The Best Breakfast Sandwiches In NYC

Now is a good time to revise the statement that a great breakfast sandwich requires bread, since Thai Diner’s excellent version comes on a buttery roti. The roti keeps all of the sandwich elements tightly compact, so that every bite includes the same consistent layers and flavors. From top to bottom, you’ll taste herbaceous sai oua sausage, a mash of mayo and scallions, a soft, folded egg crepe covered in oozing american cheese, and a couple slivers of fresh Thai basil, all pressed tightly between that double-layered, flaky roti. Eat it at their Nolita restaurant or take it to Elizabeth Street Garden for some privacy.

If you don’t yet believe in the miracle of hashbrowns in your breakfast sandwich, try Golden Diner’s “Chinatown Egg & Cheese Sando.” This excellent BEC comes on a cushiony sesame scallion milk bun from a local Chinatown bakery, and includes at least half a carton of eggs scrambled, then layered with american cheese—and a big crunchy hashbrown to top it all off. The hashbrown is key: it’s almost an inch thick and the crispy texture contrasts perfectly with the soft bun and eggs.

At both the original and East Village Win Son Bakery, the main attraction is the BEC on a chewy scallion pancake. It’s crisped up and smushed together, so that the pancake, eggs, oozing havarti, and crisp planks of bacon fuse into a single dense and unreasonably greasy mass. If you aren’t into bacon, you can also get it with mortadella, chives, or pastrami beef tongue.

The morning-only breakfast sandwich at this Prospect Heights all-day cafe is not to be missed. Like many great sandwiches, the sausage egg and cheese here is a triumphant play on textures: a soft potato bun studded with nigella seeds; a melty layer of cheese; a dense, chorizo-esque sausage patty; and an expertly fried egg with a molten center and lacy edges. Say yes to the side of harissa, and if you can't eat it right away, don't worry—it'll taste even better 30 minutes later when you arrive at work.

Edith’s Sandwich Counter generally excels in the breakfast sandwich department thanks to their malawach bread. With a texture that lands somewhere between the flakiness of a roti and the fluffy spring of a pita, the Yemeni flatbread holds together cheesy eggs in a way only a pro could. Our favorite iteration is the Sephardi Breakfast Wrap with melty Cooper Sharp cheese, housemade alheira chicken sausage that’s strong with cumin, pickled fresno peppers, and harissa mayo. It's worth going out of your way to try, whether that's to Edith's original location in Williamsburg or the larger West Village spot.

Astoria’s best hangover cure comes in the form of the SMB, aka the Seoul Meets Bagel breakfast sandwich at Between the Bagel. Weekends are quite the scene at this Korean-ish cafe, when people file in for this glorious bagel filled with steaming bulgogi, airy eggs, cheese, kimchi, spicy gochujang mayo, and—crucially—the option to add a crackly hashbrown to balance out all the gooey textures. It’s a sweet and spicy mess that’ll revive you after a long night when a regular BEC just won’t cut it.

Did you think you were the only one putting chili crisp on everything that goes into your mouth? If their breakfast sandwich is any indication, Winner on Franklin in Crown Heights apparently has the same condiment habits as the rest of us. It’s a steamed, custard-like egg on a brioche, topped with cheddar and a homemade chili crisp that’s more of a savory umami agent than straight-up spicy. You can add chinese sausage or bacon for $5 extra. Go for it.

 As us Northeastern folk know too well, a good biscuit is hard to find. Surprisingly, one of the best we’ve had is at this Mexican-Chinese fusion cafe in Sunset Park. Their breakfast sandwich comes on a fluffy buttermilk biscuit with more layers than a Black Mirror episode, and it's filled with a folded omelet, cheddar, and an optional chorizo patty. Get the chorizo. It’s a combination we don’t see often, and it adds a nice kick to the whole thing. You can also add guacamole for $2 to balance out the protein.

