The Best Fried Egg Breakfast Sandwiches Start With This Hack

A fried egg sandwich is one of the most basic breakfasts you can make, but there's always room to upgrade your egg sandwich with condiments, garnishes, or extra protein such as fried bologna (the ingredient you never knew your breakfast was missing). According to Maricel Gentile, there's an extra step you can take when cooking the egg that also makes for a much better sandwich. Gentile, who owns a namesake restaurant called Maricel's Kitchen and has authored a book called "Maricel's Simply Asian Cookbook," suggests separating the egg so the whites can be cooked first and the yolk added for a brief time at the end.

"Cooking the whites first," said Gentile. "Gives you that crispy edge and texture contrast that's so satisfying all while preserving the runny yolk [which] adds richness and creaminess." The yolk, Gentile told The Takeout, essentially becomes a sauce for the sandwich. The contrast between the firm egg white and softer yolk helps to create different layers of flavor and texture, an important feature in any dish. You don't really need to take this step if you're in a hurry to eat, Gentile admitted. "For everyday cooking, a gentle pan heat and basting the whites with a spoon of hot oil or butter can do the trick. It depends on how much time and patience you have before coffee."

Separating an egg is a simple yet crucial step in many recipes. If you don't do it right, you may wind up with floating bits of shell or, worse yet, yolk oozing into the white. It all starts with how you crack the egg. Maricel Gentile advises doing it on a flat surface, such as a countertop, rather than on the edge of a bowl. "If you crack the egg on an edge," she warned. "It pushes the shell inward and that will put tiny shell pieces into your egg when you finish cracking it."

Once you've cracked the egg, hold it over a bowl, then gently pull apart the two halves of the shell. Gentile likes to use the egg shells as a separating tool. As she described the process: "Catch the yolk in one half, and let the white drip out while you pass the yolk back and forth." She said you can also use your hands to do the separating as long as they're clean. Simply hold the yolk in your palm and allow the white to slide through your fingers.

If you wind up with shell fragments in your egg white, use another, larger piece of eggshell to scoop them out. The reason this works so well is that the shell's sharp edges can slice through the viscous liquid to pick up the bits more easily than you could with your fingers. If you accidentally pierce the yolk and it leaks into the white, though, the only way to salvage the situation is to make a scrambled egg sandwich instead of a fried one.