Breakfast Burritos with Sausage, Egg and Cheese

These breakfast burritos are browned sausage, soft cheddar scrambled eggs, diced tomato and avocado rolled in a large flour tortilla, and they take about thirty minutes to make six. They are the kind of breakfast that works on a slow Sunday with salsa and sour cream on the table, and just as well on a Tuesday, pulled from the freezer and reheated while the coffee brews.

The recipe is built around two things: eggs that are scrambled soft with cheese folded in, so they stay creamy after a reheat, and a filling that is cooled slightly before it goes into the tortilla, so the wrap never goes soggy. Everything else, the tomato, the avocado, the hot sauce, is yours to change. The burritos in the photographs are soft-rolled and served with lime wedges, avocado halves, hot sauce and sour cream, which is exactly how the recipe card has them.

Pictured: the burritos soft-rolled and served as they come off the counter, with lime wedges, avocado halves, hot sauce and sour cream alongside. If you prefer a crisp, golden outside, the griddled option is in the Variations section.

What Goes in These Breakfast Burritos

A good breakfast burrito is a balance of four things: something savory and browned, soft eggs, cheese, and something fresh to cut through it. Here that is crumbled pork sausage, cooked until the edges catch; eight eggs scrambled with cheddar until barely set; a little more cheddar at the assembly stage; and diced tomato with sliced avocado for freshness. Cilantro if you like it, lime on the side, hot sauce and sour cream for the table.

The sausage is cooked first, and the eggs go into the same skillet without wiping it out, so they pick up the browned bits and the fat. It is a small thing that makes the whole burrito taste of the sausage rather than of eggs with sausage in them.

No potatoes in this version. They are a fine addition, and there is a hash brown variation below, but leaving them out keeps the burrito lighter and the recipe at thirty minutes. If you want the potato version, chorizo hash with crispy potatoes is the filling to borrow.

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Ingredient Notes

• Sausage. Twelve ounces of bulk breakfast sausage, mild or hot. Chorizo, Italian sausage out of its casing, or a plant-based crumble all work; cook them the same way.
• Eggs. Eight large. That is a generous cup of scrambled egg per burrito once the cheese is folded in.
• Cheddar. One cup, shredded, and divided: half goes into the eggs, half is sprinkled on the tortilla before the filling. Shred it from a block if you can; pre-shredded cheese melts less smoothly.
• Salt and black pepper. Half a teaspoon of salt and a quarter teaspoon of pepper for the eggs. The sausage and cheese bring salt of their own, so do not add more until you have tasted.
• Flour tortillas. Six burrito-size, 10 to 12 inches across. Smaller tortillas will not close around this much filling.
• Tomatoes. Two, diced small and drained of their seeds and juice. Wet tomato is the main cause of a soggy burrito.
• Avocado. One, sliced or diced. Add it at assembly, not to the eggs, so it stays green.
• Cilantro. A handful, chopped, optional.
• To serve. Salsa, sour cream, hot sauce and lime wedges. The photographs show lime and avocado halves on the side.

Choosing the Tortillas

Size matters more than brand. Look for tortillas labeled burrito-size, which are 10 inches at minimum and ideally 12. An 8-inch soft taco tortilla holds about half the filling and tears when you try to tuck the ends.

Warm them before rolling, always, because a cold tortilla is the reason so many breakfast burritos split down the side. Thirty seconds in a dry skillet, or a stack wrapped in a damp paper towel and microwaved for twenty seconds, makes them soft enough to roll tightly. Flour tortillas roll better than corn for this job; corn tortillas are too small and too brittle for a full breakfast burrito.

Whole wheat and low-carb tortillas both work if they are the large size. They tend to be a little drier, so warm them well and roll them while they are still warm.

How To Make Breakfast Burritos

Use a large nonstick skillet, and have everything diced and shredded before the sausage goes in. Breakfast burritos come together quickly once the pan is hot, and there is no time to chop a tomato while the eggs are cooking.

First, heat the skillet over medium-high heat and add the sausage, breaking it into small crumbles with a wooden spoon. Cook for six to eight minutes, until browned and cooked through, then lift it out to a plate and leave the fat in the pan.

Next, crack the eggs into a bowl. Add the salt, pepper and half the cheddar, and whisk until no streaks of white remain and the cheese is scattered through.

Then turn the heat down to medium-low and pour the eggs into the sausage skillet. Let them sit for twenty seconds, then push them slowly from the edges to the middle with a spatula, and keep folding until they are just set and still glossy, about three minutes. Take them off the heat while they still look slightly underdone; they finish cooking in the pan.

