Here on the Griller’s Gold team, we’re breakfast people. There is nothing better than cooking up a big breakfast on a weekend morning and feeding the family well with lots of goodies like eggs, pancakes, bacon, sausage, cinnamon rolls and more! We also love the taste of wood grilling that you get from using a grill fired with those amazing Griller’s Gold Natural Hardwood pellets. So let’s bring those two great things together – it’s breakfast time, wood grilled style!
So the concept is simple – your pellet grill is going to be your stove and your oven for this effort. We all know that outdoor griddles have become “a thing”, but did you know that you can do that on your pellet grill?
Simple – just buy a nice sized griddle for it and toss it on top! We happen to have one from Lodge Cast Iron that’s big enough to do a few eggs, an omelet, or 4 pancakes at once. But also, let’s use the oven capabilities – when heated to typical oven temps in the 350 to 400 degree range, your pellet grill does a fine job of mimicking a kitchen oven, with evenly-controlled temperatures and the added bonus of the kiss of wood-grilled flavor from those Griller’s Gold pellets. For all of these recipes, just use your favorite pellets. We like Competition Blend for this.
Breakfast Recipes for the Grill
Bacon and sausage:
This is simple – you’re just grilling your sausage and bacon right on your pellet grill. For either, preheat the pellet grill to 375F for at least 15 minutes and then put the food right on the grate. Sausage patties that are about ¼” to ⅓” thick will take about 4-6 minutes a side to grill up, just like cooking burgers. For the bacon, we like to either put a foil pan under the grate to catch the grease so your grill doesn’t have to be cleaned after cooking, or we will do the bacon on a baking sheet on the grill which will catch the grease.
Either way, bacon takes about 12-16 minutes depending on the thickness and how crisp you like it. The bonus of doing it on the grill is that there’s no need to turn the bacon! Winning! A note though – sausage also puts out a fair amount of grease, so you may want to clean your grill after cooking it to avoid future grease fires.
Pancakes:
( Stew Campbell)
Griddle food is pancakes, french toast, yummy stuff.
Our favorite pancake recipe is as follows for 4 servings:
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 3 T sugar
- 1 ½ t baking powder
- 1 ½ t baking soda
- 1 1/4t kosher salt
- 2 ½ cups of buttermilk
- 2 large eggs
- 3 T unsalted butter, melted.
Mix together the dry ingredients in a large bowl, then make a well in the center. Pour in the buttermilk and crack the eggs into the buttermilk. Pour the melted butter over that mixture and whisk it all together. Don’t overmix – some lumps are fine.
Preheat your griddle on your pellet grill for at least 15 minutes at 350 degrees. Spread some butter or canola oil out on the griddle then ladle on the batter in ⅓-½ cup measures. Flip after bubbles rise to the surface and the edges look dry.
Peek under to make sure they are browned, then flip and cook another 1-2 minutes until lightly browned on the bottom side. Keep warm on the warming rack of your grill until all are cooked and ready to eat.
You can also easily cook pancakes in a large cast iron skillet (or oven-safe skillet) using the same techniques although it’s hard to do more than about 2 at a time.
French Toast:
For French Toast, buy either good challah or brioche style bread cut in thick slices, or Texas Toast bread.
Whisk up 6 large eggs with 2 cups of milk. We like to add cinnamon to the mixture as well. Dip the bread on each side, and fry in butter on your hot griddle or skillet until browned on each side. Could not be easier!
Cinnamon Rolls:
Now we’re going to have some fun with using our pellet grill like a wood-fired oven. Cinnamon Rolls are so easy and tasty to make. You can even bake the “tube” cinnamon rolls on your pellet grill – just follow the instructions on the package but use your pellet grill for the oven.
Here’s our favorite “from scratch” cinnamon roll recipe:
- 1 packet of dry yeast
- ¼ cup warm water mixed with 1 tsp sugar
- 1 lb all purpose flour (or 3 ½ cups)
- ¼ cup sugar
- 1 ½ t kosher salt
- 1 cup milk
- 2 large eggs, beaten
- 1 stick unsalted butter softened
- Brown sugar (about ⅔ cup)
- Cinnamon (about 1 T)
Mix together the yeast with the warm water and teaspoon of sugar. The water should not be hotter than 105F. Set aside while you measure out the rest of your ingredients.
