Breakfast tacos should not be confused with tacos eaten for breakfast,Of course, they often are eaten for breakfast, but the stuffed flour tortillas eaten on both sides of the southern US border are quite different from the tacos mañaneros of central and southern Mexico, the rich, corn-based tacos de canasta (“tacos in a basket”) or the smoky beef barbacoa that Monterrey-born Lily Ramirez-Foran recalls being her dad’s favourite Sunday breakfast,Instead, Texas Monthly explains, breakfast tacos “marry the key elements of an American morning – scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes – with the Mexican staples of salsa, cheese, refried beans … genius,”Although they’re originally a Mexican creation, according to José R Ralat, the magazine’s taco editor (what a job title!), these $3 treats are now so popular north of the border that they’re the subject of regular taco wars, mostly between those who claim Austin as their spiritual home (often blow-ins, according to their fiercest critics), and those who know that no single city can take the credit,The fillings may vary, from pork chops to chilaquiles and beans to cheese, but Ralat maintains that all should be salty, soft and, above all, comforting, and told the Washington Post a few years ago that “the greatest breakfast taco is the one made at home”.

Which, if you live 5,000 miles from the Mexican border, is good news indeed.Breakfast tacos are almost always housed in flour tortillas, rather than corn ones, as befits a product of wheat-growing northern Mexico.Though corn tortillas are far older, dismissing the flour kind as inauthentic is, as Ralat explains in his book American Tacos, the product of the collective historical amnesia that occurred when Texas separated from Mexico; flour tortillas arrived there long before Washington did.Yes, you can use corn ones, if you prefer (J Kenji López-Alt’s recipe for Serious Eats gives that option), but, for me, the pillowy pliancy of flour tortillas makes them the better choice here.I can’t recommend the highly processed, palm oil-laced, long-life “wraps” that have proliferated in British supermarkets in recent years, though – they’re too big and tough, and taste weirdly sweet, too.

There are some decent tortillas for sale online, but, given how important they are to this dish, you might consider making your own,Happily, they’re much easier than the corn version, thanks to a little thing called gluten,Lisa Fain, better known online as the Homesick Texan, has a good-looking recipe,You don’t need to have eggs in a breakfast taco – potato and chorizo, carne guisada (beef stew) and beans and cheese are also all popular choices – but the speed-to-reward ratio of the protein-rich egg can hardly be bettered (though plant-based alternatives such as tofu will give it a run for its money),Fain fills her tacos with plain scrambled eggs, made fluffy by the addition of milk, while both Hope Rodriguez, for 34 years the art coordinator at Texas Monthly, and Reyna and Maritza Vazquez of Austin’s much feted Veracruz All Natural chain, add tomato and onion.

Add jalapeño (Rodriguez) or coriander (the Vazquezes) to turn the eggs into huevos a la Mexicana, named after its patriotic colours.I prefer to keep the eggs simple and add the vegetables separately, but feel free to season them as you wish.American scrambled eggs, in my experience, tend to be cooked hard and fast for a dry and fluffy result, rather than a loose and creamy one – indeed, López-Alt, who confesses that he has not historically been a breakfast taco fan, blames the eggs for that.“Rubbery and sulfurous,” he writes on Serious Eats, “they become too dense to absorb any salsa and too dry to add moisture, much needed no matter how great your fresh flour or corn tortilla is.”His solution is to swap the traditional scrambled egg for a fried one, “figuring the liquid yolk would make the perfect sauce”.

I can’t argue that a runny egg is always delicious, but I feel strongly that, just as an ice-cream is much more enjoyable licked from a cornet than off a little plastic spoon, tacos, like pizza slices, are best consumed without the mediation of knife or fork, which makes López-Alt’s creation a very messy affair.It does, however, look great, so if that’s your primary focus, by all means fry them instead.At the same time, you might like to take a good, hard look at your priorities.I’m a big fan of beans for breakfast, and the refried ones deployed by Fain are delicious and easy to spread over a tortilla – you could use cooked black or pinto beans, but I’d recommend mashing them with a fork first or they’ll all fall out when you pick up the taco, which you absolutely must.(Alternatively, you could mash a ripe avocado and use it in much the same way.

)Potatoes are another popular choice for carb-on-carb lovers.López-Alt, for instance, dices and par-boils his, then sautées them in chorizo oil until deliciously crisp, while Carol Barclay of Portland, TX, whose recipe features in a Texas Cookbook I picked up in the gift shop of the Mission San José in San Antonio, calls for frozen hash browns.Unfortunately, I fail to realise until it’s too late that Carol probably doesn’t mean the aggressively crunchy triangles beloved of a certain fast food chain, but sauteed potatoes much like López-Alt’s.Both, of course, work, but my great lumps of fried potato do make the dish rather heavier than I suspect Carol intended.Alternatively, you might prefer the migas taco, an Austin peculiarity that turns stale tortillas into gold – though, to my relief, the Vazquezes recipe included in the book The Tacos of Texas calls for ready-fried tortilla chips, which bring a very satisfying crunch to proceedings.

