Bologna breakfast sandwich

Early into my A Year in Sandwiches blogging, a high school friend reminded me of that classic school lunch box sandwich: bologna and cheese on white bread.

I never really ate bologna growing up, although my mom would sometimes fry up a batch with eggs and everyone wolfed that down.

So I got to thinking: could I make a grown up version of a bologna sandwich, starting with fried bologna? I guess these are the weird ideas you get when you’re spending a year researching, making, photographing, and writing about sandwiches. Eventually, bologna had to come up.

So here’s my attempt at a grown up bologna breakfast sandwich, totally portable. It starts with the classic ingredients: bologna, processed cheese, white bread (in this case, beautiful Ace buns, butter and mustard.

I haven’t eaten bologna in so long, even as I’m making this sandwich I’m not sure I’ll actually eat it. I mean, bologna? Let’s give it a whirl.

Slice open the buns and butter the cut sides.

Prep the bologna. If you throw it into a hot pan without scoring three cuts about an inch deep along the edges, the bologna will bubble up and you won’t get it crispy.

Bologna goes into a hot, oiled cast iron fry pan.

When the bottoms are crispy brown, flip your bologna slices, ensuring not to overlap them (they’ll stick to each other if you do).

It only takes a few minutes per side to get them crispy. Ready:

Take them out of the pan and create a bologna and cheese stack by sandwiching two slices of processed cheese in between two slices of fried bologna.

In a small, oiled fry pan, crack an egg and quickly fry it, easy over, seasoning it with salt and pepper.

I’m a terrible short-order cook and usually botch fried eggs, so I only cook one at a time and, even then, you can see I didn’t manage to keep the yolk centred. Ah well. That egg is going on fried bologna—how fancy does it need to be?

While that egg is frying I put the buns, buttered side down, into a clean fry pan to heat them up.

When we were kids, the typical bologna sandwich condiment was mayonnaise and yellow mustard. For my adult bologna sandwich, I’m using Keen’s hot mustard (just a little) and a schmear of delicious roasted garlic mayo, which I had sitting in the fridge, waiting for just this moment.

Garlic mayo: thinly slice six garlic cloves, put them in one of those brie bakers that everyone gifted everyone about a decade ago, cover them in olive oil, put the lid on that thing and roast at 350 F for about 15 minutes, until the garlic is golden and soft (but not burnt!). Whisk the garlic and oil into 1/2 cup of Hellmann’s mayonnaise and you’ve got a really great condiment.

Bologna cheese stacks go on the bottom bun.

I top that with a fried egg, pop the lid on, and ask myself: Am I really going to eat this sandwich? I take a bite and you know what? It’s a really good sandwich. The fried egg pairs well with the bologna cheese stacks, the meat is crispy like bacon, and that garlic mayo really pulls it all together.

— Trish Hennessy