The Cheapest Fast Food Chain Breakfast Sandwich Is Hardly A Meal

Picking up a fast food breakfast sandwich is a quick, convenient way to start the day, but you don't want to spend more than you have to. You'll generally find affordable options at White Castle, where its breakfast sliders cost the least, keeping in mind that prices vary by location. But because they're the same size as the chain's iconic small, square burgers, the single one you get for that low price is a pretty skimpy meal.

The most inexpensive option is the Egg and American Cheese Slider on the signature square bun, which is $1.99 at a representative location in St. Louis. The breakfast sliders, with egg, a sausage patty or hickory-smoked bacon, and American, jalapeño, or smoked cheddar cheese, are each $2.39. The Original Slider with Egg & Cheese, which has the classic burger as the meat along with onions, is the same price. All the eggs are cracked fresh and real.

One way to bulk up the breakfast is by doubling the components or adding others, but it will cost 70 cents for another egg, 20 cents for more cheese, 70 cents for bacon, and 69 cents for sausage. Another option is a combo with Hash Brown Nibblers and coffee, which is $5.67 for one slider and $8.06 for two. The Original Slider Breakfast Combo has two and small fries for $8.46 with coffee.

White Castle began offering breakfast in 1986 with the Sausage and Bacon Sliders, 65 years after the still family-owned chain got its start in Wichita, Kansas, in 1921. That was a decade after McDonald's debuted its Egg McMuffin nationally in 1975, and it came out with a fuller morning menu two years later. However, while Jack in the Box wasn't the first fast food restaurant, it was the chain that first introduced a fast food breakfast sandwich in 1969, the Breakfast Jack, and it still sells the egg, ham, and American cheese on a toasted bun today. White Castle began serving its morning offerings all day in 2015, and Mickey D's took the Egg McMuffin from good to great that same year by toasting the English muffins in butter instead of margarine.

Comparing the size and cost of other chains' breakfast sandwiches with White Castle's Sliders can give you a sense of whether they're really a bargain. Looking at the Bacon Breakfast Slider, it's 88 grams and $2.39. By comparison (also using St. Louis prices), McDonald's Bacon, Egg & Cheese Biscuit is 142 grams, 60% more, but costs $6.49 — more than 2.5 times as much. Jack in the Box's Bacon Breakfast Jack is 123 grams for $3.69, both about 50% more, while Burger King's Bacon, Egg & Cheese Croissan'wich is also 50% higher at 132 grams, but costs more than double at $5.19. In another example, the Egg McMuffin is 126 grams for $5.89, but White Castle's Sausage Slider, at nearly the same weight of 118 grams, is less than half the cost at $2.39.