I was talking with a few of my co-workers the other day, and one of them mentioned that her husband hated it when food was “mixed together”. She said she always had to make dinners that had very distinct elements.

I’d hate to have that limitation when cooking. Some of my favorite foods are one-dish meals! Magic happens when you combine all the food groups into a well-orchestrated dish.

I really like being able to focus on one dish in a meal. Sure, a burger and fries are great, but it seems like your attention is split between two distinct (but complementary) foods. They are competing for your culinary love.

A good one-dish meal lets you give your undivided attention to the symphony of deliciousness before you.

For breakfast, the quintessential one-dish meal is hash.

The word hash actually refers to the act of chopping up the vegetables. Usually a hash has some combination of meat, potatoes and other vegetables.

My hash has potatoes, bacon, cheese, onions green peppers and lovely, airy, earthy mushrooms.

And it is all smothered in melted cheddar cheese and a delicious and gooey fried egg.

It is kicked up a bit with a dash of hot sauce and my favorite of all seasoning blends—McCormick’s Montreal Steak Seasoning. My sister calls this her “house seasoning.” If that means you put it on pretty much anything and everything that crosses through the kitchen, then it is our house seasoning, too.

To speed up the cooking process, the potatoes get a little bit of a tanning session in the microwave to soften them before going onto the stove. Two minutes in the microwave can equal 15-20 minutes on the stove for potatoes.

This meal comes together fast and is hearty as they get. It is definitely a Sunday meal. Make sure you use Sunday bacon.

Or don’t. Really. I have no idea what “Sunday bacon” even means. I DO know that nitrites and nitrates are very, very bad if you are headache prone, like I am. Once I cut out nitrates and caffeine, my headaches dropped at least 75%.

I digress. Hash is delicious!

Bacon and Egg Hash

4 slices bacon
2 medium potatoes
1/2 tbsp. butter
1 small onion, chopped roughly
1 small green pepper, chopped roughly
Two handfuls button mushrooms, quartered
Salt and pepper, to taste
Hot sauce, to taste
Grill seasoning (such as Montreal Steak Seasoning)
3 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded
2 eggs

In a dutch oven over medium-low heat, cook bacon until crisp. Meanwhile, pierce potatoes with fork and cook in microwave for 3-4 minutes, or until just soft. Roughly chop. Remove bacon from dutch oven, drain over paper towels, and crumble. Set aside. Melt butter with bacon grease in dutch oven, add potatoes and cook for 2-3 minutes or until lightly browned. Add onion, green pepper and mushrooms. Salt and pepper to taste. Cook until vegetables are just soft, about 7 minutes. Meanwhile, fry eggs in separate skillet until whites are just set and yolk is soft and runny. Set aside. Remove potato mixture from heat, mix in hot sauce and grill seasoning. Divide potato mixture onto two plates, sprinkle with cheese and bacon. Top each plate with an egg. Enjoy!

Makes two servings.

This post was created as part of the Denny’s Foodbuzz BACONALIA challenge and is an entry for a chance to win.

Cassie is a holistic nutritionist, cookbook author, and all-around food lover. She grew up cooking dinner with her parents every evening, and her passion for home cooking has been strong ever since. Cassie is the author of two published cookbooks (Cooking with Greek Yogurt and Chia, Quinoa, Kale, Oh My!) and dozens of recipes published in major magazines and newspapers. Cassie has been sharing her award-winning recipes on Wholefully since 2010. She loves dark chocolate, homegrown tomatoes, motorsports, and anything that sparkles. She lives in Indiana with her family on a small homestead.

12 Comments

  2. Love the pictures! I made this for my always-ravenous teenage son this morning, and it came out great! I especially liked the tips about adding bacon grease to the butter before cooking the veggies and microwaving the potatoes to pre- cook them a bit (“tan them” lol).

    Reply

  3. Hey! This post could not be written any better! Reading this post reminds me
    of my good old room mate! He always kept talking about this.
    I will forward this write-up to him. Fairly certain he will have a good read.

    Thanks for sharing!

    Reply

  4. I made hash for breakfast yesterday, too! Mine was a bit different, though. Mine consisted of red onion, sweet potato, and green apple, cooked up with some cinnamon, salt, pepper, olive oil, and a drizzle of agave nectar. Poached eggs were served over top of it, with some chicken apple sausage (Applegate Farms, as well) on the side. It was delish! Your hash looks amazing, as well!

    Reply

      1. Sure thing! It’s in my Jillian Michael’s “Master Your Metabolism” cookbook at home. I’ll grab it for you tomorrow 🙂

        Reply

  5. Looks delicious! I’ll have to try that with the potato.I love potato. 🙂

    Good to know about nitrates, caffeine, and the headaches.I get A LOT of headaches.Sometimes they turn into migraines.I hate it.There is nothing more miserable than a headache.Maybe I should try cutting out the nitrates and *gulp* caffeine.

    Reply

    1. Caffeine was a hard one for me as well. It was about a week solid of a raging headache, but now that I’m off of it, I am SO much happier. I wake up easily. I got to sleep easily. My headaches are drastically reduced. And if I really need to effects of caffeine, I can have a much smaller amount with the same results. I now drink one cup of half-caf coffee before my long runs and it gives me as much energy as 2-3 cups of full-bodied coffee when I was on the caf.

      Reply

      1. Yeah, I have been thinking about cutting out the caffeine for awhile.I really don’t like being dependent on anything and I definitely cannot go without one cup of coffee in the morning.We’ve been doing obedience lessons with our little miniature schnauzer and she has her final test next Monday.I think I’m going to try to quite after that.I just do not want to be going through headache withdrawals during that.I feel silly asking this but what is half caf? Is it half decaf and half regular or is their coffee that is half caf? Did you completely quit coffee at first and then later have add the half caf? I was reading that low levels of magnesium can cause headaches and that caffeine is known to deplete magnesium.Just out of curiosity I added magnesium to my sparkpeople nutrition tracker and I was well below their recommended level so I think I’m going to try to eat more things that are higher in magnesium and see how I do.

        Reply

        1. Yup, half caf is just half caffeinated and half decaf (you can order “half caf” coffee at pretty much every coffee shop).
          I went totally caffeine free, and then incorporated half caf back in. But you could definitely use half caf as a stepping stone to get you down to no caffeine.

          Good to know about the magnesium! I’ll have to look into that.

          Reply

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