Full English Breakfast with Baked Beans (2024)

A traditional full English breakfast with beans is a hearty way to begin the day with eggs, sausages, bacon, beans, and tomatoes.

Something for the weekend. Or something to cure a hangover. This traditional English breakfast, also known as a fry-up, is probably the heartiest, most copious way of starting the day.

What is a full English breakfast?

The word “full” refers more to the fact that your plate will be full of different kinds of foods and not necessarily that you will get all the items that are commonly associated with an English breakfast at once.

The most important items are, of course, the bacon and the eggs, accompanied by those delicious short and thick, meaty British sausages. On top of those, you can also have grilled tomatoes, fried mushrooms, and, depending on where you find yourself in Britain, several other accompaniments like baked beans and black or white pudding in England, potato scones in Scotland, soda bread in Ireland or laver bread in Wales.

Well, the best full English breakfast I had was in Wales, it didn't have any laver bread, but toast fried in lots of oil, potato scones (sooo good) and baked beans.

Other things that can be part of a full English breakfast are jam or marmalade, marmite, kidneys, kippers, hash browns, and sauces: ketchup or brown sauce. And drinks like tea, coffee, or fresh juice.

The history of English breakfast

The history of the English breakfast is century-old, tracing its roots back to the 14^th century. According to the English Breakfast Society its tradition “first began with the gentry, before being adopted by the Victorians who refined the tradition into an art form.

Then came along the the Edwardians who standardized the ingredients, giving us the English breakfast that we mostly eat today and in doing so, created a truly a national breakfast tradition and an icon of British culinary culture.”

The gentry was a privileged layer of the English society who were proud in keeping the traditions of a typical English country lifestyle. They used to serve an impressive breakfast at social gatherings or other ceremonies, such as weddings. As weddings usually took place in the morning breakfast would be the first meal that the newly-weds would eat together after the ceremony.

The breakfast table was a good occasion for the gentry to display the wealth of their estates, so you can imagine how loaded those breakfast tables were.

Later on, the Victorians also saw the breakfast as a way of displaying their wealth and social position. They refined the typical breakfast served by the gentry earlier, transforming it into a fine and elegant affair.

But it was during the Edwardian era, during the height of the British empire, that the English breakfast started to transform into something more similar to what we know today. It was during this time that it became a standard meal to be served in restaurants and hotels and to use the standard ingredients that we associate with it today.

Another quite traditional thing to do while eating the English breakfast is to read the newspaper. It is perfectly acceptable, part of the tradition, to inform yourself about the news of the day while eating breakfast and more or less ignore the other people at the table, except for commenting on something you have just read in the paper. 🙂

How to make Full English Breakfast

English breakfast beans

The baked bean recipe serves 4, while the fry-up serves 2. If making English breakfast for 4 persons, double the ingredients used for the fry-up.

• Start with the beans, if you want to serve them, and I definitely would, for me they are almost the best part of the breakfast. You can choose a good brand of canned baked beans, if you like, I have done it myself a couple of times. However, making British breakfast beans yourself is really easy and really worth the time.
• You can use either dried beans, which have to be soaked overnight and then cooked until tender or you can make the sauce with canned white beans, both versions are quite delicious.
• You can prepare the beans one day in advance and reheat them before serving.

Sausages

• When ready for breakfast, start frying up or grilling the sausages. I prefer to grill them in the grill pan; they are fatty enough as they are, and I don't feel I need the extra oil.
• Use rather short, thick pork sausages. English ones would be best but, unless you live in Britain, it might be difficult to get those. So, use a good quality, meaty pork sausage.
• If you want to use frozen sausages, have a look at How to Cook Frozen Sausages. I often do that during the holidays, when I plan to make this breakfast but I know that the shops would be closed, so buying fresh meat would not be an option.
• One sausage per person should be enough if you ask me, but depending on who's eating, you might want to cook a few more. And if the sausages are very small, you can count two per person as well.
• Turn the sausages in the pan to make sure they are nicely browned and crispy on all sides. You should also make sure that they are cooked through before you serve them. Cooking the sausages should take about 10 to 15 minutes, depending on their size.

Bacon

• When the sausages are almost cooked through, you can add the bacon to the pan, about 2 rashers of bacon per person. This will only work if you cook for two people or so. If you are cooking for more, cook the bacon after you are finished with the sausages and the tomatoes.
• Streaky bacon is good and back bacon, which is somewhat meatier, would be great as well.
• You can fry the bacon as long as you like it, turning it once; it can either be very crispy or less crispy.
• Our German bacon is very, very thin, so a couple of minutes on each side are quite enough.

Tomatoes

• I use rather small tomatoes when preparing an English breakfast; this way, it doesn't take forever for them to be cooked through. Tomatoes with fewer seeds, like plum tomatoes, are a good choice. One tomato per person should be enough, especially if you are serving fried mushrooms as well.
• If they don't fit together in the pan, cook the sausages in a regular pan and use the grill pan for the tomatoes.

Eggs

• Always cook the eggs last. I think fried eggs are the most common way to prepare eggs for this kind of breakfast. But, if you like, you can poach the eggs or make scrambled eggs.
• To fry the eggs, use a clean pan and fry them in a little oil or butter. The egg yolk can be runny or set, just the way you want it.

Bread

• I prefer to toast the bread in the toaster, just before serving it. For this particular breakfast, I used wholemeal toasties, but the more traditional would be white bread.
• You can go all the way and fry the bread in oil or another kind of fat. I have had it like that, it was delicious, but it is not something I would do at home.

Drinks

• Prepare the drink just before serving the breakfast. Freshly squeezed orange juice, coffee, or English breakfast tea.

How to serve?

• Arrange the breakfast baked beans, sausages, bacon, and tomatoes on a large, heated plate. Add the fried egg on top. Serve the bread on the side. Bring some ketchup and brown sauce to the table, together with some butter, jam, or marmalade.
• I went a bit further this time and served the breakfast in the whole meal of toasties. Place the lower half of the toasted bread on the plate, put some bacon on it, and cover it generously with baked beans. Cut one sausage lengthwise and place the halves on the pile of beans. Add the fried egg and the second bread half. Arrange the grilled tomatoes on the side.
• So, if you are in for a real treat for breakfast anytime soon, do give the traditional full English breakfast a try; it is definitely the kind of meal you should at least try once in your life. And I am pretty sure that you will like it so much.

More breakfast ideas

Recipe