Hold onto your eggs, we’re getting ready for Autostraddle’s International Brunch Weekend 8/23-24! Find a brunch meetup in your city or create your own by heading over to our events page. You can also load up on all things brunch by watching this space. From playlists to recommendations to personal essays, we’re writing all about the brunch experience. Get excited! BRUNCH.
I’m no brunch expert and I’m not here to pretend I am, but I do eat a lot of brunch. A LOT OF BRUNCH. And not just because I love food (although I DO), but because thanks to a non-notable career in stand-up comedy which involves a lot of bus rides, couch crashing and hotel stays, brunch is practically the only meal I regularly eat out these days. I’m also a person who often partakes in several a cocktail when performing comedy at bars or just being an annoying loud person at karaoke in my free time, so for me brunch is a necessary life-saver to help me make it through a weekend. Over the years I’ve slowly learned how to make every brunch item the best it can be, finally being able to brunch at what I like to call, the optimal level of brunching which is basically REALLY GOOD BRUNCHING. In honor of Autostraddle’s celebration of brunch, I’ve agreed to share my never before revealed trade secrets so YOU as well may enjoy your own brunch at its full potential. Get ready to throw your life standards out of a window and have your brain blasted open, because I’m about to give to you my Top Ten Brunch Hacks1 That Will Change Your Life (during brunch specifically)!
10. Steak and Eggs – Steak and Eggs with Hollandaise
Steak and Eggs
Via adorkablelife.com
Steak and eggs are pretty good, as long as you like your steak medium rare or just as long as you like steak. I don’t get this meal too often, but when I do, I rarely regret it. One fateful brunch I told the server I couldn’t decide between eggs benedict and steak and eggs because I wanted all three, but I mostly just wanted hollandaise. The server suggested he add hollandaise to my steak. This blew my mind. It was the most delicious meat covered in egg gravy I’ve ever had. Always get hollandaise on your steak because, I mean, who cares. It’s good.
9. Fruit – Fruit with Whipped Cream
Fruit whipped cream
Via shutterstock.com
Fruit. YUCK. Whipped cream. YUS. Put these two together and you have taken your fruit to the next level and that level is whipped cream. Be sure to add enough to mask the fruit flavor of the fruit.
8. Waffles – Chicken and Waffles
Chicken and Waffles
Via blog.hopbunnies.com
Waffles are one of those things you think will be good because you want toast, but you don’t want bread, but you don’t want pancakes. I think. Why add some sad chunk of butter and a pool of sad syrup to your soft toast pancake when you can do that AND put a leg of fried chicken on there! Fried chicken fixes most problems, especially ones involving sad soft toast.
7. Bagel – Bagel with Lox
Bagel with Lox
Via nytimes.com
Bagels are like savory donuts, but not as good. I always knew I could get cream cheese on a bagel, but the day I found out it’s not only tasty, but socially acceptable to also add raw salmon, capers, red onion and spinach to a bagel and eat it in public I really became confused as to why people only eat cream cheese on bagels. That’s like only eating cheese in your taco.
6. Pancakes – Macadamia Pancakes with Coconut Syrup
Pancakes with Macadamia Nuts
Via foodaffair.com
A couple years ago I went on vacation to Hawaii. Also a couple years ago I went shopping at Whole Foods when I had the money to do so and I found a pancake mix that was labeled “Hawaiian Pancakes” which had macadamia nuts. The box suggested you eat them with coconut syrup, which I bought. Eating them didn’t really make me feel like I was in Hawaii, but it did make me feel like I could finally not be bored with pancakes after three bites. Eventually I had to throw away that coconut syrup which I wasn’t sure how to use once the mix was gone.
5. Mimosa – Pitcher of Mimosas
Mimosa
Via partypipes.com
Mimosas are a brunch staple so…why not be sure they WILL NEVER GO AWAY?
4. Eggs Benedict – Crab Cake Benedict
Eggs benedict
Via wikipedia.com
Eggs benedict is one of the greatest probably bad for you foods that has ever been created (after several kinds of cakes). Benedicts will always be satisfying and regularly help your brunch time hangover. You may think your Canadian bacon benedict couldn’t be more tasty, but I’m pretty sure you think that because you’ve never had hollandaise on top of a poached egg on top of a crab cake. It’s like kissing Jesus. Which means it will cure your cold sores and kind of scare you a bit.
