Easy breakfast and brunch recipes worth getting up for

Easy breakfast recipes worth setting an alarm for

Most weekday breakfasts are an afterthought. Toast eaten standing up, coffee gulped on the way out. Fine. But the weekend is different, and that's when breakfast at home earns its keep. Give it twenty minutes and a hot pan and you've got something people actually want to wake up for.

Six recipes below, from a stack of pancakes to a tray of eggs swimming in tomato sauce. A couple are proper weekend brunch ideas you'd serve to guests. The rest you can pull off half-asleep. None of them need anything you don't already have in the kitchen.

American Pancakes — the fluffy stack everyone keeps asking for

Thick, soft, cakey pancakes you pile up and drown in maple syrup. Not the thin French kind. These are the diner pancakes, the ones with a tender crumb and a faint tang from the buttermilk, and they're the breakfast people request by name.

Don't overmix the batter. The second you see flour disappear, stop, even if it's lumpy. Stir it smooth and the gluten tightens up and you get rubbery hockey pucks instead of fluffy ones. Let the batter rest five minutes while the pan heats, and only flip when bubbles break across the surface and stay open.

→ American Pancakes recipe

Eggs Benedict — the brunch dish that looks harder than it is

A toasted muffin, ham, a poached egg, and hollandaise sauce poured over the top. This is the one that scares people off making brunch at home, and honestly most of that fear is about the hollandaise, which curdles if you bully it.

Keep the heat low and add the melted butter slowly, a thin stream while you whisk like you mean it. Too fast and the sauce splits into a greasy mess. If it does split, a teaspoon of warm water whisked in usually pulls it back. Poach the eggs in barely simmering water with a splash of vinegar, and don't crowd the pan.

→ Eggs Benedict recipe

Shakshuka — eggs poached in a pan of spiced tomato

Eggs cooked right in a bubbling sauce of tomatoes, peppers, onion, and cumin. It started as a North African and Middle Eastern breakfast and it has quietly become one of the best brunch ideas going, because it feeds a crowd from one pan and asks almost nothing of you.

Build the sauce first and let it reduce until it's thick, not soupy. Watery sauce means the eggs slide around and overcook before the rest catches up. Make little wells with a spoon, crack the eggs in, then cover the pan and watch closely. You want the whites set but the yolks still runny for dunking bread.

→ Shakshuka recipe

French Toast — stale bread's second act

Bread soaked in egg and milk, then fried in butter until the outside is golden and the inside is soft as custard. The whole trick is the bread. Fresh, soft sandwich slices fall apart in the custard. You want bread with some age and structure.

Use day-old bread, thick cut, and let it soak long enough to drink up the egg without going to mush. A brioche or challah is ideal. Cook it on medium, not high, so the inside warms through before the outside scorches. A little vanilla and cinnamon in the custard does more than you'd think.

→ French Toast recipe

Breakfast Burrito — everything you want, wrapped to go

Scrambled eggs, potatoes, cheese, and whatever else, rolled into a warm tortilla. This is the breakfast for people who don't sit down to eat. It's also the best way I know to use up leftovers from the fridge.

Don't overfill it, however much you want to. Pack it past the point of reason and the tortilla tears and the whole thing unravels in your hand. Warm the tortilla first so it folds instead of cracking, fold the sides in before you roll, and give it a minute seam-side down in a hot dry pan to seal. Now it travels.

→ Breakfast Burrito recipe

Waffles — crisp outside, tender in, built for syrup

Batter poured into a hot iron and cooked until the outside crackles and the pockets are made for catching butter and syrup. People treat waffles as harder than pancakes. They're not, you just need the iron good and hot.

Separate the eggs and beat the whites before folding them in. It sounds fussy for breakfast but it's the difference between dense and airy. And resist opening the iron too soon. Lift the lid early and you'll tear the waffle in half. Wait until the steam slows right down, then it'll release clean.

→ Waffles recipe

The breakfast pantry

Eggs, good butter, real maple syrup, a bag of decent flour, and a loaf you let go a little stale on purpose. Keep those around and most of these are a spur-of-the-moment thing. Easy breakfast recipes aren't about special shopping. They're about a hot pan and not rushing the eggs.