By Adina Steiman, The New York Times
Egg prices have dropped sharply recently, but with grocery shoppers still waiting to see the benefits, every carton can feel like a precious commodity, especially at breakfast. And really, haven’t eggs always been a gift in the mornings? The combination of yolk and white delivers comfort and sustenance while cooking up in mere minutes. Thankfully, making eggs stretch further doesn’t mean watering down their flavor. Instead, these strategies, using many recipes found on NYTCooking.com, ensure they’re more delicious as well.
Scramble Eggs With Everything
While many recipes for scrambled eggs tend to be simply, well, scrambled eggs, dishes like Turkish menemen, Mexican migas, Greek strapatsatha and Pakistani aloo anday start by sautéing vegetables in the pan before the beaten eggs are poured in. The other ingredients merge with the modest number of eggs, infusing them with flavor, adding more volume and giving them tenderness. If you’re especially low on eggs, simply increase the amounts of everything else. For even more ballast in your breakfast, tuck that extra-special scramble into a warm tortilla for a breakfast taco or breakfast burrito.
Bulk Up Egg Bites With Dairy
Egg bites are a beloved coffee shop standby, and making them at home means you can incorporate another member of the protein pantheon: dairy. Blending in plenty of cottage cheese, along with a few generous handfuls of your favorite shredded cheese, or a combination of milk and cheese, helps them bake up fluffy rather than rubbery and you’ll end up with even more egg bites to freeze for later.
For Egg Sandwiches, Just Add Air
If the odds were in your favor and you happen to bring home a windfall of eggs, ensure they make an impact by transforming them into a tidy stack of egg sandwiches to freeze and squirrel away for your harried future self. Ali Slagle’s brilliant sheet-pan technique makes it easy to meal-prep a slew of egg patties at once, and blitzing the eggs with plenty of cream in a blender aerates them to ensure they bake up fluffy (and helps them stretch even further). Slip these tender patties into any egg sandwich.
Let Stock and Steam Work Magic
Eggs tend to be appreciated for their richness in the morning, but when whisked with flavorful dashi or stock and gently steamed into a wobbly custard, they’re soothing and ethereal. And it takes only a modest number of eggs. In Eric Kim’s streamlined microwave take on the gentle genre of steamed eggs like Chinese zheng shui dan, Japanese chawanmushi and Korean gyeran jjim, the dish comes together in minutes.
Skew the Proportions in Frittatas
If your eggs are running low, but your produce drawer runneth over, a frittata is your friend. Follow Mark Bittman’s example and alter the ratio of eggs to vegetables to make the most of both: A generous hand with vegetables (and cooked sausage or bacon, if the mood strikes) provides valuable scaffolding, delivering an impressively tall frittata that boasts a deeper, richer taste. The Persian frittata, kuku sabzi, is the epitome of this approach. Every two to three eggs in a frittata can handle four to six cups of chopped or sliced raw or cooked vegetables — simply scale up or down based on the current inventory in your refrigerator. Quiche (crustless or otherwise) and strata also work with the same strategy. Bonus: A wedge is just as satisfying for dinner as it is for breakfast.
Recipe: Cottage Cheese Egg Bites
By Naz Deravian
Egg bites are a perfect, protein-rich snack to have on hand for busy mornings. Blending eggs with cottage cheese and shredded cheese, dividing the mixture among muffin cups and baking in a water bath result in a soft, delicate texture. For the right consistency, use a blender to combine all the ingredients until just smooth and frothy. You can add any fillings that you like (leftover cooked vegetables are a great addition). Use any of the shredded cheeses suggested or a combination, and finish with a sprinkling of Parmesan if you like. The water bath creates steam, which ensures the eggs bake gently and remain fluffy (see Tip). For best results, use a silicone muffin pan, so the egg bites pop right out.
Yield: 12 egg bites
Total time: 40 minutes
Ingredients
- Nonstick cooking spray
- 8 large eggs
- 1 cup/8 ounces full-fat cottage cheese
- 1 1/2 cups/6 ounces shredded Gruyère, cheddar, mozzarella or Monterey Jack (or a combination)
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal)
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- Raw chopped vegetables (optional), such as onion, scallions, bell pepper or spinach (or a combination)
- Cooked chopped vegetables (optional), such as mushrooms, broccoli, roasted red pepper, cauliflower, potato, sweet potato or butternut squash (or a combination)
- Cooked chopped bacon or sausage (optional)
- Finely chopped herbs (optional), such as basil, parsley, chives or cilantro
- Dashes of hot sauce (optional)
Preparation
1. Heat the oven to 325 degrees with the rack in the center position. In a kettle or a medium saucepan, bring 3 cups of water to a boil and keep at a simmer. Thoroughly coat a 12-cup muffin pan (preferably silicone or nonstick) with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Place the eggs, cottage cheese, 1 cup of the shredded cheese, and the salt and pepper in a blender. Blend on high for 8 to 10 seconds, just until the mixture is smooth and frothy. (Don’t overblend, as too much air could make the egg bites collapse as they bake.)
3. Place the muffin pan on a sheet pan. Pour the egg mixture into the muffin cups, filling each three-quarters of the way. If using any optional mix-ins, add them on top of each cup and, using a chopstick or small spoon, gently mix them into the mixture. Top with the remaining 1/2 cup shredded cheese and transfer to the oven. Carefully pour the hot water into the sheet pan just to cover the very bottom of the muffin cups. (You can also skip the water bath; see Tip.)
4. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the egg bites have set. Remove the muffin pan from the sheet pan of water in the oven and set aside for 5 minutes, then remove the bites from the pan. If using a silicone pan, they should pop right out. If not, use a butter knife or small offset spatula to run along the sides of the cups and gently lift them out. Egg bites will keep covered in the fridge for up to 3 days and in the freezer for up to 3 months. Reheat in a microwave or a 300-degree oven until warmed through.
Tips
You can also make egg bites without the water bath. The egg bites will be firmer and more compact (rather than soft and fluffy), and they’ll brown on the bottom, like a frittata.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.