Mix together the flour, sugar and salt.
Whisk your milk and eggs together and measure – you should have about 1 ⅓ cups of egg/milk mixture.
Mix the milk/egg mixture with the yeast mixture and then mix that with the flour/sugar/salt.
Your dough should be soft and sticky. Turn it out to a well floured surface and knead gently until it’s just beginning to be satiny (knead technique: fold in half, press flat with the heels of your hands, turn ¼ turn, repeat).
Put the dough back in the bowl and cover with plastic wrap and let it rise 1 hour or so. In that time it should grow significantly.
Turn the dough out to your floured surface again and flatten it into a rough rectangle about ½” thick and about 12” wide. Make sure your surface is well floured so it doesn’t stick, and then using a floured rolling pin, roll your dough out into a rectangle about ⅛” to ¼” thick and about 16” wide by about 14” deep.
Spread softened butter evenly over the surface of the dough to the edges and then cover generously with brown sugar and cinnamon.
Rolling from the long edge, roll it into a long log and put the seam side down. Cut it first in half, then cut the halves in half, and then cut those quarters into 3 even slices.
Arrange in a pre-buttered (or cooking sprayed) baking dish or cast iron skillet with the sides touching and cover with plastic wrap.
Let sit out at room temperature for about 45 minutes, during which you’ll preheat your pellet grill to 350F. After they’ve had a chance to rise for 45 minutes, remove the wrap and put them on your grill and close it up. Check them after 15 minutes of baking – they should be puffed up and browning a little – continue to bake until they are golden brown on top and are about 200F internal temperature (if you don’t have a thermometer to measure that, don’t sweat, just let go until nicely browned). Serve hot out of the pan!
Egg Frittata:
(Stew Campbell)
Egg Frittata is a great way to serve eggs for a crowd of folks. All it is is a baked omelet. You can put veggies, meats, cheese, whatever in it, and then it just bakes – no flipping or anything needed. It’s so easy!
To get started, decide on what you’re going to put in your frittata – we like onions, bell peppers (red and yellow are our faves, but green also works great), green onions, spinach, mushrooms, etc.
The key thing is make sure you sauté your onions, peppers or mushrooms (green onions are the exception) to soften otherwise they will have a raw taste. For spinach, good to use raw but cut the leaves into small strips by rolling them up like a cigar and then slicing into ¼” slices (this technique is called “chiffonade”).
If you’re using sausage, pre-brown it, or bacon, pre-cook it. Cubed ham is also great as is prosciutto cut in strips.
Preheat your pellet grill with a large oven proof skillet inside for at least 15 minutes at 350F. We like using a big cast iron skillet for this. For a frittata that serves 8, use a 12” skillet and the following ingredients:
- 10 eggs whisked or blended with ½ cup milk, 1 tsp Worcestershire, 1/2t salt and 1/2t pepper
- About ½ cup each of sauteed onions, peppers and mushrooms. If omitting anything you can add more of another – about 1 to ½ cups total.
- About ¾ cup chiffonade cut spinach
- About 1 cup shredded cheese of any kind (but we like sharp cheddar) – reserve about ¼ cup extra to scatter on top
- About ½ cup of any meat items
Put about 3 tablespoons of butter into your skillet and swirl to coat the bottom and up the sides by at least 1”.
Mix your filling ingredients with the eggs in a large bowl and pour into your hot skillet on the grill. Top with the additional reserved cheese then close up the grill.
Check after 15 minutes – it should be beginning to brown on top and be puffed up some. It is done with it is quite puffy and browned on top. Remove carefully, then work a spatula under it while tilting the skillet – it should begin to slide out.
Slide onto a large platter, cut into wedges or squares like pizza and serve!
(Stew Campbell)
Note in the photo we had room in the grill for a tray of “canned” jumbo biscuits and some freshly made breakfast sausages that our butcher sells.
And that’s it – you’ve got the recipes and tools to make an amazing, wood-kissed brunch feast! Serve with copious amounts of coffee, juices, mimosas and bloody mary’s!