Price $4.25
It was the day breakfast changed. In 1972, at a McDonald’s in California, franchise owner Herb Peterson came up with a novel idea: take a toasted English muffin, layer it inside with Canadian bacon, a slice of American cheese and a disc of egg, and let the hurried American worker eat a handheld breakfast sandwich on the go.
Forty-five years since the Egg McMuffin set in motion a new formula for how this country consumes breakfast, chains have been scrambling for a share of the market, taking what consumers today largely believe to be the most important meal of the day and pairing it with a convenient (not to mention fat and salt-laced) option.
Many chains, such as Shake Shack, KFC, Wendy’s and Popeyes, are in varying degrees of testing breakfast programs.
Even without them, there is a market saturated with endless ways to have your egg (or egg whites), bacon and sausage: stuffed in a burrito, rolled in a taco or sandwiched in a bagel, biscuit, Texas toast, flatbread, croissant, or between two pancakes or a pair of waffles.
We ate our way through breakfast at 10 chains to determine which are best. Be warned: After the top three, pleasure drops off dramatically. Note: Prices may vary.
It would make sense that the doughnut and coffeecentric chain would want to expand its options at the time of day it has long held court. The problem: eggs that don’t look, or taste, like eggs, and bread choices that do little to mask all that processing. If you must, the serviceable classic sausage, egg and cheese sandwich comes on an underbaked croissant, with a salt-heavy patty, and weighs in at 700 calories and 1,170 mg of sodium.
Price $3.79
The slider slingers are there to serve you nearly all hours of the day, including the morning rush where, if you choose, a sausage, egg and cheese sandwich also
Since 2010, the chain that has advertised itself as a healthy alternative to its fatty competitors has been in the breakfast market. After flirting with all kinds of options, Subway has settled on flatbreads to set itself apart, though it’s hard to watch a premade omelet come out of a warming machine, go onto a chewy flatbread with cheese that is all then placed into a heating contraption before being dressed in your choice of toppings. Little can cure the tasteless eggs, but tomatoes, basil and red onions help, and while 310 calories is better than most, 950 mg of sodium is on par with the enemy.
Breakfast comes in just about any form here, from a burrito stuffed with potato tots, jalapeños, bacon and sausage, to a Texas Toast sandwich that takes its cue from delis across Long Island. Little succeeds, even if it arrives to your car window via a roller-skating server. One guilty pleasure: the pancake on a stick, at 240 calories and 370 mg of sodium. What is it? A breakfast sausage
The old slogan “have it your way” is apt during breakfast hours at Burger King. The menu has ballooned over the years to include biscuits, burritos and French toast sticks, but the original Croissan’wich still wears the crown here. To be sure, the bar is low for a fast-food croissant, but after decades of putting eggs and cheese on them, the verdict here is that they are flaky and buttery with eggs that taste like real eggs and a sausage patty that is savory and sweet. It all weighs in at 470 calories and 890 mg of sodium.
Price $2.99
Like BK, Micky D’s has vastly expanded its breakfast options over the years to include egg, cheese and meat versions of biscuits, burritos, bagels and McGriddles, which layers the three
It might seem unfair to put Panera at the top of this list, but the higher-end chain has increasingly cast itself in the mold of the other nine here, though it truly stands out above the rest. Panera’s quiche is pillowy, egg whites come studded with crumbles of turkey sausage, and it’s the only place we found a steak-and-egg option that actually tasted like steak and eggs. The sliced pieces of slightly pink sirloin on ciabatta bread with Vermont Cheddar and tasty eggs weigh in at 540 calories and more than 1,000 mg of sodium.
Price $5.67