The Egg Frying Trick For A Truly Unique Brunch Burger

The best brunch foods live up to the meal's name and combine the best dishes from breakfast and lunch. While eggs might not be everyone's favorite burger topping, combining ground beef patties with this breakfast staple can be a supremely rich brunch item. To simplify things for those that prefer to make their own brunch at home, the best way to enjoy these foods together is to cook them at the same time.

In The Know says that by cutting a hole in the burger patty you can create an egg-in-a-hole burger that will be a brunch superstar. Just form your perfectly shaped burger patties, and use a drinking glass to cut a hole in the center. Once you have them all cut out you can use the rest to form another donut-like patty and start frying the patties in a pan. Once they've finished on one side, flip them over and crack an egg in the center. Cover them until the whites have cooked, and transfer them to a toasted bun.

This egg cooking technique takes its inspiration from the breakfast staple known as an egg in a hole — or an egg with a hat, a gashouse egg, an egg in a basket, or any other colorful name that has been invented for this dish over the years. They all mean the same thing though: to fry an egg inside a slice of toast. There's just something about the way that combining these foods makes for colorful naming conventions. We're used to dipping our toast inside eggs, so to invert the relationship seems to make diners feel like kids at play.

The first printed version of this recipe from the 1890s calls for cutting out the center of some toast, frying an egg inside, and then topping it with the removed section of toast (the eponymous hat of the egg with a hat).

It's a deceptively simple dish that has been around for generations and is even starting to garner more fans as modern chefs give their own take on a classic.

But why stop at just adding an egg? By working in other breakfast favorites this burger can be a proper fusion of two outstanding meals in one sandwich.

A great place to start is to add breakfast sausage to your ground beef patties. If you're already going through the trouble of shaping your own burger in the morning, then you might as well go all in. You can buy loose breakfast sausage, or cut some out of link casings if that's all that's available to you. Then, just mix one part ground beef with one part breakfast sausage mix, and you have a proper breakfast burger patty.

You can also add some other breakfast favorites in the form of toppings. Bacon is equally welcome at backyard cookouts and breakfast tables, so it certainly has a place on a breakfast burger.

Avocado toast is another popular brunch and breakfast option. You can easily call this staple to mind by adding some homemade guacamole or sliced avocado to your burger as well. This way you can have a decked-out brunch burger that combines the best of both meals.