Like Thai Diner, Dominican Cravings in Essex Market proves that a great breakfast sandwich does not need bread to be great. Especially when you sub in giant disks of salty tostones that are perfectly fried and incapable of getting soggy. That’s only one component of the Tres Golpes Patacon. Between the plantains, you’ll find fried salami, fried cheese, a runny sunny side-up egg, and a slathering of mayonnaise-y pink sauce that cuts through all the salty, rich elements. This sandwich has single-handedly increased our morning consumption of tostones, and also confirms that everything is better with fried salami.

A morning spent with the breakfast sandwich at Che will leave you with one overwhelming question: Why don’t more things have pimento cheese on them? Of course, the towering sandwich here is not all about the pimento cheese—it’s also got a pile of soft scrambled eggs, and paper-thin slivers of pickled green tomato, stacked on a heavily toasted brioche bun that’s slick with paprika mayo. It’s tangy, rich, and just a little bit spicy, and best eaten at the counter with a friend on a slow Saturday morning in Bed-Stuy.

Bagel breakfast sandwiches usually let you down, often by way of excessive slippage and overpowering doughy bites without much egg. So it’s all the more impressive that Tompkins Square Bagels in the East Village constructs the perfect BEC on an everything bagel using nothing but the sheer power of american cheese glue. The thick layer of egg and cheese is about the same width as the bagel slices themselves, meaning you’ll taste every element of the sandwich. Fresh bagels normally shouldn’t be toasted, but in this case, the toasted bagel makes the bread hold up better against the delicious mess of well-scrambled eggs and crispy bacon.

Even though this tiny cafe right near the Franklin Avenue C train station in Bed-Stuy serves an all-around exciting Middle Eastern menu for brunch, we always get the same thing. Their signature breakfast sandwich is stacked tall on an onion and poppy seed challah bun, with melted kashkaval cheese, bright sumac onions, a heap of scrambled eggs, and nutty muhammara that kind of acts like a meat substitute. It’s delicious without anything added, but you should throw in some avocado for creaminess, too.

Sausage Egg & Cheese Sandwich

The merguez, egg, and cheese from C&B might be the hardest-to-eat sandwich on this list. The combination of slightly runny scrambled eggs, melty cheese, and dripping sausage create a juicy, spicy mess that will deplete your napkin stockpile. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. The kaiser-like roll on this sandwich ultimately holds up. Our recommendation is to grab this sandwich early, since C&B is perpetually packed on the weekend, and enjoy it in Tompkins Square Park while watching squirrels search for their own breakfast.

Why must we settle for just bacon, sausage, or ham for the choice of meat in our breakfast sandwiches? Why not throw in hunks of shredded pastrami that taste like they’ve been smoking since before you were born? That’s exactly what they do at this Jewish deli in Greenpoint. Frankels’ excellent pastrami joins three eggs and american cheese on a bagel or a challah roll—which we prefer. The buttery bread is the perfect vessel for the combination of smokey meat, and eggs and cheese that melt together, forming one unit. It’s the kind of teamwork that Knicks fans haven’t seen since the days of Willis Reed and Red Holzman.

Sunday in Brooklyn is a Williamsburg brunch spot that feels like it should have a bottomless option for the influencer crowd that visits on weekends. But we’re here to talk about great sandwiches, and that’s exactly how we’d classify their egg and cheese. Add the syrup-infused sausage patty and you’ve essentially created a breakfast burger, except with sausage instead of beef. It’s topped with gochujang aioli and fried potatoes, on a fluffy seeded bun.

Have you been let down by overcooked eggs, partially melted cheese, and un-sauced bread on a breakfast sandwich? That will never be the case at Southside Coffee, a tiny coffee shop in South Slope where people line up for sandwiches, cinnamon buns, pie, and Counter Culture coffee. Your first order of business should be a “New School.” The soft and buttery scrambled eggs, bacon, and miso-tahini kale on a crusty seeded hero will undo any malaise caused by a subpar bodega BEC. This sandwich is a pleasant reminder that crunch, spice, and greens don’t have to be reserved for lunch or dinner.