This panfried eggy cheese sandwich is a tasty veganised American style breakfast treat! It’s a little tricky to perfect, but well worth the effort. You need a good melty but strong tasting vegan cheddar to make this work. I find the Scheese one works very well, but violife will work as will the Cathedral brand mature vegan cheddar. You also need a good well seasoned cast iron or non-stick pan. I prefer cast iron as there are problematic issues with toxic shedding with Teflon pans.
Once you have the eggy style sauce ready, and the tomatoes sliced it’s not too difficult to assemble. The only really tricky part is turning it over to cook the second side. You want to get a good amount of the liquid into the bread as that will keep the bread from burning while the cheese melts and the tomatoes cook.
You need two layers of cheese to help the whole thing hold together. You could also try thinly sliced vegan sausages, or thinly sliced marinaded tempeh, or even smoked tofu if you don’t like the Quorn slices. A bit of oregano would be of benefit too if you like to use herbs. I also like to add Natex yeast extract to one of the slices.
I would prefer to use wholemeal sourdough bread for this, but it doesn’t really have the right texture. So this is one of the few recipes where a soft yeasted wholemeal bread is essential to absorb the liquid & still hold together. My delicious wholemeal sourdough sadly doesn’t work with this recipe!
This panfried eggy cheese sandwich is not for the fainthearted but it’s well worth the effort – fluffy and tasty. A great breakfast treat!
Panfried Eggy Cheese Sandwich
Equipment
- 1 Nutribullet style high speed blender
- 1 non-stick pan or cast iron skillet
- 2 large spatulas roughly the size of the bread slices
Ingredients
- 100 g silken or medium firm tofu
- 80 g oat, soya or almond milk you could add a little more or a little less - I found 80g to be a good compromise though. You want it to soak in, but not make the bread too wet.
- 1 hp teasp yeast flakes
- ½ teasp veg stock powder
- ½ teasp turmeric
- ¼ teasp kala namak
- ½ teasp soya sauce
Instructions
- weigh the tofu and cut into small cubes
- add tofu to blender
- add rest of ingredients to blender
- add plant milk and blend until extremely smooth and runny.
- pour into a shallow dish or dinner plate so it's around ¼ inch deep.
- Butter two slices of bread on one side only.
- add Natex yeast extract to one slice.
- add a layer of either grated cheese or sliced cheese, to one of the slices
- then quorn ham,
- then thinly sliced tomatoes
- plance the slice in the eggy liquid and then add final layer of cheese.
- Then slide a spatula under the stacked bread and slide the whole thing off the spatula into a waiting medium hot well oiled pan.
- replenish the "eggy" mix and take the other slice of bread and place it butter side up on the dish and move about gently to help it absorb the liquid.
- fairly quickly, remove it and place it butter side down (eggy side up) on the sandwich already cooking in the pan.
- you will need to either cover it to retain the heat, or wait until the cheese has melted enough to bond the layers together. Then you need to very deftly slide a large enough spatula under the sandwich place the other one on top and deftly turn it over in the pan and slide it off. It's tricky and you have to be bold and confident to do it one smooth dextrous movement. You may need to slightly adjust or rearrange the slices once you've done it. Practice makes perfect.
- Cook again on the second side - the first side should be nice and brown and the second side too. It's usually necessary to turn it over once more to get the tomatoes cooked and the cheese fully melted. You can use up any left over eggy sauce by painting it on the top surface with a pastry brush before you turn it over. It will cook when you turn it over the second time.
- Remove and cut in half and allow to cool a little before eating as the tomatoes can be very hot.
