day. It is the glimmer of absolute indulgence in a day mired down in “responsibility” and “acting like an adult” and “having one’s shit together.” Breakfast for dinner is a time to revert to childhood and grasp onto one of the aspects of adulthood that remains absolutely awesome at any time: being able to eat whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want.
So in that spirit, here is a list of my top 3 best breakfast things to eat for dinner. Please add your own suggestions!
- Waffles ““ these are the pinnacle of American breakfast tradition. The little grid pattern allows me to create fun designs, both by cutting the waffle in interesting ways and by filling wells with syrup in an artsy-fartsy pattern. The sturdy waffle can support syrup, butter, sugar, and yes, even ice cream, and is thus the perfect vehicle for getting calorie-rich foods into one’s mouth. And you can have waffles and chicken/chik’n and oh the sweet and savory play together well, my friends.
- Breakfast sandwich ““ I would put waffle again, but well, I guess you can make a sandwich using waffles instead of bread, so maybe they’re implicitly included in here, too. Generally speaking, a breakfast sandwich should involve tomatoes, eggs or tofu, cheese (or Daiya), and I guess if you’re feeling sassy, sausage or meat-free sausage. Throw that onto an English muffin or some toast or oh god a butter croissant, and baby, you’ve got a stew, I mean, sandwich going.
- Hashbrowns ““ Fried potatoes are always great, whether they stay shredded or lumped into consolidated potato shapes. I could really go for one or two now, maybe with some ketchup? Is that sacrilege? I no longer care ““ I am overwhelmed by desire.
11 replies on “Breakfast for Dinner”
If i eat a particular dish more often for dinner than I do for breakfast, is it a breakfast dish or a dinner dish?
Either way, saute diced potato and onion, sprinkle with shredded cheese, top with fried egg. Sriracha your heart out. Cheap, and I pretty much always have these ingredients on hand!
Though now you’ve got me craving waffles, which is problematic, as I do not own a wafflemaker.
I have ingredients for crepes. I have Nutella. I have lemon curd. I have dinner.
In Austria, we would have a sort of jam-filled crepe (but heavier, as is the Germanic way) with powdered sugar on top, called Palatschinke. Soooo good, I think I might have to whip some up tonight.
My sister and I grew up in France, and when we were kids my mom implemented a Sunday night tradition of breakfast for dinner, a small extravagance which we looked forward to all week : we’d have giant bowls of hot chocolate and long buttered tartines, and we felt like the most badass kids in the world. Reading this post is making me hungry for the adult version of this: Café au lait and tartines with lemon curd and raspberry jam!
For me potatoes aren’t part of breakfast, so that would save me half. And I could call waffles or pancakes dessert and tada! Disguised breakfast as dinner.
Very recently my boyfriend said me me “UGH I hate breakfast foods for dinner! It’s so cheap.”
I would have broken up with him but we just told people we got engaged and it’s a lot of work to turn that around.
You tell him to take that back!!
And then make yourself a fancy omelet the next night and don’t offer him any. Sheesh!
We eat omelets for dinner at least twice a week (they’re so easy, so flavorful, such an easy way to get a wide variety of food groups in one meal) – but when I was growing up, breakfast for dinner meant dad was cooking. Invariably associated with joy.
Omelet dinners are the best! And since there’s so much potential for variety in an omelet, you really can’t go wrong. I’m a die-hard fan of breakfast dinners. In fact, I think breakfast at dinner is almost better than breakfast at breakfast, although that could be because I tend to put more effort into the breakfast foods I have in the evening than the ones I have in the morning.
When I was growing up my grandmother would frequently let me have breakfast for dinner, which most often involved pancakes with butter and TONS of powdered sugar. I haven’t had breakfast for dinner in well over a decade, but those hasbrowns with ketchup sound amazing.
whenever i think of breakfast for dinner, i think of scrubs and the “brinner” episode.
challah bread french toast is my go-to. with bacon, obviously. nommmmmmmmm