The Hill I Will Die On: Breakfast for Dinner Beats Breakfast at Breakfast Time

The hill I will die on breakfast for dinner is one I will plant a flag on with a spatula in one hand and the syrup already sitting on the table: I like breakfast for dinner more than I like breakfast at breakfast time. Same eggs. Same bacon. Same stack of pancakes. Serve it at six o’clock at night and it becomes a completely different and far superior meal, and I will not be talked down off this one. Who else is up here with me? There is room, and there is bacon.

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Let me explain myself, because I can already hear the breakfast people typing. My problem is not with the food. The food is perfect. My problem is the hour it has been assigned. Breakfast happens at the single worst time of day in this house. Somebody cannot find a shoe. Somebody needs a permission slip signed. Somebody is standing at the counter eating a granola bar over the sink with a backpack already on. Nobody is sitting down. Nobody is tasting anything. You could serve the finest plate of eggs ever cooked in the state of Florida at seven in the morning and it would be gone in ninety seconds and not one person would look up.

Now take that exact same plate and move it to six o’clock at night. The day is done. Everybody is home. Nobody is going anywhere. The pancakes come off the griddle and go straight onto plates instead of into a warm oven to wait their turn, the bacon is hot, and people actually sit down at the same table and talk to each other while they eat. That is not a lesser dinner. That is breakfast finally getting the attention it deserved the whole time. And since I am the one doing the grocery shopping around here, I will add that eggs and potatoes and a pound of sausage feed my crowd for less than almost anything else I could put on that table, which has never once hurt my feelings on a Thursday.

Now here is the part that made my whole week, because y’all know by now that I do not plant a flag without going looking for backup first. I went digging into the USDA’s own research on breakfast, and I came back with something better than a statistic. I came back with a definition. In the government’s Dietary Data Brief on breakfast consumption, tucked into the definitions on the back page, the USDA explains that a breakfast is any eating occasion the person eating it calls breakfast. And then it says this part right out loud: the time an eating occasion occurs has no implication as to the type of meal. It goes further and spells out that something eaten during normal morning hours does not get counted as breakfast unless the person says that is what it was.

Do you understand what that means? The federal government does not define breakfast by the clock. It defines breakfast by what you call it. Which means my pancakes at six o’clock on a Tuesday night are, by the United States Department of Agriculture’s own working definition, breakfast. I was not out looking for a federal ruling on this hill. I simply found one lying there. I am putting it on the record and I am not taking it down.

And while I had that report open, one more thing jumped off the page at me. Out of all the adults who ate breakfast on the day they were surveyed, only four percent of them had pancakes, waffles, or French toast. Four percent. Meanwhile forty-eight percent had coffee. So America is not actually eating breakfast at breakfast, y’all. America is drinking coffee at breakfast. The pancakes are out there waiting on somebody to move them to a better hour, and I have volunteered.

What My Breakfast for Dinner Actually Looks Like

When we do this right around here, it is not a plate of scrambled eggs and a shrug. My French Toast Casserole is what I reach for when there are a lot of people to feed, because it goes together the night before and bakes while I am busy doing something else. A pan of loaded hashbrown balls comes out crispy and my Tater Tot Casserole is usually gone before it makes it all the way to the table. If there is any Bisquick cinnamon coffee cake left from the weekend, that goes out too, because nobody has ever shown me the rule that says you cannot have dessert at a meal that is technically breakfast. Add sausage, bacon, a bowl of cut fruit, and a pan of biscuits, and my whole crowd is happy and nobody is looking at a clock.

Hill I Will Die On — Breakfast for Dinner FAQ

Is the hill I will die on breakfast for dinner really about the food, or about not cooking?

It is about the food, and I can prove it. A real breakfast-for-dinner spread at my house is a casserole, a pan of hashbrown balls, bacon, sausage, and fruit, which is more cooking than most of my regular weeknight dinners, not less. If I wanted a night off I would make grilled cheese and call it a win. I make breakfast for dinner because I want to eat it.

Where is the protein? Pancakes are not a dinner.

There are eggs on that table, and sausage, and bacon, and usually a great deal more of all three than anybody is eating at seven in the morning. That is exactly the point I am making. Breakfast food at night gets treated like a real meal, so it gets a real plate built around it instead of one thing grabbed on the way out the door.

So you just skip breakfast in the morning?

I do not skip it, but I will be honest that most mornings around here it is coffee and something one-handed. That is not a failure of breakfast, that is simply what mornings are when you are getting a houseful of people out the door. I would rather do breakfast properly one time at night than badly five times before eight in the morning.

Doesn’t breakfast for dinner fall apart when you are feeding a crowd?

It is one of the easiest crowd meals there is, as long as you stop standing at the stove making eggs to order. Bake it instead. A French toast casserole, a sheet pan of bacon, and a big pan of potatoes will feed a whole houseful at once and all come out hot at the same time, which is more than I can say for pancakes made one at a time for twelve people.

Sweet or savory? Pick one.

Both, on the same plate, touching. Syrup running into the sausage is not an accident at my house and I will not be taking questions about it. If you are a savory-only household I respect it, and I still think you are missing something. This hill has room for both camps. It does not have room for people who believe six o’clock is too late for a pancake.

So that is the hill I will die on breakfast for dinner, said plainly: it is better at night, it has always been better at night, and the morning has been holding it hostage this entire time. Now tell me where you land in the comments. Are you up here on the hill with me, or are you one of those people who thinks a pancake after dark is a sign that a family has lost its way? Are you savory-only? Do you consider it cheating on the meal plan? Bring it. My griddle is already hot.

More Hills Worth Dying On — Strong Food Opinions from Stephanie

• The Hill I Will Die On: Pork Is a Wonderful, Magical Animal — the bacon and the sausage on this plate came off the same animal as the Christmas ham, and I have proof.
• The Hill I Will Die On: A Sandwich Always Tastes Better When Somebody Else Makes It — the third time I went hunting for backup, and this time I came home with a Nobel Prize winner who was asked this exact question.
• The Hill I Will Die On: Hot Dogs Only Want Ketchup and Mustard — the hill that started my habit of going looking for an official body to argue with.
• The Hill I Will Die On: A Bologna Sandwich Is the Best Beach Lunch — the last time a federal definition turned out to be sitting right there on my side.
• The Hill I Will Die On: Foods Made for Each Other Belong Together — and yes, syrup and sausage are on that list, right where they belong.
• The Hill I Will Die On: Totino’s Frozen Pizza Is Worth Every Bite — another humble food eaten at the wrong hour on purpose, with zero embarrassment.
• Browse every Hill I Will Die On — the full archive of my strongest food opinions, all in one place.

The Hill I Will Die On — About Stephanie Longstreth

Stephanie Longstreth is the home cook, mom, and storyteller behind StephanieCooksForACrowd.com. She cooks for a family of seven in Florida — five kids, two cats, and one husband who appreciates a good meal. Four of her children came home through adoption, and family stories are woven into everything she makes and shares. Find her crowd-friendly recipes, weekly meal plans, and real family life on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest @stephaniecooksforacrowd.