Bubble & Squeak Brunch: The Perfect Sunday Treat

What’s your dream Sunday like? OK, so it probably involves having a long lie followed by endless cuppas in bed while you read the paper – but park that dream. Once you’re a parent, Sundays take on a whole new angle, and it’s not necessarily a bad one. Yes, your day will most probably start pre-7am (my six-year-old was banging around in her room at 5.15am the other weekend!) but some of my favourite Sundays have involved the whole family piled into one bed, chatting and watching kids’ TV, cups of tea and then downstairs for a family brunch. We call it brunch, but it’s probably actually breakfast if it’s at 9am, isn’t it?

This dish is one of my favourites for a Sunday brunch with a twist – and it’s a brilliant one for families because it’s a good way to use up loads of stuff you have in your fridge. If you’re anything like me, you’ll be guilty of chucking out a fair bit of food, because it’s gone past its use by date, and you haven’t managed to eat it yet. In fact, UK households waste around 7 million tonnes of food each year, costing families an estimated £12.5 billion – or an average of around £700 per household. £700! Imagine what you could do with that every year.

Sainsbury’s are tackling this with their Waste less, Save more initiative – a five-year plan to help customers throw less food in the bin and save money on shopping bills. They’ve invested £10million, helping communities up and down the UK.

Sainsbury’s asked me to share a dish that uses up ‘leftovers’  and I immediately thought of my Brunch Bubble and Squeak.

The beauty of this is, of course, you can chuck most things in, and it will work. For me, the main ingredients that make it a brunch dish are the bacon, baked beans and the fried eggs on top. Other essentials are potato and some kind of veg, as this makes up the bulk of the dish. Aside from that – chuck in what you like!

So how do you make it?

Chop or mash your boiled potatoes, chop an onion and a pepper and fry them up in a large frying pan or wok. Chop half a cabbage, slice some rashers of bacon and add them after the potatoes are starting to brown and the onion is soft. Drain a small can of baked beans, and add them to the frying pan. Add a pinch of salt and herbs if you fancy.

You’ve then got a couple of options – if you’re in a hurry, fry some eggs and pop them on top. Or if you have more time, put the mixture into an oven proof dish, crack some eggs on top and pop in the oven (180C) for 30 minutes or until the eggs have baked.

Then just serve up with hot buttery toast and enjoy.

There are lots of tips, recipes and tools over on the Waste Less, Save More site – I particularly like this tool which allows you to  pop in the food you have leftover in your fridge, and it suggests what you make with it!

We’ve got no excuse now to let food go to waste, have we?

This post has been commissioned by Sainsbury’s and as always, all views are my own. See my Work With Me page for details on how I work with brands.