I’m not sure how truly breakfast-y these patty melts are, but they do contain eggs, bacon, and toast, so that has to count for something, right? I love making shokupan sandwiches(I usually get my shokupan from my local Japanese bakery when I’m not baking a loaf up myself), since the bread is so light, and when toasted, you get really crispy edges! I also pride myself on making a mean beef burger patty too. My cheat code is adding diced bacon for fat, and sweated out onions for moisture. Some would argue that adding onions to a beef mince doesn’t make it a hamburger patty. But I don’t care, it makes for a juicier end result, and that’s what I prefer anyways. In the case of these patty melts, I used ground wagyu beef, since my local Costco sells that, and it has an already-higher amount of fat in it. Ground beef can get really lean, aka really dry when it cooks, so having a blend that is more than 10% fat is what you need for this kind of recipe. Especially since as wagyu and bacon cook, all of that liquid gold-rendered beef/pork fat is perfect for the rest of this recipe – I fry eggs in that, and toast my bread in it too, just to have no waste. Instead, it all just goes to my waist. But that’s what makes a hearty, comforting breakfast, all in the form of a patty melt! To keep in line with the melt and breakfast theme, the patties are topped with an egg that is covered with parmesan cheese, so in this case, it’s both the egg yolk and the cheese that gives you that satisfying, gooey meltiness that you crave in this kind of sandwich.

Makes 4 patty melts:
For the patties:
2 shallots, peeled and diced
1 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1 tbsp canola oil, plus more
4 strips bacon
12oz ground wagyu beef
2 tsp kosher salt

In a pan, sweat out the shallots, paprika, and pepper in the canola oil until translucent. Dice the bacon finely. Mix, in a bowl, the sweated onions, the bacon, beef, and salt to form your patty mince. Form the mince into 4 4-inch wide patties. In a pan lined with more canola oil, sear each patty on medium-high heat for 2 minutes on each side, pressing them down with a spatula to limit the shrinkage. Reserve any rendered fat for your eggs and bread.

For the eggs:
2 eggs
.5oz grated parmesan cheese
a pinch of black pepper
a pinch of salt
reserved patty fat

In the pan on medium heat, crack in each egg and allow them to cook on medium heat, covered, for 3 minutes. Sprinkle cheese, pepper, and salt on top of each egg to finish.

For the bread:
8 slices shokupan
reserved patty fat

Drizzle the remaining patty fat over the bread slices and toast each slice until golden brown.