Caribou breakfast sandwiches: Worth the 400 calories?

5 new breakfast sandwiches at Caribou

Breakfast is hot right now and everyone wants a piece of the action. Burger King is running a surreal campaign with a flute soloist for their new breakfast bowls, Dunkin' Donuts just started serving hot breakfast sandwiches, and even our own Caribou came out with five new breakfast options. Here's our take on the new under-400-calorie eats from Caribou.

Chicken apple sausage daybreaker

Best of the group is the Chicken Apple Sausage Daybreaker. With is spicy and sweet sausage, cheddar cheese, and white brioche roll, this one was by far everyone's favorite. The sausage is the highlight and adds depth to the flavor along with great texture. 310 calories, 13 g fat.

Next was the Veggie Daybreaker. The key to this one is the red pepper spread that adds a surprising twist to a breakfast sandwich. The wheat roll was a little dry, but the overall outcome was surprisingly good. We didn't even miss the meat. 300 calories, 13 g fat.

Good biscuits, 280 calories

The Turkey Sausage Mini was saved by the success of the reheated biscuit. Reheating bread (and breakfast sandwiches in general) is difficult, but Caribou has found a way to keep all the buttery goodness of the biscuit intact. The sausage was a little heavy on the cinnamon and stood out unnecessarily. 280 calories, 15 g fat.

If bread is hard to reheat, bacon can be even harder, and the Egg White and Turkey Bacon Daybreaker suffered from it. Overall the sandwich lacked taste: no trace of the Swiss cheese, the same dry wheat roll, and the spinach Florentine spread offered nothing. The bacon especially detracted from the texture. 280 calories, 11 g fat.

Turkey bacon, tough to reheat

The Turkey Bacon Mini suffered from a variety of problems. The same turkey bacon from above and also a hard ciabatta roll that didn't keep well over time (admittedly a tough chore).

Though the sandwiches ranged significantly in quality, overall they are much better than anything at McDonald's or most other national chains. Soon they are available at all 415 Caribou stores.

According to Caribou, the sandwiches were designed in collaboration with Culinary Edge, a culinary design group in San Fransisco and are produced by Supermom's Commissary in St Paul, MN.

Rob Barrett
www.cookingfordads.net