Dunkin' Donuts Loves Us, Proves It with Big N' Toasted Breakfast Sandwich

The first, most well-known rule of breakfast is that it’s the most important meal of the day, but the lesser-known rule of breakfast is that it’s the best fast-food meal of the day. With that in mind (and a song in the heart, given a newfound proximity to Dunkin’ Donuts), it seemed the perfect time to roll through the drive-through for an early-morning Dunkin’ run.

The medium coffee (black) was a given, but how to choose a breakfast? Donuts were out, because in addition to being boring, they induce flashbacks of summers spent making them at a Dunkin’ Donuts on the New York State Thruway; a plain old bagel seemed just too plain and too old. The breakfast sandwiches looked more promising, and the Big N’ Toasted® hit all the right notes: eggs, bacon, cheese and Texas Toast.

Access to Dunkin’ coffee is a game changer, and it’s a safe bet other Yankees living in Houston are feeling the same way right about now. Hot, strong, delicious — this is the coffee reward one craves after a half-hour shoveling a driveway or before a long commute in a snowstorm. It holds up even when the temperature outside is 90 degrees before 8 a.m., and tastes great when sipped while you’re sitting next to the air-conditioning vent in the office.

The Big N’ Toasted breakfast sandwich (530 calories, 28 g fat, 1360 mg cholesterol, 26 g protein, 43 g carbs, 4 g sugars) is legitimately good, and certainly a step up from that McMuffin abomination folks are so crazy about. The bread is buttery but not sloppy, so it’s tasty without being slippery or messy — an easy sandwich to eat in the car. DD doubles up on the egg (product), so that’s where the 26 grams of protein are coming from, and they use a really thin bacon that’s tasty but still easy to eat. (Eating a sandwich one-handed while driving is a whole other ballgame from sitting at one’s desk.)

Served in a three-sided paper sack — again, DD has thought about practical eating logistics for drivers here — the Big N’ Toasted is a lot of food for the 530 calories; you’ll feel satisfied via the protein, but the buttery bread, the American cheese and the buttery Texas Toast are indulgent in that salty, greasy, fatty fast-food way that sends us through the drive-through in the first place. An excellent sandwich, which really should have us all rethinking the wisdom of that McMuffin thing.