It’s 7:00 on Tuesday and I have about ten minutes to make breakfast, eat and get out the door. I’m tired and rushed, but I know I feel much better when I eat breakfast. Cooking in the morning when I’m in a hurry can be a real pain. It is tempting to just head out the door and swing past the drive thru for a breakfast sandwich on my way to work, but I wonder if that would really save me time. It is certainly convenient to have someone else make my breakfast, but I decided to do a little experiment. I wanted to learn if I could make something that was inexpensive, fast and healthy that also tasted just as good as the drive thru breakfast (or maybe even better!).

Here is what I found…

The Verdict

• I learned that I can make a comparable breakfast in the same amount of time as the drive thru for less money. If I had this sandwich once per week for a year, I would save over $75 by making my sandwiches at home. This makes the drive thru seem a little less attractive.
• I enjoyed my breakfast much more eating at home and I was able to customize my sandwich to my tastes. For example, I chose a whole wheat English muffin and cheddar cheese instead of American cheese. In the future, I will try this sandwich with sliced tomatoes and peppers. I think that would be really good and add very few calories and no fat. I could also make the egg part of my sandwich ahead by using our recipe for Scrambled Egg Muffins. All I would need to do in the morning is reheat the Scrambled Egg Muffin and pop it on toast or an English muffin.
• This experiment really shows how difficult it can be to limit sodium in your diet. My homemade sandwich had more sodium than I would like and I did not add any salt. This is not something I can eat every day and perhaps in the future I will choose either Canadian bacon or cheese, but not both because they are high in sodium.

Our blogs for the next few weeks will be about fast food make-overs. Share your ideas for restaurant remakes in the comments or on Spend Smart. Eat Smart’s. Facebook page!