Customizable Bread Bowl Breakfast (2024)

If I ask my (almost) 5-year-old what cooking show she wants to watch with Mom, she always says, “Pioneer Woman!” She adores Ree’s show! After one recent episode where Ree made soup in bread bowls, my little girl was obsessed with the idea of eating her bowl when she finished her soup. (It IS pretty cool if you ask me.) She’s been hounding me to make them for several weeks now.

Since bread bowls are pretty substantial (especially for a 5-year-old) I was so excited when I saw a miniature version made from crusty rolls! The Customizable Bread Bowl Breakfast idea comes from TK member Lindsay.

I love recipes like this that are more conceptual than a strict-measurement recipe. You can literally go any direction with these bowls and simply use what you have on hand! They’d also be great to serve a crowd at brunch (perhaps an Easter brunch if you’re planning one?). If you have enough fillings, then there’s bound to be something that everyone will like!

To get started you’ll need some crusty dinner rolls, some melted butter, a sharp serrated knife, a pastry brush, salt, and pepper.

Slice off the very top of the roll.

(These are so easy. It kills me.)

Pull out as much of the inside of the roll as you can without breaking through the crust. My rolls had a pretty thick, crusty outside, so that’s about as far as I could go.

Brush the inside with butter.

Then sprinkle some salt and pepper inside.

Put them on a sheet pan or a platter for your hungry ones to grab and fill.

Here comes the fun part: gathering the fillings! I actually did this before I prepped my rolls, and you can even do it the night before breakfast. They don’t have to be hot because everything gets baked in the oven anyway. I began to “clean out” my fridge, so to speak, and ended up with WAY more fillings than we needed. Things got a bit heady with flavor combinations.

(By the way, if you don’t use all of the fillings, you have everything conveniently prepped for omelets later!)

I let my kids go at it, curious to see what they would put in their rolls. My 3-year-old went straight for the bacon. And the cheese. (She’s a momma’s girl.) One thing we learned through this is to fill the rolls sparingly and really push the fillings down and into the sides. You’ll see why in a second.

I told the 5-year-old to put an egg in hers. I should have been more specific. She figured out soon enough that meant cracking the egg. Silly girl.

I’m not sure if my rolls were on the small side or if my eggs were on the large side (yolks from pastured eggs tend to be larger), but we lost a good bit of the white down the side of the roll. No biggie.

You could also use the whites only or whisk together the eggs (for those who like things mixed up) and only pour as much as you need into each roll.

After you have your rolls filled and baked, you’re ready to eat! If you like your yolks runny, keep an eye on them closely so they don’t firm up in the oven.

Thanks to Lindsay for a fabulous brunch idea! Be sure to visit her TK recipe box as well as her own blog, Perfecting the Pairing, for more delicious recipes.

Printable Recipe

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Be sure to check out Natalie’s own beautiful food blog, Perrys’ Plate, where you can see her growing collection of lovely recipes. There’s always something new to see there. Go visit now!