After that, warm the tortillas and lay one flat. Sprinkle a little of the remaining cheese down the middle, spoon on a sixth of the eggs and a sixth of the sausage, then add diced tomato, avocado and cilantro.

Rolling a Burrito That Stays Closed

Finally, fold the two sides in over the filling, then bring the edge nearest you up and over, tucking it under the filling as you go, and roll away from you into a tight cylinder. Set it seam-side down while you roll the rest. Serve them as they are, warm, or griddle them seam-side down for a crisp shell.

How To Tell When Breakfast Burritos Are Done

The eggs are the only part that can go wrong. Pull them when they are just set, still shiny and a little soft in the folds; they carry on cooking from the residual heat of the skillet, and eggs that look fully done in the pan will be dry and rubbery inside the burrito. The American Egg Board’s preparation guidelines put egg dishes at 160°F, which soft scrambled eggs reach comfortably while still looking creamy.

The sausage should be browned at the edges with no pink left in the crumbles. Cut a burrito in half to check the assembly: the filling should sit in a tight layer with no gap at the ends, and the tortilla should be dry on the outside. If the cut face looks wet, the tomatoes needed draining or the eggs went in too hot.

Make It Ahead

Breakfast burritos are a make-ahead recipe first and a fresh one second. Cool the filling completely before you roll if you are storing them, and leave out the avocado, which browns in the fridge; add it fresh when you eat, or swap it for a spoonful of salsa inside the wrap.

Wrap each burrito tightly in foil or parchment, then in a freezer bag or an airtight container. They keep in the refrigerator for four days.

Freezing and Reheating

Wrapped individually in foil and bagged, they freeze for two months. To reheat from frozen, unwrap, wrap loosely in a damp paper towel and microwave for two to three minutes, flipping halfway, until hot in the center. For a crisp shell, microwave for ninety seconds and then finish in a dry skillet for two minutes a side, or bake in the foil at 350°F for 25 to 30 minutes.

From the refrigerator, a minute and a half in the microwave or ten minutes in a 350°F oven is enough. Either way, let them stand for a minute before biting in, because the middle is hotter than the ends.

Storing Breakfast Burritos

Refrigerated and wrapped, breakfast burritos keep for up to four days. The tortilla softens a little over that time, which is why the griddled finish is worth it for reheated burritos. Leftover filling on its own keeps for three days and is good on toast or over rice.

Frozen, two months is the limit before the eggs start to taste of the freezer. Label the bag with the date; six burritos look identical in foil. Never refreeze a burrito that has been thawed and reheated.

Variations and Substitutions

Breakfast burritos are a template more than a recipe, and the filling below is the starting point rather than the rule. Keep the ratio of eggs to everything else roughly the same and any of these swaps works.

Griddled. The pictured burritos are soft-rolled. For a crisp, golden shell, set each rolled burrito seam-side down in a dry skillet over medium heat for two to three minutes a side. It seals the seam and makes them easier to eat on the move.

Bacon. Eight slices, cooked crisp and crumbled, in place of the sausage. Scramble the eggs in a tablespoon of the bacon fat.

Hash browns. Two cups of frozen shredded hash browns, fried crisp in the sausage fat before the eggs go in, and layered under the eggs. They stretch the filling to eight burritos.

Vegetarian. Plant-based sausage crumbles, or a can of drained black beans warmed with a teaspoon of cumin, plus sauteed peppers and onion.

Cheese. Monterey Jack, pepper Jack, a Mexican blend or crumbled feta all work in place of the cheddar.

Spicy. Hot sausage, a diced jalapeno with the tomato, and pepper Jack cheese. A spoonful of sausage gravy inside is a Southern move that is worth trying once.

Green. A handful of baby spinach wilted into the eggs at the end, or roasted vegetables from the night before.

What to Serve with Breakfast Burritos

Breakfast burritos need very little alongside. Salsa, sour cream and hot sauce cover most tables, and a bowl of lime wedges lets everyone brighten their own. For a bigger spread, add fresh fruit or a simple orange and red onion salad, which cuts through the sausage and cheese.

If this is brunch for a crowd, put out a plate of IHOP-style French toast for the sweet side of the table, or a batch of cheddar bay sausage balls for grazing while the burritos are rolled. Coffee, obviously, and a pitcher of orange juice.

Breakfast Burritos FAQ

More Questions About Burritos

Make six on Sunday and the week’s breakfast is in the freezer, wrapped and ready for a two-minute reheat. Once the rolling is second nature, breakfast burritos become the recipe you fall back on whenever the fridge has eggs, cheese and a few tortillas in it, and a plate of pancake sausage balls is the next make-ahead breakfast to try.