Definitely the best thing to do with that bag that’s been open since New Year’s Eve, assuming there’s not quite enough left to make nachos.I’ve gone for beans, so I’ve skipped both chips or potatoes, not least because, as Fain wisely observes, the genius of the breakfast taco is in how easy it is to eat: unlike, say, the breakfast burrito, they’re “nimble and efficient.They easily fit in your hand and your mouth, with all your breakfast needs self-contained in one neat, little package.While I don’t advocate eating and driving (or eating and walking), these are up to the task, though they are equally as delicious in a more proper, sit-down forum.” For this reason, breakfast tacos tend to contain only a handful of fillings – because they’re small, you can always order two or three different examples to cover all bases.

Fain likes hers with bacon or sausage patties, López-Alt with chorizo, Barclay with “hot sausage”, which is easy enough to recreate with sausage meat and spices (I use what purports to be a “copycat Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage” recipe containing cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes, sage, black pepper and coriander), while Rodriguez offers a selection of “refried beans, bacon, chunky hash brown potatoes, and fried chorizo”.I like the salty, savoury heat of chorizo (the soft Spanish kind we get here isn’t quite the same as the looser, raw Mexican variety, but it makes a fine substitute), and the way its fat perfumes the rest of the dish, but you may prefer to use another sort of sausage or cured meat, a vegetarian alternative, or indeed leave it out together.As Fain cautions, “Whether you choose to add breakfast meat or vegetables isn’t that big of a deal, just don’t add them all at once or your breakfast taco will be unwieldy and hard to handle”.Anyone still traumatised by the sweet, gloopy jarred salsas of the past, with their aggressive notes of dried onion, will be reassured to know there are some good pre-made salsas available these days, but the best kind will always be freshly made.I try the Serious Eats version using charred plum tomatoes, chilli, garlic and onion, and Fain’s uncle Richard’s recipe, using raw onion and garlic, plus pickled jalapeños and tinned tomatoes, which isn’t dissimilar to Rodriguez’s slightly simpler version using blackened fresh chillies.

Ready-cooked fruit is quicker and gives a richer flavour, especially in midwinter, but the smoky flavour of the grilled pepper and onion proves irresistible (I’ve left the garlic raw to give the salsa a bit of an edge).López-Alt suggests soured cream (or Mexican crema) and coriander, Fain grated cheddar, and the Vazquezes monterey jack and avocado – top it as you wish, but know that any taco is improved by a spritz of lime juice.Also, note that if you’re making breakfast tacos for a crowd, Barclay’s recipe mixes fried sausage meat, hash browns, chopped pepper, onion, celery and beaten eggs before baking it for 45 minutes, then allowing everyone to scoop their own spoonful of warm, potatoey filling into a freshly heated tortilla.Much easier, if perhaps slightly less fun.Prep 15 min Cook 30 min Makes 2, to serve 1-2For the salsa (makes about 300g; or use a ready-made one)½ small white or yellow onion, cut into chunks1-2 mild green chillies (eg, jalapeño)1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed250g whole tinned plum tomatoes Salt and black pepperFor the tacos45g chorizo cooking sausage, diced, or 1 tsp neutral oil¼ red pepper, pith and seeds discarded, flesh finely sliced½ mild green chilli (eg, jalapeño), cut into rings¼ small white or yellow onion, finely sliced4 tbsp refried beans 2 eggs 2 medium tortillas, preferably flour10g grated cheddar, or similar (optional)1 small handful fresh coriander, roughly chopped, to serve2 lime wedges, to serveFirst make the salsa.

Turn on the grill to high.Put the onion and chillies on a greased baking tray, then grill until well charred on all sides.Remove and discard the stalks and, if you prefer less heat, the pith and seeds from inside the chillies.Using a stick blender, whizz the onion, chillies, garlic and tinned tomatoes to a chunky salsa, then season to taste.Fry the chorizo in a dry medium-hot frying pan until it begins to give up its oil (or heat some oil if you’re not using sausage), then add the pepper, chilli and onion, and fry until the vegetables soften and the chorizo starts to crisp up.

Scoop out into a bowl, leaving as much oil in the pan as possible.Reheat the refried beans, if using.Meanwhile, beat the eggs with a little salt, then cook to your liking.Heat the tortillas according to the packet instructions, or in a hot dry pan for about 10 seconds on each side, then wrap in a tea towel to keep warm.Spread each tortilla with some beans, then top with half the eggs, followed by half the chorizo and vegetable mixture.

Finish with cheese, if desired, a spoonful of salsa and a little chopped coriander,Spritz with lime juice, roll up and eat immediately,Breakfast tacos or tacos mañaneros – which camp do you fall into, what’s your filling of choice and who makes the best? (Extra points if they come from a gas station,)