Name: Breakfast Pizza Recipe with White Sauce & Baked Egg
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 5 min
Total time: 85 min
Ingredients: 1 portion overnight thin crust pizza dough ((approx 225 grams)); ½ tablespoon semolina flour ((for sliding the pizza off the peel)); 14 grams butter ((1 tablespoon)); 14 grams all-purpose flour ((1½ tablespoons)); 120 grams whole milk ((½ cup)); 20 grams finely grated parmesan cheese ((¼ cup)); ⅛ teaspoon salt; ⅛ teaspoon pepper; 1 pinch freshly grated nutmeg; 3 strips bacon; 6-8 fingerling potatoes ((sliced on a diagonal ⅛" thin)); 2 teaspoons olive oil; ¼ teaspoon salt; ⅛ teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper; 100 grams low-moisture mozzarella cheese, freshly grated ((½-¾ cup)); 1-2 eggs; 1 scallion ((thinly sliced))

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Here is my guide for making the best breakfast pizza at home! A cheesy, homemade white mornay sauce (aka a béchamel sauce with cheese) is topped with thinly sliced fingerling potatoes, lots of mozzarella cheese, and crispy bacon bits, with a baked egg on top of it all.

I recommend using my homemade thin-crust pizza dough for this recipe, but a store-bought pizza dough will also work if that's all you've got. I've included instructions for how to prep it in the blog post below.

an overhead shot of a breakfast pizza on a wooden pizza peel. a hand holding a pizza wheel is slicing across the pizza, right through the center of the fried egg. another hand is holding the pizza in place on the right.

This breakfast pizza with egg is one of my favorite pizza recipes without tomato sauce — right up there with my arugula and prosciutto pizza.

Looking for more great pizza recipes? Check out my popular homemade hot honey pizza and my thick and fluffy focaccia pizza!

About This Recipe

While recipe testing this breakfast pizza I experimented with different types of white sauces (including my fave garlicky olive oil sauce), varieties of cheese, potato formats (hash browns, grated, sliced, mashed!), and the timing of adding the egg on top. All that hard work paid off, because I am just so, so pleased with this final version.

Whether you want breakfast-for-dinner or dinner-for-breakfast, there's just something so satisfying about combining the two meals. This thin crust breakfast pizza just really hits the spot at any time of day. It has a cheesy white sauce and is topped with thinly sliced potatoes, lots of mozzarella cheese, crisp bacon bits, and a baked egg on top.

If you love breakfast and you love pizza, this breakfast pizza with white sauce is the pizza for you.

an overhead shot of a breakfast pizza on a wooden pizza peel. it has been cut in half through the center of the fried egg, the yellow yolk spilling onto the board between the two split halves.

In the original version of this recipe, I called the cheesy white pizza sauce a "béchamel sauce" — one of the five French mother sauces — but I've since learned that when you add cheese to a béchamel it becomes a mornay sauce. So that's what we're using here. I think you'll agree with me: There's no such thing as too much cheese on a pizza.

The fingerling potatoes are thinly sliced and crisp up beautifully in the rendered bacon fat. Then, to send this breakfast pizza with white sauce over the top, you'll go ahead and crack an egg (or two) right on top of the pizza halfway through cooking.

Cracking the egg over the top might sound a bit tricky to pull off, but I have faith in you! You can do this. Pizzas cook at such a high temperature, the egg only needs a few minutes to cook.

another overhead shot of a breakfast pizza being sliced, this time into sixths

The thinly sliced scallions added as a garnish at the end, imo, are not optional — they add such a nice bright crunch to this homemade breakfast pizza that cuts through all the other rich toppings. Super satisfying. Do not skip them!

Ingredient Notes

Here are the ingredients that you'll need to make this breakfast pizza pizza recipe! See recipe card (at the end of the post) for quantities.

All of the ingredients for breakfast pizza measured out and labeled.

