Your Frozen Jimmy Dean Breakfast Sandwich Belongs In The Air Fryer

Did you know that Jimmy Dean, of frozen breakfast sandwich fame, was a real person? Before he started a breakfast meat company, he was a professional singer and TV entertainer — which seems a little bizarre in terms of career trajectory, but he was clearly onto something. After all, we're still enjoying a wide array of breakfast foods labeled with his moniker nearly 60 years after the fact. Of course, high-quality brand name or not, a frozen breakfast sandwich is still a frozen breakfast sandwich. It'll never taste as good as something fresh — at least, not until recently.

The packaging of every style of Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwich offers instructions for two reheating methods — the microwave and your standard oven. The microwave is obviously the faster choice, taking just about 90 seconds to heat through, while the oven takes up to 25 minutes. One method yields a potentially soggy sandwich, and the other is too time-consuming for most weekday mornings. Fortunately, Americans' love affair with the air fryer offers the best of both worlds.

In just about five minutes, these miniature convection ovens can crisp a biscuit, croissant, or English muffin while simultaneously getting the protein and cheese sizzling hot and perfectly melty. Evenly distributed heat inside a small air fryer basket warms everything up quickly, without soggy areas or cold spots. Plus, this hands-off method gives you an extra few minutes to assemble a sandwich for a budget-friendly lunch or froth milk for an easy homemade pumpkin spice latte.

Making a hot, fresh-tasting Jimmy Dean sandwich in your air fryer isn't as simple as removing the plastic and slinging it into your air fryer. Still assembled, the sandwiches are too thick to heat through quickly, meaning you either have to leave them in there long enough for the bread to burn or deal with a cold protein in the center. To avoid this, disassemble the sandwich before heating and arrange the two pieces of bread in a triangular configuration with the protein.

Since these sandwiches can be a bit greasy when heated, use a parchment liner in your air fryer basket rather than nonstick spray. This keeps oil and fat from the cheese and protein from dripping through the holes in the basket. It's also among the most well-known air fryer mistakes to skip the preheating cycle; let your machine reach 350 degrees Fahrenheit to avoid burned buns or dried-out meat.

If you have enough time in your morning, using the air fryer also offers an opportunity to elevate your breakfast sandwich with additional ingredients. Add a few diced mushrooms or minced shallots to the basket so they fry along with the sandwich, or use those five minutes to slice some tomato and red onion. You might also replace the frozen American cheese with something fresh, such as aged cheddar or smoked Gouda, to give your sandwich a nice punch of ultra-cheesy flavor.