greens and eggs - a guide for deliciousness!

This is hands-down my favorite breakfast. The variations are endless, so I think it's worth having a thread to post pictures and discuss all the best versions.

Greens and Eggs
** low carb ** usually gluten free ** paleo friendly ** can be vegetarian ** can be dairy free **


(Admittedly, this first picture is NOT a low carb breakfast, but see the second/middle picture, below. That one is low carb!)

Ingredients

Amounts of all ingredients are up to you - whether you are making for one person or many, adjust accordingly.

favorite sauté oil - ghee, coconut oil, bacon grease, avocado oil, olive oil (olive oil if you're not worried about smoke point)

onions, chopped

optional:  favorite protein to go with eggs:  sausage, ham, bacon, fish, tempeh - diced, sliced or chopped

favorite veg to sauté: zukes/courgettes, radishes, shrooms, broccoli, bok choy, carrot matchsticks, etc. - be sure to slice, chop or dice as pleasing to you in a sauté

bell pepper, or fresh hot peppers, chopped

optional: pickled peppers, or sundried in olive oil tomatoes, tinned fishes, leftover cooked veg, etc.

garlic, minced

greens: spinach, kale, chard, dandelion greens - pick your favorites - roughly chopped, and enough to slightly overfill your sauté pan

eggs - 1 to 3 per person

salt & pepper to taste

optional: other seasonings - see method for when to add

Method

In general, add ingredients in the order and for the length of time that you like them to be cooked. My preferences might not be your preferences.

1. heat pan, heat oil in pan, then sauté onion until just starting to turn golden

2. next add protein/meat (optional) and when cooked a bit, add your favorite veggies and continue sautéing until almost at the texture you like - add cumin or other heat activated spices with the veggies (optional)

3. add greens, fresh or pickled peppers, garlic, or anything you just need reheated (like tinned fish or leftovers) at the last. Salt and pepper or season to taste. I like my fresh bell pepper semi-crisp (not limp and so cooked that it turns bitter), and my garlic not burnt, so that's why I add them at the end. Mix in thoroughly with other sautéed veg, etc. to soften slightly. Only mix briefly, you are not sautéing at this point. Proceed quickly to #4 since you don't want to overcook these items.

4. even out the greens mixture in the pan and add raw eggs nestled and spaced around on top of the greens-veg mixture. Cover with a lid, and steam on low or medium-low until eggs are done to your liking. My goal is solid whites but still runny yolks. Some might prefer hard yolks. (Really?! )

5. remove from pan as soon as done so the hot pan doesn't overcook your eggs (don't let those eggs turn to rubber!) and serve with hot sauce, kimchi, kraut, avocado, salsa and guacamole, or your favorite egg accoutrements.






Huge hat tip to Matt Lamb whom we shared a house with for a Sepp Holzer event years ago in Bozeman, Montana. He made an eggs and greens breakfast for everyone in the house one morning and I was hooked. <3

Please try this guide and let me know how you yours turned out. I will give out apples and pie for awesome pictures!

Eggs and greens are great, the flavours compliment each other so well, I eat them together a lot. Such a nourishing meal, quick and easy to make from homegrown/homeraised foods.

My favourite breakfast for a long time was kale, scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, and sauerkraut.

These days I make eggs and greens a lot for lunch. Some of my favourite egg and green meals are:

Korean egg, green and rice bowls, if I have bacon I’ll cook the bacon until crispy, and then cook the greens in the bacon fat - yum, otherwise I just steam the greens or cook them in some lard with garlic. The finished dish is pretty much a nest of rice, with greens, kimchi or other pickled/fermented vegetables, and fried eggs on top. For low carb you could use cooked grated cauliflower instead of rice.

Egg and green slabs on bread with chutney - I whisk a bunch of eggs in a bowl, add lots of kale or arugula, and then cook the mixture as if I’m cooking scrambled eggs, but letting it turn to solid slabs in the end.

Egg and chip with greens - I make potato wedges in the oven, and then serve them up with tomato relish, eggs, and some greens on the side.

Green egg drop soup - I make a seasoned broth, add greens, and once they're wilted, mix through eggs to make it into egg drop soup.

I love these ideas and can't wait to try them out.

During the winter, we've been doing bone broth based on whatever I've cooked that week for protein or whatever scraps I've saved in the freezer. Each morning I take a quart of the broth, then I add a half a chopped onion, 5-6 chopped mushrooms, garlic, then whatever greens and veggies are on hand and simmer. The protein can be an egg drop noodle made by pouring in whisked egg at the last minute, then slowly stirred to create small cooked egg bits. Then add some toasted sesame oil and liquid aminos or other flavorings to taste. Sometimes I'll add a tablespoon of curry paste. I put my soup over homemade kimchi but my husband takes it straight up. Bits of leftover meat can replace the eggs if desired.

During the summer when soup might be too warming, I sautee the onion and mushrooms in bacon fat, then add the veg and a little bone broth with arrowroot powder added to make a thick sauce. Eggs can be steamed on top of this or bits of meat or other protein added. We each get a large amount of greens every day and it's really delicious.

It's low carb, gluten free and an amazing way to start the day.

One of our other favorites is two eggs steamed or poached in homemade green chili with pork that I make and freeze every summer.

Robin Katz wrote:
One of our other favorites is two eggs steamed or poached in homemade green chili with pork that I make and freeze every summer.

Yasss! I love to steam eggs in the top of a hearty chili, stew, or even leftover spaghetti sauce. It reminds me of Shakshuka, which is a Mediterranean flavored tomato sauce with eggs steamed or poached in it.