Pizza Dough - I used my overnight thin crust pizza dough recipe here, as usual. You can use any pizza dough you like, but you will get better results with a homemade pizza dough with a small amount of yeast and longer rise time because the gluten has more time to relax so it can be stretched thinner and will bake up crispier.
Cheesy White Sauce - The white sauce on this pizza is a Mornay sauce made with just a few ingredients. It takes less than 10 minutes to make.
- Butter - Just 1 tablespoon of unsalted butter is all you need. If you only have salted butter, leave the salt out of the sauce.
- Flour - All-purpose flour! Gluten-free cup-for-cup all-purpose flours should work fine here too.
- Nutmeg - I recommend buying whole nutmeg and grating it fresh for the best flavor. Freshly grated nutmeg has a very strong, distinct taste — less is more here! I usually buy my whole nutmeg online from Burlap & Barrel or Spicewalla, a small jar or tin will last you for years.
- Whole Milk - The fat content in whole milk helps make this cheesy white sauce extra rich! The milk should be cold when you add it to the pot.
- Salt & Pepper - A pinch of salt and a pinch of black pepper. This seasoning is done to taste, so add a small amount and taste the sauce, then add more if you think it needs it. Remember, the toppings will also be salty!
- Parmesan Cheese - You'll need fresh, finely grated parmesan cheese to make the white sauce for this pizza recipe. Pre-grated parmesan cheese (the kind that comes in the big plastic tubes) doesn't melt nicely the way freshly grated parm does.
Mozzarella Cheese - Low-moisture whole milk mozzarella cheese that you grate by hand is the best melty cheese for pizza. If you can't or don't want to grate cheese by hand, pre-shredded is fine. Just make sure it's low-moisture AND whole milk mozzarella cheese for the best melt!
Bacon - I use classic cut bacon for this recipe, but any bacon you like best should work. You do need bacon with some fat on it — the fat is what you use to cook the potatoes!
Fingerling Potatoes - Fingerling potatoes are adorable little baby potatoes. I usually use anywhere from 6-10 for a single breakfast pizza, but it depends on the size of the potatoes and how many slices you can get out of them. Potatoes shrink when they cook, so it might seem like too many slices at first, but it'll work out in the end.
Egg(s) - Depending on how many people are sharing the pizza you may want to do one or two large eggs, or three or four medium or small eggs. Crack the eggs into a bowl before adding them to the pizza so you don't get any eggshells on your pizza!
Scallions or Chives - Finishing the pizza with thinly sliced scallions or chives gives this rich, cheesy, salty pizza a bright, fresh bit of crunch. I know garnishes often seem optional, but I really do feel that these are mandatory.

Remember: Pizza toppings should always be ready-to-eat (or pre-cooked) before adding to your pizza!

Preheating Your Pizza Steel

Start by preheating your oven to 500°F with a baking steel or pizza stone (read my baking steel review to know why I recommend a steel over a stone!) arranged as close to the heating unit as possible.

In most ovens, where the heating element and broiler are in the top of the oven, you'll want it about 7 inches below the broiler unit at the top of your oven.

In ovens with a bottom drawer broiler, just get the baking steel as close to the heating unit in the oven as possible (in my stupid rental apartment oven, that means the lowest oven rack). Place an inverted sheet pan in the broiler area so you can slide the pizza onto it when its time to broil.

Give the steel about 60 minutes to preheat, take your pizza dough out of the fridge to come to room temp while it does, and use this time to make the cheesy white pizza sauce and prep the potatoes and bacon.

Crispy Potatoes and Bacon

I cook the potatoes and bacon on a sheet pan in my toaster oven, but you can also do this in your regular oven on a different rack while it preheats (you'll have to shorten the cooking time and keep a close eye on it as the temperature is much higher) OR you can cook the bacon and potatoes together in a large skillet.

Wash and dry the potatoes, then cut them into ⅛" thin slices. I like to cut them at a slight angle to give the potatoes more surface area, but you do you. Toss them with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

three strips of bacon on a foil lined sheet pan, evenly spaced apart with thinly sliced potatoes in between them.

Arrange the bacon and potatoes on a foil-lined sheet pan. Alternating the bacon and potatoes allows the potatoes to crisp up in the bacon fat.

cooked bacon and potatoes on the foil lined sheet pan.

Start the potatoes and bacon in a cold toaster oven. Turn it on to bake at 375°F for 10-15 minutes until the bacon and potatoes are nice and crispy.

Remove the bacon to a paper towel and carefully slide a spatula under the potatoes to loosen them from the foil before they cool.

Making a Cheesy White Pizza Sauce

A Mornay sauce is a béchamel sauce with cheese. In this case, parmesan cheese.

TIP: Making this cheesy white sauce is a fairly quick process, so make sure you have all the ingredients measured and ready to go before you start.

