Breakfast taco

A breakfast taco is a morning taco, usually built on a flour tortilla in Texas, filled with combinations such as egg and potato, chorizo and egg, bacon and egg, bean and cheese or barbacoa. It is a daily staple across South and Central Texas and northern Mexico, and the subject of a long-running argument between Austin and San Antonio over which city it belongs to.

Origins

No city can prove it invented the breakfast taco, and Texas Monthly taco editor José R. Ralat has said he has seen no literature naming a specific birthplace, though he believes the habit most likely came from northern Mexico. In Monterrey, food writer Ernesto Esquivel has traced morning tacos to the early twentieth century, when workers starting early shifts at the Compañía Fundidora steel foundry needed a fast, filling breakfast. Today the custom is strongest in the Mexican border states of Nuevo León, Coahuila and Tamaulipas, where fillings include machacado with egg, shredded beef deshebrada, barbacoa, and egg with potato.

In Texas, morning tacos were a daily habit in San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley long before they became associated with Austin's brunch culture.

The Austin-San Antonio rivalry

In February 2016 Eater Austin published Matthew Sedacca's article How Austin Became the Home of the Crucial Breakfast Taco, setting off what local media called the Breakfast Taco War. San Antonians objected loudly, and one even started a petition to banish the writer from the city. OC Weekly, then edited by Taco USA author Gustavo Arellano, answered with a survey of old newspaper clippings: the earliest printed breakfast taco it found was a July 1975 Arizona Republic account of a San Antonio food tour, followed by a 1976 recipe in the San Antonio Express from Benny's Place and 1977 restaurant ads in Seguin, while the earliest Austin reference it located was a 1983 Texas Monthly blurb. Citing the book Austin Breakfast Tacos by Jarod Neece and Mando Reyes, OC Weekly concluded that the breakfast taco became an Austin trend in the mid-1980s, about a decade after it was established in San Antonio, and that Austin later popularized it, in part through the South by Southwest festival.

Texas Monthly taco editor José R. Ralat and McAllen poet Eddie Vega have both argued that no single Texas city, whether San Antonio, Corpus Christi, McAllen, Brownsville or Laredo, can claim the dish, since regional ingredients shape different versions. Jessica Elizarraras of MySA has said the feud has largely cooled.

Fillings and tortillas

Texas breakfast tacos are usually wrapped in flour tortillas, and San Antonio tortillas tend to be thicker and puffier than those along the coast and in the Rio Grande Valley. In the Rio Grande Valley, eggs are commonly scrambled with chorizo, bacon, machacado or even sliced hot dogs. Standard orders elsewhere combine scrambled eggs with potato, chorizo, bacon, ham, or nopales, while bean and cheese is a common egg-free choice. Chicharrón simmered in red or green salsa and barbacoa of beef cheek or head are also morning fillings; in San Antonio, barbacoa tacos with a bottle of Big Red soda are a Sunday tradition. The breakfast taco has since spread to cities across the United States, including Los Angeles and Nashville.

Recipe

Where to try it

• Tacos Doña Mary La Gritona, Monterrey, Nuevo León: Long-running stand cited by CNN as a Monterrey breakfast-taco landmark.

Reviews

See also

• Tex-Mex tacos
• Barbacoa in Texas
• Tacos de machaca
• Tacos de chorizo
• Puffy taco

References

1. "A short history of the long fight over breakfast tacos". CNN Travel. Retrieved 2026-10-10.
2. "The Origins Of The Breakfast Taco". Tasting Table. Retrieved 2026-10-10.
3. "Who Invented Breakfast Tacos? Not Austin—And People Should STFU About It". OC Weekly. Retrieved 2026-10-10.