Want a Fast Food-Style Breakfast? Save Money with Aldi Ingredients.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated for 2025. 

In 2015, McDonalds began experimenting with an all-day breakfast menu, and by 2016 the experiment had become universal across the McDonalds chain. The reason McDonalds did so is simple: people love McDonalds breakfasts, and McDonalds, like any business, saw an opportunity to meet a demand.

It didn’t last, though. McDonald’s stopped offering all-day breakfast in 2020, claiming the reason was that it was too complicated to split kitchen and appliance space between breakfast and lunch/dinner menu items. So, you can’t get your breakfast fix any time of day from McDonald’s anymore.

The good news is that a lot of breakfast food that is produced in fast food restaurants can be duplicated using a few handy Aldi products, and some Trader Joe’s goods as well. While they’re not *exactly* the same, they’re good enough that after a while you might not even know the difference.

Making these breakfast meals at home has the added benefits of being cheaper, and these probably have fewer calories and less fat and sodium than their fast-food cousins.

Here are just a few examples of how it can be done. Feel free to share your own ideas in the comments below.

Muffin Sandwiches:

Aldi has the right selection of items to do a decent impersonation of a McMuffin. Start by splitting and toasting a L’Oven Fresh Original English Muffin and putting a little butter or margarine on each piece. Then fry up a Goldhen egg, cracking it on the skillet and puncturing the yolk as you cook. Next, cook up the meat — throw a Breakfast Best Fully Cooked Pork Sausage Patty on a skillet or, if you prefer, cut of a slice of ham and toss it on the skillet until its surface is lightly toasted. Our favorite breakfast meat these days is the chicken sausage patties Trader Joe’s sells, so if you have a TJ’s nearby, that’s our recommendation. No matter what meat you choose, top your muffin sandwich off with a slice of mild cheddar.

Finally — and this is an important step — place your sandwich in the microwave and heat it for 10-15 seconds. This heats everything up a little and helps to mix the flavors a bit. It may surprise you to know that McDonalds does almost the same thing; they call it a “Q-ing Oven” but it’s essentially a microwave. If you want to get fancy, you can wrap it in wax paper before putting it in, but simply putting it on a plate is fine.

Biscuit Sandwiches:

While not as popular as the Egg McMuffin, McDonald’s also sells a tasty sausage biscuit with egg sandwich that we’re fond of. It’s just as easy to make at home with Aldi ingredients. Pick up a can of Bake House Creations Jumbo Buttermilk Biscuits and get them started baking in the oven. While the biscuits are baking, fry your eggs and sausage patties. When the biscuits are done, carefully slice one open and place a fried egg, a sausage patty, and half or one whole slice of cheddar cheese on half a biscuit. Top with the other biscuit half. As with the muffin breakfast sandwiches, you can then heat the whole biscuit sandwich in the microwave for about 10 seconds to melt the cheese a bit.

Hash Browns:

McDonalds hash browns are a staple in any breakfast menu. Aldi used to sell a worthy substitute in Season’s Choice Hash Brown Patties. The patties could be baked or deep fried, and they tasted about as close to the fast food counterpart as you could hope for from a grocer.

However, Aldi discontinued those hash brown patties went missing from stores a few years ago. They were replaced first by Mydibel Hash Brown Patties and then by a new version of Season’s Choice Hash Brown Patties, which are okay but not as good.

Our go-to hash brown patties these days are from Trader Joe’s. They cook up crisp and flavorful in the air fryer and are as good as (and healthier than) McDonald’s in our opinion. But if you don’t have a Trader Joe’s nearby, the Aldi hash browns will do.

Breakfast Burritos:

Once again, Aldi has all the components to create a good replica of this breakfast wonder. All you’ll need is some sausage patties or links, eggs, salsa, cheese (Aldi sells a nice shredded Mexican cheese blend), and either flour tortillas or corn tortillas. Sometimes we also add shredded hash browns or a chopped hash brown patty to our breakfast burrito. Optionally, you can also add red and/or green peppers and onions if you want; simply saute them and add them into the egg mix at the same time as the sausage.

The inside of the burrito is pretty straightforward. First, cook the sausage — depending on your tastes, 1/2 to 1 patty per tortilla is decent for one burrito. Then crack your eggs in a bowl — 1 to 1 1/2 eggs per tortilla. Add salsa (I usually do about one large spoonful per egg, but feel free to experiment), cut up the sausage patties or links and add them, then pour the whole mix into a skillet over medium heat and cook them like scrambled eggs. I like to wait to add the cheese until right as I’m finishing up the eggs, but feel free to follow your own tastes there. Finally, heat up the tortillas in a skillet, fill them with the egg mixture, and enjoy a really nice meal at your own table!

Big Breakfast with Hotcakes:

Finally, if you’ve got a big appetite, there’s the McDonald’s Big Breakfast with Hotcakes. This is a little bit of all of the major breakfast players: a biscuit, a sausage patty, scrambled eggs, hash browns, and a stack of hotcakes, otherwise known as pancakes. And yes, Aldi sells all of the components needed to make your own Big Breakfast. We’ve already covered the biscuits, sausage patties, eggs, and hash browns.

When it comes to the pancakes, you have several options. You can make them from scratch, or you can buy some different pancake mixes Aldi sells, including a regular mix or a protein mix. Or, if you want the ultimate in convenience, Aldi sells ready-made frozen pancakes that are quite good. You heat them in the microwave, toaster, or oven.

And don’t forget pancake syrup. Aldi sells basic syrup, or you can also buy real 100% maple syrup.

---

What kinds of homemade fast food-style breakfasts do you like the make? Leave us a comment below. 

Save