The process is simple. First, you're going to make a roux (cooked butter and flour) then you'll add milk, then seasonings, then the cheese. Super easy.

Here's what it looks like:

melted butter and flour whisked together to form a lumpy paste in a small sauce pot.

To make a roux, melt the butter in a small sauce pot. As soon as it melts, add the flour and whisk until the flour clumps up and forms a thick, brown paste.

cold milk being whisked into the flour and butter.

Add the cold milk all at once. (As YouTube's Chef John teaches: "Hot roux, cold milk, no lumps.") Whisk the milk into the roux until it's smooth.

nutmeg, salt, and pepper added to the milk mixture in the pot.

Add the salt, pepper, and freshly grated nutmeg. Whisk to combine.

finely grated parmesan cheese added to the pot.

Add the parmesan cheese all at once, and whisk until it melts.

Bring the sauce to a low bubbling boil. Once it boils, whisk it constantly, holding it at the boiling point for about 15-20 seconds, whisking constantly.

Reaching the boiling point is crucial, as it causes the starches in the flour to swell and burst, thickening the sauce.

a smooth, creamy, pale white sauce in the sauce pan with a white handled whisk in it.

Remove the white sauce from the heat and set it aside. It will set up as it cools, so you may need to whisk in a splash of cold milk over low heat to thin it out right before you spread it on your pizza.

Breakfast Pizza Assembly

Start by hand stretching the pizza dough into a nice medium sized circle about 10-12" across. The dough will shrink back a little as you spread the sauce on it, so stretch it maybe an inch or two wider than you want the final pizza to be.

spreading the cheesy white sauce on the pizza dough on a pizza peel.

Spread the white sauce on the pizza using the back of a spoon. This is a very thick sauce, it tends to pull and tug on the dough a bit so be gentle.

the pizza on a peel topped with mozzarella cheese, chopped bacon, and thinly sliced potatoes.

Top the pizza with the shredded mozzarella cheese, crispy potatoes, and about ¾ of the chopped bacon. Save the rest of the bacon for garnishing.

Why do you spread sauce on pizza with the back of a spoon? The curve of the spoon glides gently over the delicate pizza dough. Because the edges of the spoon are curved away from the dough, they won't catch or tear it the way a knife or spatula would!

Give the pizza a little shimmy back and forth on the pizza peel to make sure it isn't stuck. If any parts seem to be sticking, carefully lift them up and dust additional semolina flour underneath.

Launch the breakfast pizza onto your baking steel:

Place the tip of the pizza peel an inch or two in front of the back edge of the baking steel.
Lift the handle of the peel up slightly at about a 20 degree angle.
In a quick movement, thrust the peel forward about an inch, so the edge of the pizza slides off the end of the peel and onto the steel. Then pull the peel back and out of the oven, keeping the tip of the peel on the steel the whole time to let the pizza slide off.

Cook the pizza for about 3 minutes, just enough for the dough to begin setting and the cheese to melt. Then get ready, because it's time to add the eggs.

Adding Eggs to Breakfast Pizza

To make a breakfast pizza with egg on top, you want to give the pizza a chance to cook before you add the egg. This is called "parbaking" (partially baking) the pizza.

While the pizza cooks for those first 2-3 minutes, crack an egg into a small bowl or cup. This way you can remove any shell that might accidentally get into the egg before it hits the pizza.

close up of a hand tipping an egg out of a small glass bowl and onto the par-baked pizza.

Gently tip the egg onto the surface of the pizza. Season the top of the egg with a pinch of salt and pepper.

two raw eggs on top of the par-baked pizza on a pizza peel.

Repeat if you're adding any extra eggs. Try not to get them too close together so they don't run into each other.

Return the pizza to the baking steel (carefully so the eggs don't slide around on top of the pizza).

Cook for another 2-3 minutes, then finish by broiling for 30-60 seconds. The goal is to cook the egg until the white is set, but the yolk is still as runny or jammy as you like it.

Note: Broilers are VERY hot and their power can vary widely from oven to oven. Once you switch to broiling, check on your pizza frequently to make sure it's not browning too much!

Remove the breakfast pizza from the oven, top with thinly sliced scallions and the remaining chopped bacon, then slice and serve immediately! There will be some carryover cooking on the eggs the longer the pizza sits, so the sooner you can eat it after pulling it out of the oven the better.