3. Huevos Rancheros – Chilaquiles
Huevos rancheros
Via nutritiouslife.com
So you’re ready for a siesta, but you need some cheese and beans first. Believe me, I’ve been there. Huevos rancheros are always a good filling Mexican-style breakfast, especially for brunchers who eat like they live: SPICY. While I love huevos rancheros, if you’re looking for a good-tasting and hangover saving Mexican delight, how about take it up a notch and have chilaquiles. What are chilaquiles? Well, they are basically nachos. For breakfast. Tortilla chips baked in adobe or verde sauce with shredded chicken, pork or lamb, then covered in queso fresco, crema, beans, cilantro and fried eggs. If you didn’t know breakfast nachos are a thing, they are and they will save your life. De nada.
2. Bloody Mary – Bloody Mary with Meat
Bloody Mary bacon
Via baconmakeseverythingbetter.com
No brunch cocktail will ever match the gloriousness of a Bloody Mary. Or at least that’s what I thought until I was offered a Blood Mary with meat in it. Bacon and Bloody Marys should have been together a long time ago. It’s sad to think about all that they’ve missed and will need to catch up on. It’s like the end of that movie Forever Young with Mel Gibson where he finally reunites with his true love, but he’s a young Mel Gibson and she’s an old true love, but then he starts aging rapidly so at least no one will whisper things, but it’s still really sad they missed all that time together when he was in cryostasis. Also, it’s too bad he’s Mel Gibson.
1. Omelet – Nothing
Omelet
Via wikipedia.com
There is no way to fix an omelet. They are gross.
1 I might not know the actual meaning of this word.
Did not know Chilaquiles were a thing. Now I know and now I will want to eat them always. Spicy brunch always wins!
Chilaquiles for life! My sister makes the best… I wish anyone in our family knew the name of the herb used! We can’t think of it in Spanish or English, even her Mexican in laws didn’t know… If anyone does, get at me!
i feel so sad about omelets now, but so happy about everything else
I am also a defender of omelets
Omelets can be cured! With guacamole! Lots of it!
ok but have you tried putting guacamole on something that’s not an omelet? it’s better than putting it on an omelet, isn’t it.
Holy wow this is amaaaazing. I really want to try steak and hollandaise, chicken and waffles, and PANCAKES WITH MACADAMIA NUTS AND COCONUT SAUCE!!! Except I take offense at the fact that you get “bored with pancakes after three bites”—what’s that all about? Also, omelets aren’t my fav, but they’re not inedible, especially with cheese and some bread item.
My brunch hack is for huevos rancheros. I make a very bare bones version that is nonetheless satisfying, though versions with beans are amazing. I crack some eggs in a bowl and add milk, a few spoonfuls of salsa, and a handful of something salty & crunchy (e.g. tortilla chips or Fritos). Whisk that and then let it sit for a bit (this can be 5-15 minutes or right away because, I get it, you’re impatient). Finally, scramble them in a pan and serve with cheese and hot sauce! Very tasty.
“Are you sure you don’t like omelettes? Maybe you just haven’t met the right omelette yet.”
I kid but some of the things I’ve had passed of as omelettes in some diners and what were just horrid. And that wasn’t just because it was policy to add in milk, water or some type of flour based mix to make it “fluffy” kind of noise.
Different veggies things need different cooking times. Tomato chunks and spinach do not cook at the same pace people. Not to mention veggies or mushrooms don’t cook as fast as eggs. Trying will make one of the two a nasty overcooked mess or both.
If only the egg part is over cooked you can pick out the veggies or meat in the omelette.
eggs benedict makes my stomach hurt and then i need a nap
i love omlettes
You want meat in your Bloody? Come to Wisconsin.
http://www.thrillist.com/drink/nation/the-chicken-fried-bloody-beast-sobelman-s-debuts-bloody-mary-with-whole-fried-chicken
The best way to fix an omelet is to make a scramble instead.
Om nom nom nom nom.
And if you live in Austin, the best way to hack an omelet is to stick it in a taco.
And then hack that taco by going to torchy’s and getting a roscoe aka fried chicken and waffles and eggs ON A TACO.
God Bless Texas, ya’ll.
I’ve been a vegetarian for 20 years and still had some feelings about that last sentence.