With these strategies, eggs deliver even more flavor in easy morning recipes.
In Naz Deravian’s egg bites, cottage cheese and shredded cheese bulk up the eggs.Ghazalle Badiozamani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.
Egg prices continue to rise and as supermarkets run short, every carton can feel like a precious commodity, especially at breakfast. And really, haven’t eggs always been a gift in the mornings? The miraculously versatile 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 ensure they’re more delicious as well.
1. Scramble eggs with everything.
Abundant vegetables help menemen, Turkish scrambled eggs with tomato, feed four with ease.Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.
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 up 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.
Recipes: Menemen (Turkish Scrambled Eggs With Tomato) | Migas | Greek Scrambled Eggs | Migas Breakfast Tacos | Breakfast Taco | Breakfast Burrito
2. Bulk up egg bites with dairy.
Baked egg muffins, rich with feta, Cheddar and milk, deliver plenty of protein. Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.
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.
Recipes: Cottage Cheese Egg Bites | Egg Muffins
3. For egg sandwiches, just add air.
Tender, airy egg patties star in make-ahead breakfast sandwiches.Johnny Miller for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Vivian Lui.
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.
Recipes: Make-Ahead Breakfast Sandwiches | Sausage, Egg and Cheese Sandwich | Kimchi, Egg and Cheese Sandwich | Ciabatta Egg Sandwich With Tomato Jam
4. Let stock and steam work magic.
In these microwave-steamed eggs, dashi delivers lightness and umami to every bite.Kate Sears for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.
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.
Recipes: Microwave-Steamed Eggs | Chawan Mushi
5. Skew the proportions in frittatas.
Sautéed onion, pepper and spinach (along with goat cheese and bacon) star in this loaded baked frittata.David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.
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 iconic 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.
Recipes: More-Vegetable-Than-Egg Frittata | Hot Italian Sausage and Broccoli Rabe Frittata | Loaded Baked Frittata | Kuku Sabzi | Strata With Mushrooms and Chard | Crustless Egg and Cheese Quiche | Roasted Asparagus and Scallion Quiche
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