(And yes, on the pizza you'll see here, the eggs did slide around when I put the pizza back in the oven; that's why they're both on one side of the pizza. It happens!)

a baked breakfast pizza with two eggs on top garnished with scallions and bacon.

Every oven is different, but pizza does cook quickly — after the first 5 total minutes on the steel, the pizza dough will be cooked through.

What you're really looking at to determine if the pizza is "done" in this case is the browning on the crust and that the whites of the eggs are cooked through. Some of that comes down to personal preference!

BONUS: Hand Stretch Pizza Dough for a Crispy Crust

Pre-shaping before you stretch is key to getting a perfectly round pizza dough. You'll also want to use the backs of your hands and keep the dough moving so that it stretches evenly.

I've written all about how to do this in my guide to hand stretching pizza dough so head there for more detail.

And just remember: if at any time the dough seems like it's going to tear or it doesn't want to stretch any further, lay it down and let it rest for a few minutes (even just 60 seconds!) on the counter.

Using Store-Bought Pizza Dough

Store-bought pizza dough has lots of yeast in it to help it stay active longer. It's almost impossible to make a truly thin crust breakfast pizza with store-bought because it just has so much rising power. But there are a few things you can do to help it get pretty dang close.

When you bring the pizza dough home from the store, divide and shape it into dough balls weighing around 225 grams each (a pound of pizza dough should get you two dough balls).
Place each dough ball in a lightly oiled round deli container and pop it in the fridge if not using immediately. If using immediately, let it sit at room temp for 30-60 minutes prior to stretching.
If refrigerated, remove the dough from the fridge about 30 minutes prior to stretching it so the gluten has time to warm up.

Suggested Equipment

Pizza Steel - I use the Original Baking Steel to make all of my pizzas (note: I bought my Baking Steel with my own money and you can read my full Baking Steel review here, but I love it so much I became part of their affiliate program; use code TPK10 for 10% off!). A pizza stone will also work if that's all you've got, but it may take slightly longer to cook.
Pizza Peel - A wooden pizza peel is the best tool for getting your pizza in and out of the oven. If you don't have a pizza peel, an upside down sheet pan will work for sliding it on to the steel. To remove it from the oven without a peel, use tongs (gently) or two spatulas to slide it off of the stone and onto a sheet pan.
Pizza Cutter - You'll want a good, sharp pizza cutter. There are plenty of trendy, unique pizza cutter designs out there but you really can't beat one like Winco's 4" pizza cutter which is less than $10 and was designed for restaurants and the food service industry. If style is as important to you as functionality, however, Mercer Culinary makes a great pizza cutter with a "millennial purple" handle.
1 quart sauce pot - This recipe makes enough white sauce for just one pizza, so you'll want to use a fairly small pot to make the sauce. A small butter warming pot will also work here.
Whisk - I'm obsessed with GIR's mini whisk because it's super efficient and well designed — it makes whisking easy on the arms and back.
Microplane zester - For grating the fresh nutmeg! (Use code TPK10 for 10% off purchases at Microplane.com!).

Storage Notes

Breakfast pizza is a bit tricky to store because of the egg on top. I don't recommend storing slices with yolk on them; a bit of egg white is just fine.

Wrap any leftover slices of breakfast pizza well in aluminum foil or plastic wrap and store them in the fridge for about 1-2 days.

Reheat pizza in a dry skillet over medium heat, or on a foil-lined baking sheet in the oven at 350°F for 10-15 minutes (or until the cheese is melted again).

Practical Tips and Recipe Notes

This recipe makes enough cheesy white sauce for 1 medium pizza. Double or triple it if you plan on making more pizzas.
Baked egg without a baking steel: Fry the egg in a separate pan and slide it on top of the pizza to finish.
If the mozzarella cheese is too soft to grate, pop it in the freezer for about 10 minutes then try again.
Don't Get Stuck: Once you add the sauce to the pizza, work quickly to add the cheese and toppings and get the pizza into the oven. The longer the pizza sits on the peel with the moisture from the sauce and the weight of the toppings, the more likely it is to stick to the peel!
Let the pizza dough warm up: Hand-stretching refrigerated pizza dough takes a bit of practice. You'll have a much easier time if you let it sit at room temperature for 60-90 minutes before stretching it.

close up of the left half of a breakfast pizza.

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