Starbucks Spicy Chorizo Breakfast Sandwich

A month or so ago, I was heading out early in the day for a long drive, and as I often do, I stopped at my neighbourhood Starbucks to pick up one of the few truly tasty breakfast sandwiches one can easily get in Winnipeg Manitoba, only to be told the Spicy Chorizo Breakfast Sandwich has been discontinued. As is often the case in a situation like this, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

When I decided to make my own, with inspiration from the CopyCat Recipe Speed Challenge from Instructables, I realized that food made days in advance, assembled, and stored in an airtight plastic bag can actually taste significantly better when made fresh. I mean, obviously, but the realization at first bite was startling.

The following is how I make these, and as it is a recipe, make it your own. The scrambled eggs can be cooked and stored frozen. The chorizo sausage can made in a large batch, isolated and stored raw, or cooked as patties and stored with the cooked eggs to be heated and served as needed. You can seek out the right buns, or do as I did, and serve on my personal fav, onion buns. The original doesn't have any condiments, however you can make a hot or garlic aioli, or add your prefered hot sauce. The original cheese was Monterey Jack, but use what makes you happy!

For this, you can get an egg ring, however a small pan will work. I just fold over the scrambled egg to the desired size.

You can buy chorizo sausages, or you can mix your own. In a pinch, Italian sausage will work as well, just remove casings if that is how you purchased them, and add a bit of cumin.

You can caramelize onions, or just use onion flakes. I won't tell.

The original called for potato buns, but if you look closely at my buns (which I have to wonder why you are looking closely at my buns), you see I used onion buns and ciabatta buns. I couldn't find any potato buns.

The ingredients list is going to depend on how much you want to delve into this. At is most basic, you need

• 1 egg per sandwich, or 3 per 2 sandwiches
• Caramelized onions for the scrambled eggs
• 1 sausage patty per sandwich. You can buy these, but I will show you how to make them
• 1 bun per. The original used potato buns, but treat yourself and try an onion bun
• 1 slice of cheese per. I use chili flake monterey jack, but cheddar should work well.

For the sausage, you can buy any type of sausage and suit it for your needs, but follow me as we make our own chorizo sausage patties. It will be a large batch, but worth the effort.

For the eggs, you should use caramelized onions as the original did. Again, we can make a good batch and freeze what we don't use for future creations. Let's look at that first.

Caramelizing onions is a pretty straight forward process, however don't trust every onion is going to be perfect. There is a benefit of having more onions than you are going to need, as you can see by the discolouration in the second picture (yuck). Slice your onions into long slivers, and because we are going to use these in scrambled eggs, cut them in half length ways.

Add oil to your pan, heat to medium and add onions. Cook slowly over low heat until golden brown. I use a splash (small splash) of red wine vinegar to deglaze the pan. If you made a large batch as I did, separate into small (about a tablespoon or two) parts to store. These can be stored in the freezer for a few months.

Don't overcook your onions. If they get dark and burned looking, they are overdone, but still taste great.

This can be one of the more labour and resource intensive steps. Or not. You can purchase chorizo sausage links or patties, or just the meat. You can also purchase spicy (hot) Italian sausage, and use it as is, or add a tsp of cumin to the sausage meat. If you buy sausage links, remove the casings and discard.

Chorizo sausage is just seasoned ground pork, so let's look at making our own, especially since we aren't going to turn them into linked sausages.

The list of spices can be daunting. Keep in mind this is your creation, and your call. I make my sausage meet with the following:

• 2 pounds ground pork
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tbsp chili powder
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper, more or less to taste
• 1 tbsp onion powder
• 1 tbsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp chipotle powder
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp water

Don't have everything? No worries, add what smells right. Mix up the above, and ensure it is well mixed in. What is important is the cumin, the heat, the smoke of the smoked paprika, and a bit of the sweet from the brown sugar, and as always, garlic!

As I have mentioned, you can use other sausage solutions. I have airbrushed out the product name of the Italian sausages I experimented with, so no one can ever tell what I used! At the end of the day, it is pork sausage, and unless you go crazy with the spices, you are hard pressed to mess it up. Don't overdue the wine vinegar, it will give the meat an unexpected taste.

Now you have your sausage meat ready to go, you need to determine how much to make into a patty. If you look at breakfast patties, they tend to be in the 1oz range, which isn't an option for me. You can use a 1/4 c measuring cup which will give you a 2 oz patty, I prefer a bit more. For this demo, I used the 1/3 c measuring cup, but if I was making this for supper, I would use 1/2 cup, to give me a 4oz patty. If you have just one large egg, a smaller bun (tea biscuit, or small dinner role sized bun) go with the 1/4 c patty size.

Eggs are just scrambled with a teaspoon of the caramelized onions. Whisk eggs thoroughly before adding the onions.

Cook your eggs and sausage, ensuring your sausage is completely cooked. There is value in cooking the sausage "smash burger" style, constantly putting pressure on the patty to keep it nice and thin.

At this point, you should be able to add your sausage to your chosen bun, sorry, move your patty to your chosen pastry, add cheese and top with the scrambled egg(s). Feel free to add any preferred sauces at this time as well.

Until you have tried making your own sausage breakfast sandwich, you have no idea how good it can be. Try this, delve as deep as you wish to, and enjoy!