By Published June 8, 2021
There’s no better way to start your day than with a fried egg. Typically you’d fry it in a combination of olive oil and butter, but what if there was a more flavorful option when you’re feeling more adventurous?
The internet, specifically TikTok, has been talking nonstop about pesto eggs. No, you don’t just top your fried egg with pesto, you cook it in the pesto. The pesto’s oil acts as the cooking fat in the process, and all the flavors infuse themselves into the egg.
They're pretty easy to make too. I used the technique we recommend in our Perfect Fried Eggs recipe: I preheated the skillet with the pesto in it, increased the heat to medium-high, added the eggs, covered the skillet and cooked the eggs for about a minute. Then I removed the skillet from the burner and let it sit until the yolks were cooked but runny.
As the eggs cooked, the pesto became a delicious crust of basil and garlic that was mind-blowingly good. I could taste the pesto in every bite. (And why stop at basil pesto? Take it to the next level with our recipes for Arugula and Almond Pesto and Roasted Red Pepper Pesto.)
After having so much success with pesto eggs, I looked in my cabinets and fridge to see what else I can fry my eggs in. And wow, did I hit the jackpot. Chili crisp or chimichurri eggs, anyone?
I love to put chili crisp (lao gan ma) on my eggs when I make them normally. So it was a no-brainer to fry my eggs in it. I followed the same process I used with the pesto, building a bed of chili crisp and cracking my eggs in the middle.
This process made the chili crisp even crispier. The eggs became encrusted in it and were spicy, rich, and crunchy. This may be my new favorite way to eat my eggs, and it’s even better than the pesto.
Chimichurri is one of my all-time favorite sauces, but I typically use it on meats and fish. So why not eggs? It has plenty of olive oil, so I had a feeling it would work well. Spoiler alert: I was right.
The brightness of the chimichurri came through, and infused itself into the egg just like the pesto. You could taste the freshness of the cilantro and parsley, the punch of garlic, and the tang of red wine vinegar. Combined with the richness of the eggs, it made for the perfect summer breakfast.
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