As much as I love having my granola, yoghurt and fruit or overnight oats in the morning, when I am in Germany, I love having a proper, Sunday morning, German breakfast.
If you are heading to Germany and want to know what to expect, or are simply wondering how you could recreate it yourself, here is my guide to a perfect Sunday morning German breakfast.
Brötchen (bread rolls), a boiled egg, meat, cheese, jam, sweet pastries – you name it. Sunday morning is all about having the full monte! In the following I´ll break down the different components for you:
1) “Brötchen” (Bread Rolls)
The main component of a good German breakfast is of course the bread rolls, or “Brötchen” as they are called.
You might already know that Germany is famous for its bread, and the selection of bread rolls the bakeries have to offer is definitely impressive! They have everything you can possibly imagine: white, crispy rolls (perfect for jam!), seeded rolls (mixed grains, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, poppy seeds – you name it) and not to forget the classic German “Brezel” (pretzel)!
Check out my recipe for how to make German Pretzels or “Laugenbrezeln”!
And it Germany it doesn’t stop there! They have a large variety of rolls in different shapes and sizes, all made with the same dough they use to make the Brezel.
My sister’s favourite, for example, is one that is shaped into a “stick”, which is called a “Laugenstange” (see picture below).
Having a loaf of bread for breakfast is also very common. If you want to give making them a try, then how about this Seeded Wholemeal Loaf, this German Rye Flour Sourdough Bread or my DELICIOUS homemade Crusty Sourdough Bread?
2) The Perfect Boiled Egg
Another major component of a typical Sunday breakfast is the egg. Of course, there are many ways to enjoy eggs, but the most common way of having eggs in a German breakfast is boiled.
You’d be amazed – making the perfect boiled egg for breakfast in Germany is a science in itself! They even have special gadgets to ensure the eggs are perfect (soooo German I know…), like this egg pricker, for example, which ensures that the eggs don´t crack whilst you are boiling them.
It took my mum years to master! But now she has it down to a T.
Whether you would like a runny egg, slightly soft or hard-boiled egg, the timings for the perfect result all depend on a variety of different things: the temperature of the egg, the altitude and like many things in life – size also matters 🤣. Yes, to cook the perfect egg you must weigh it beforehand!
Managing to get your cooking times right, so that every person’s egg is the way they want it, is the greatest challenge on a Sunday morning!
You typically eat your egg with some butter, salt/pepper and the bread. You can either put bits of the egg on your bread (if it´s hard boiled) or dip it into the runny yolk. The thin, top part of a pretzel is particularly good for this.
Some people have their meat and cheese first and finish with their egg, but that is COMPLETELY WRONG (in my opinion at least haha…). You have to eat your egg first, before moving on to the meat and cheese.
3) Crudités
Now, this might sound slightly strange, but in Germany, it is very common to have some crudité vegetables for breakfast. Cherry tomatoes, sliced cucumber, peppers or radishes are a very common feature to any German breakfast. But don’t knock it before you try it! You’d be surprised how well it goes with everything else!
Brötchen with a slice of cheese and some fresh cucumber? Yes! A little crunchy, juicy tomato in between bites? Absolutely. Bread, soft cheese and some red peppers? Gimme, gimme, gimme.
4) Wurst und Käse (Meat and Cheese)
This is also not something you see in every country: cold, sliced meat and cheese for breakfast.
In large supermarkets (or more expensive ones), hard breakfast cheeses can be bought in blocks or sliced from the cheese counter. In cheaper supermarkets, you can often buy the cheese sliced in packets. Soft cheeses come in a variety of different flavours.
The breakfast meat selection in Germany is endless! You can opt for something like cooked ham or salami, but sliced smoked (Black Forest) ham, turkey meat etc. are also very common.
Sliced breakfast meat is often sold as “Aufschnitt”. If you order that at the meat counter, they will give you a variety of different options. There is “Bierwurst”, “Jagdwurst” or a very typical type of sliced meat that is called “Lyoner”. You can get it plain, or with sliced peppers, mushrooms or bits of egg inside.
Sausage meats are also very common, the most famous ones are “Fleischwurst”, “Blutwurst” (similar to black pudding) and “Leberwurst” (liver pâté).
5) Jam, Nutella, etc.
Often, breakfast is finished off with something sweet. You could have any kind of sweet spread on your Brötchen, for example, honey, Nutella or jam are very popular choices in Germany.
A lot of people also have homemade jam, as making your own jam is a very common thing to do in Germany.
Most people probably have their jam on a white roll or with a croissant.
6) Sweet Pastries
I´d say Sweet Pastries are more of a one-off, rather than a weekly thing (at least in my house) – but they certainly exist in great abundance and taste phenomenal! The sweet pieces would always be the things my cousins got most excited about when they visited Germany! My uncle used to go crazy, always buying one of each when we went to the bakery.
You can have a nougat-filled croissant, a “Mohnschnecke” or “Nussschnecke” an “Amerikaner” or a “Puddingplunder”, just to name a few. My absolute favourite is a “Quarktasche”, a pastry pouch filled with vanilla flavoured quark. A-MAZ-ING.
If you are coming to Germany, make sure you try a few of the things above for breakfast. Starting the morning with fresh Brötchen is a real treat, and there are so many options to choose from – you won’t be able to try every single one!
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