Korean Breakfast Toast with Egg and Cabbage Recipe
Korean breakfast toast is a street-food hit from Seoul: slices of bread, egg, fried cabbage and a slightly sweet sauce. It’s somewhere between an egg sandwich and a breakfast burger, just made in a pan. Perfect when you want something substantial before leaving the house, but don’t have time for long cooking.
This Korean-style breakfast toast combines sweet, salty and savory flavors in one pan-fried sandwich. Caramelized bread, a fluffy egg-and-vegetable filling and a simple pink sauce make it feel like street food straight from Seoul, but it’s quick and easy to prepare at home.
Chef's tips
Don’t make the egg-and-vegetable mixture too thin; it should be dense enough to hold together as a single slab. When caramelizing the bread, keep the heat at medium so the sugar melts and browns without burning before the bread toasts.
How to serve
Serve the toast hot, cut in half on the diagonal, with extra ketchup or chili sauce on the side. It also pairs well with a light coleslaw or a fresh cucumber salad for a more filling brunch.
Ingredients
- toast bread white or wholegrain - 4 slices
- egg - 3 pieces
- Chinese cabbage thinly sliced; you can also use white cabbage - 80 g
- carrot grated on a coarse grater - 0.5 pieces
- chives chopped - 2 tablespoons
- sugar for sprinkling the toast in the pan - 1 tablespoon
- butter for frying - 20 g
- vegetable oil for frying the egg-and-vegetable mixture - 1 tablespoon
- mayonnaise - 2 tablespoons
- ketchup - 2 tablespoons
- salt for the egg mixture - 0.5 teaspoons
- black pepper for the egg mixture - 0.25 teaspoons
- yellow cheese optional - 2 slices
- powdered sugar optional, for lightly dusting the finished toasts - 0.5 teaspoons
- pickled cucumber optional, thinly sliced for the filling - 1 piece
Preparation
- Finely slice the Chinese cabbage, grate the carrot on a coarse grater, and finely chop the chives.
- In a bowl, beat the eggs with salt and pepper, then add the cabbage, carrot and chives. Mix; the mixture should be thick but still pourable.
- Heat the vegetable oil in a pan over medium heat. Pour in all the egg-and-vegetable mixture and spread it out so it forms a rectangle roughly the size of two slices of bread placed side by side.
- Fry for 3–4 minutes, until the bottom sets and lightly browns. Carefully flip the whole thing to the other side (you can cut it in half and flip piece by piece) and fry for another 2–3 minutes, until the egg is fully set in the center.
- In a second pan, melt the butter over medium heat. Place the bread slices in the pan and sprinkle a thin layer of sugar on the top side of each slice. Fry for 1–2 minutes on each side, until the bread is golden and slightly crisp and the sugar is lightly caramelized.
- In a small bowl, mix the mayonnaise with the ketchup to make a pink sauce.
- Cut the fried egg-and-vegetable slab into two rectangles the size of a slice of bread. Spread a tablespoon of sauce on two slices of bread, place one piece of the egg slab on each, and optionally add a slice of cheese and slices of pickled cucumber.
- Cover with the second slice of bread (with the sugared side facing out), press gently and cut the sandwiches in half. Serve immediately, while warm.
Storage
No storage information available for this dish.
I like to treat this toast as a comforting, slightly indulgent breakfast that still sneaks in a good portion of vegetables. The contrast between the sweet, crisp bread and the soft, savory egg filling makes it surprisingly addictive.
