Sweet potatoes paired with some local granny smith apples, sweet and delicious. We can’t believe we hadn’t tried this combination before! While the sweet potato and apple play great together, the ingredient that really pulls the dish together is black forest bacon. We get ours from Trader Joe’s, but we’ve been seeing it around at other grocery stores too lately. It’s hands down the best bacon we’ve tried.
The way to get big bacon flavor in this recipe is to cook the bacon first. Once it has fully cooked and all the fat has been rendered out of it, remove it from the pan and use the remaining bacon grease to saute the sweet potatoes and apples. The result is maximum bacon flavor through across the ingredients. Once the sweet potatoes and apples are fully cooked and feeling soft and tender, it’s time chop the bacon up into bite-size chunks and add it back into the mix. Now you have the opportunity to steer the flavor profile of the dish. You can lean into the sweetness of the apples or you can lean into the savory side of the bacon. For this recipe, we chose to go more savory and let the sweet stand out as accents flavors. So we add in a bit of dried thyme, salt, and pepper. After the all the ingredients for the hash were incorporated together, we make two small pockets for the eggs. At this point nearly all the bacon grease had been absorbed by the hash, so we added some butter for the eggs. We cracked two eggs, one in each pocket, and turned the heat to medium.
If you want your eggs to be more poached than fried, cover the skillet and let the excess steam cook the eggs. This produces firm white with runny yolks. If you are in the mood for more of a fried egg, just keep cooking them (without flipping) until the whites firm up. This will produce a nice crispy fried bottom.
If you want to embrace the end of the season, this sweet potato and apple breakfast skillet is a great way to greet a brisk fall morning.
INGREDIENTS
- 4 slices thick-cut bacon, (Black Forest, if you can find it)
- 1 medium sweet potato, (skinned if preferred)
- 1 granny smith apple
- 1 teaspoon thyme
- 1 tablespoon butter, (optional)
- 2 eggs
INSTRUCTIONS
- Slice the sweet potato and apple into 1/2 to 1 inch chunks.
- Place the bacon in a skillet. Turn the burner on to medium. Fry the bacon so it’s just beginning to crisp on the bottom, then flip and cook an additional minute or so. Remove and place on a paper towel lined plate and set aside.
- Place the sweet potato, apple, and a pinch of salt into the skillet and saute until soft, about 15 minutes. In the meantime, chop the bacon. When the sweet potato and apples are nearly done, return the bacon to the skillet and sprinkle in the thyme. Taste and add salt as needed.
- To cook the eggs, push the hash around to create two wells. If the skillet has dried out, you can add a bit of butter to each well to help the eggs fry and prevent sticking. Crack an egg into each well and cook to your preference.
- Serve immediately & enjoy!
