Train Wreck Skillet
Bacon, sausage, hash browns, and eggs cooked down into one pan. A car-camping breakfast for a crowd.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 9 oz
- cal / oz
- 69
- protein
- 28 g
- serves
- 7, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 25 min
- total time
- 35 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Breakfast
- Grill grate
- Liquid fuel
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Winter / snow
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Bacon | 1 lb | cut into 1-inch pieces at home |
|---|---|---|
| Sausage links | 1 lb | also cut into 1-inch pieces |
| Cubed hash browns | 32 oz bag | refrigerated or thawed from frozen |
| Eggs | 12 | crack into a bottle at home if you want to skip the shells |
| Syrup | to taste |
Method
- Get a large skillet hot over the fire or a two-burner stove. Add the bacon and sausage together and stir until both are cooked through, at least five minutes.
- Move the meat to a covered pot to hold its heat. Leave the fat in the skillet.
- Add the hash browns to that fat. Spread them out and let them sit before stirring, or they steam instead of browning. Cook until the edges go crisp.
- Return the meat to the skillet and stir it through.
- Pour the eggs over everything. Keep stirring until the eggs are set firm and no longer wet.
- Serve, and pass the syrup at the table.
This is a Scout camp breakfast built on one principle: everything cooks in the fat that came before it. The bacon and sausage render first, the hash browns brown in that fat, and the eggs bind the whole thing together at the end. Cooked in that order in one skillet, there is nothing left to wash but the skillet and the holding pot.
The syrup is not a mistake. Salt and pork against something sweet is the same logic as pancakes with a side of bacon, just collapsed into one pan. This one stays in car-camping territory: eggs and raw pork need a cooler, and a full pound each of bacon and sausage is not backpacking weight. Below freezing, serve it fast — the pan holds heat far better than a plate does.
Packing
Meat and eggs ride in the cooler. Cut the bacon and sausage before you leave and bag them together, since knife work on a cold picnic table is the slow part. The hash browns can go in the cooler too if they came frozen.
Variations
- Diced onion and green pepper cooked with the hash browns cut the fat.
- Shredded hash browns work but hold less shape.
- In hard cold, serve straight from the pan into bowls. Plates lose heat in under a minute.
https://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/recipe/train_wreck-1149.asp