There was a time in my life when I obeyed the breakfast vs. lunch/dinner dichotomy. Breakfast foods only were to be consumed from the time I woke until 11 a.m. This is when the reign of lunch and dinner foods, which bore no distinction from each other, would begin. I’m not sure where this personal rule came from, as it wasn’t one that was enforced during my upbringing, but to me, it just seemed like common decency. A breakfast-for-dinner situation was occasionally acceptable, but enjoying lunch or dinner foods in the morning felt like a scandalous subversion of the natural order.
The pandemic changed everything for me. These were the days when we were all trying to stay out of the grocery store as much as possible to reduce our likelihood of becoming disease vectors. I would pick up two weeks’ worth of groceries at a time, at first making huge salads with all the fresh produce I had purchased, then working my way through the shelf-stable pantry staples. Even after I’d boiled all the eggs, eaten all the grits and worked my way through the soggy raisin bread, there was always a box of pasta sitting on the shelf, just waiting to be used.
One particular morning when I found myself craving something savory, unmotivated to eat yet another sad bowl of thin oatmeal, I caved. I pulled the box of pasta from the shelf, emptied its contents into a pot of boiling water and contemplated the depths to which I had sunk as the spaghetti softened and thickened. I fried my last two eggs in a pan with some fresh garlic, tossed in the pasta and grated some Parmesan on top, finishing it all off with a few turns of the pepper mill.
This deeply bastardized carbonara changed my entire outlook on breakfast. Here was a food—pasta—that had, prior to that point, been solidly in the lunch/dinner food camp. And yet, at 8:30 a.m., it was exactly what I wanted to eat with my cup of coffee. Was it really such a departure from my “normal” breakfast food, anyway?
I’ve now come to the conclusion that pasta can indeed be a breakfast food, eggs or not. If rice can be enjoyed in the morning, why not pasta, a similarly blank carb canvas? It’s basically just a bagel in a different font. And if you’re the kind of person who, like me, always wakes up ridiculously hungry, downing a heavy load of carbs first thing in the morning can be a particularly enjoyable way to start the day.
Anatomy of the Breakfast Pasta
Are you ready to repurpose your favorite dinner pasta dish into an a.m. indulgence? It shouldn’t take too much effort on your part, as the most important factor in a breakfast pasta is its simplicity. Part of the appeal of breakfast pasta is its ease; you probably don’t want to spend more than a few minutes cooking your breakfast before work or whatever else you have planned for the day. That may mean you keep things really simple by just adding some butter or olive oil to your cooked pasta along with some salt and spices for flavor.
If you want your breakfast pasta to be a bit more filling, you should consider adding some protein to the dish. The easiest way to do this is to mix some bacon bits into your pasta. Buying pre-packaged bacon bits or making your bacon ahead of time ensures that you won’t have to spend a ton of extra time at the stove. Prosciutto and pre-cooked and chopped sausage can play a similar role in your dish. Have more time to spare? This is a great opportunity to incorporate some eggs into your pasta. I particularly like keeping the yolks runny so when they break, it creates a creamy, velvety sauce for the pasta. If you don’t eat animal products or you’re looking for something lighter, you can add your pasta to tofu scramble.
Want to go all out with your breakfast pasta? Incorporate some vegetables into your recipe as well. Cooking some tomatoes down into a simple sauce makes for a flavorful base for pasta and eggs, and steamed, hearty greens like bok choy can provide more nutrition to your dish. And if you’re trying to keep things as simple as possible, it’s hard to beat a sprinkling of fresh scallions on top of your pasta.
Ultimately, though, you should feel free to make your breakfast pasta with whatever ingredients you’re craving. After all, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from breakfast pasta, it’s that sometimes, the rules absolutely should be broken.
Samantha Maxwell is a food writer and editor based in Boston. Follow her on Twitter at @samseating.