Sausage And Egg Dumplings Are The Fun Way To Switch Up Breakfast

You might be in a bit of a breakfast rut, and that's understandable. Maybe the meals you plan and fuss over happen later in the day, or maybe you don't have the mental bandwidth to cook up a storm first thing in the morning (much less create a stack of dirty dishes). Well, here's a fun idea for switching up breakfast that's pretty darn simple to make, can be mostly prepped in advance, and is completely delicious — sausage and egg dumplings with dipping sauce. 

They're little partially fried, partially steamed dumplings filled with sausage, egg, cheese, and veggies of your choice that are perfectly sized to grab with a pair of chopsticks and dunk into a ramekin of dipping sauce, spicy or otherwise. What goes in your sausage and egg dumplings is entirely up to you. Think of them as a cool mash-up of dim sum and Waffle House. Best of all, you can make a big batch and keep it refrigerated until it's time to cook. 

The idea behind sausage and egg dumplings is simple. Sauté uncased sausage until browned and add beaten eggs, cheese, and other yummy things. Then, encase the mixture in a dumpling wrapper and cook. You can use any meat you like, from sage-inflected Southern pork sausage to merguez, the spicy lamb sausage from North Africa — and anything in between. Grate any melty cheese you like and add it to the mix. Then, add chopped scallions, minced jalapeños, shredded cilantro, or whatever strikes your fancy. 

It's easy to find pre-made dumpling wrappers in the store (just be advised that they'll almost always contain gluten), or (you guessed it) you can make them yourself. Doing so doesn't require much more than flour, water, and a little practice. For a dipping sauce, go with what you like. Sauces made from ketchup, sriracha, and rice vinegar; mayonnaise, jalapeno, and cilantro; or mustard, soy sauce, and rice vinegar are all excellent choices. The sauce should pair well with what's inside your sausage and egg dumplings.

If this new take on sausage and egg dumplings sounds familiar, it should. The basic idea has been around for almost two millennia. The meat-filled Chinese dumpling known as jiaozi has been around since the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, around A.D. 200. You might recognize jiaozi by another name, either as its Japanese descendant, gyoza, or simply as "potstickers."One creation myth has them being invented by an herbalist who wanted to feed warm food to cold people with "frozen ears." (The shape of the dumpling is more or less in the form of a human ear, and one traditional metric of a proper dumpling wrapper dough is that it's soft enough to feel like your earlobe.)

It's just another example that in cooking, as in most things, good ideas never die. They just keep reintroducing themselves to new generations who love good food as much as their ancestors. Now, it's your turn to keep an ancient practice alive while giving your breakfast a needed glow-up.