The Coffee Chain That Serves High-Quality Breakfast Sandwiches

If you're stopping at Starbucks, you may want to add one of its breakfast sandwiches to your order. It's one of the fast food chains with some of the highest quality breakfast sandwiches. If you're not familiar with them, it's not just your typical sausage, egg, and cheddar sandwich on an English muffin like you might find at other fast food stops. While the sausage, egg, and cheddar sandwich is considered the best breakfast sandwich according to Starbucks goers, there's five other artisan-inspired options, each made with 100% cage-free eggs prepared beyond the typical scrambled egg patty. For example, the Double-Smoked Bacon, Cheddar & Egg Sandwich comes with a fried egg, while options like the Egg, Pesto & Mozzarella Sandwich and the Bacon, Gouda & Egg Sandwich feature a frittata-style egg.

Starbucks is also mindful about the quality of meats and cheeses it uses. Unlike thin, salty, and flavorless bacon strips you might find elsewhere, Starbucks uses different types of smoked bacon to better complement the other ingredients. The cherrywood-smoked turkey bacon on the Turkey Bacon & Egg White Sandwich adds richness to the other lean ingredients. The cheese choices also add variety, with options like sharp cheddar, creamy Gouda, and mild mozzarella, which bring different melty textures to the sandwiches.

Starbucks doesn't use a one-size-fits-all bread option, either. Depending on the sandwich, the fillings come tucked into everything from a buttery croissant round to hearty sesame ciabatta, like the kind used for its Impossible Breakfast Sandwich, giving each option a distinct texture and bite.

It's not just what's in the ingredients and composition of Starbucks' breakfast sandwiches that make them high-quality — what's a good breakfast sandwich if it's not properly heated? Starbucks is not like some fast-food chains that make items fresh, but instead of relying on microwaves and toaster ovens to reheat food, Starbucks uses specialized high-speed convection ovens. The ovens have custom warming settings and times for each specific item, ensuring foods like breakfast sandwiches are heated thoroughly and consistently in just seconds, while also helping the food taste freshly prepared every time.

You'd expect, with the thought and quality assurance that goes into crafting Starbucks' breakfast sandwiches, that they'd cost an arm and a leg. But they're actually competitively priced. While prices vary depending on location, a Sausage McMuffin with Egg from McDonald's, for example, costs roughly between $4 to $5 on average, which is fairly close to Starbucks' Sausage, Egg, & Cheddar Sandwich, costing on average between $4 to $6. But unlike McDonald's, you can get a breakfast sandwich from Starbucks that offers a more elevated experience than the standard fast food breakfast sandwich. And compared to another coffee chain, like Dunkin', prices still stay competitive. Dunkin's Maple Sugar Bacon Breakfast Sandwich costs about $4 to $6, similar to Starbucks Double-Smoked Bacon, Cheddar & Egg Sandwich.