I like to slide greens in the bowl under my chili, stew, or even spaghetti so that it just wilts for serving up. Or I'll add greens to the egg-heartiness combos above.

Egg yolk,  perhaps the world's greats sauce!
I started out eating egg  over rice,  with Bragg's seasoning or soy sauce and have moved to eggs over greens for health reasons.

I tend to use any green that's too wilted for salad, plus a healthy handful of packages coleslaw mix.
The cabbage and carrots really hold up to the heat,  retaining their crunch.


Can y'all talk more about how you steam eggs?
I'm not familiar at all with that technique at all.
Does the flavor from the liquid infuse the egg?
Is the texture soft or firm?

William,

When I steam the eggs in green chili, I heat up the chili sauce in a pan, make four wells in the hot sauce if it's thick enough, then crack an egg into each well of hot sauce. I put the lid on and let it all gently simmer until the whites are done and the yolks are as you like them. I don't spoon sauce over the eggs although you can, but it makes it less pretty and a little harder to judge how done the eggs are. I've found that even hard cooked the eggs are tender when cooked this way. It's a cross between steaming and poaching, which I normally hate due to the bland and watery texture and flavor.

Cooking eggs in any kind of a saucy mix is good. Now I wonder how they would be in marinara with Italian sausage.  Put that over some polenta or cooked greens.  Hmm.

Thank you for your description of the method,  it sounds wonderful!

I LOVE eggs!

Growing up my family was poor, like living out of a bread truck and picking up recyclables off the side of the road to buy dinner poor. (My parents never ever let us kids go hungry though, but they didn't always eat.) Eggs were a staple, being one of the cheapest proteins you can get.

I love chicken eggs, duck eggs, goose eggs, quail eggs, fish eggs, etc.

I have been wracking my brain to bring something useful and worthy to add to this thread. So many great ideas, and so many yummy options. I will eat eggs pretty much any way, but with runny yolks is usually my favourite in most cases.

Serves 1 (Adjust amounts to preference)

Roughly 10 minutes prep time, 15 minutes active cooking time

Ingredients:
1 bunch of greens of choice (or mixed)
2 small or 1 medium potato
2 eggs
A few tablespoons of grated cheese, optional
1 Tablespoon fat of choice (Good for higher heat cooking, like lard, coconut oil, ghee, etc.)
(Salt and pepper, vinegar, hot sauce, or coconut aminos (or soy sauce) for seasoning as desired)

During the winter, greens can be hard for many of us to find. However, with just a little bit of cover, even in zone 6 I could have kale, mustard greens, turnip, beet, spinach, and a few more unusual green varieties throughout the winter. One of the things that helped to get me out of bed and going into the icy cold to go check on all my critters in the morning was knowing that on the way back I could gather up the greens I felt most like that day or mix them. You know, sometimes I like it a bit spicy so pick those older mustard greens, or if you want it mellow pick the spinach, kale, and baby silver beet leaves. Clean them up and separate the stalks from the leafy green bits. Give them all a pat in a non-fuzzy kitchen towel to dry off extra moisture. You can dice the stems if you like and tear really big leaves into hand sized or smaller sections.

Get your pan nice and hot over medium-high heat, then melt the oil into it, while pan is heating dice your potato very finely so it will cook through pretty quickly. Once the oil is melted and hot, toss your potato in and give it a few stirs straight away to cover the potatoes in the fat. Then you let them sit a bit until they release from the pan nice and crisped. Stir again and repeat. Being small it should only take a couple of minutes per side. The bigger the potatoes the longer each side will take. Do this until most of your potatoes look crispy then toss in the stems to your greens. Stir the potatoes and stems for 30-60 seconds until the stems start to show a bit of colour

Next, reduce heat to medium and open two areas for the eggs to go into the potato mixture. Crack the eggs and drop them into these two wells. Cover all of it with the greens, put a lid on and let the eggs cook to your desired doneness. You can lift up the greens and peek in at them once in a while. And if you are feeling particularly decadent, just before the eggs are done toss on your cheese and let it melt. (You can also add meat to this if desired, bacon crumbles or cooked sausage, etc.)

This warming breakfast I always felt was fit for a king and sure seemed a mighty reward for having been brave once again and facing the nasty cold. I love this thread, I love seeing new and interesting ways to use eggs. Growing up my mother was master of the eggs. She always told me that chickens were the masters of "You got trade?" because you give them kitchen scraps and let them roam in the yard and they give you tasty eggs.

My brother even created his very own recipe at only 7 years old that was sauteed greens and an egg with a piece of cheese between two pieces of toast. He called it "tuna dip" none of us have ever figured out why but we all still make it to this day! =D

William, I agree with Robin that steaming eggs on top of greens or soup or stew or sauce is FAR better than poaching. And that it's kind of cross between steaming and poaching.

For me, I put the salt and pepper and fat or other seasonings in my greens, and the eggs on top are well enough seasoned by taking bites together. I think it probably does infuse a bit, though it's mostly that you're eating it together, I think.

Also, important for me is a clear glass lid. I LOVE a runny yolk, and watching so that the whites are *just* done (no longer runny) means that yolks will usually still be runny. You might need to experiment with your own settings - just below medium, or medium-low is often the heat I use to steam my eggs on greens. Shake the pan to see if the whites jiggle or not. I do not like runny whites! Blech! But IMHO, a runny yolk *is* the best sauce!

Another important note is that duck eggs and some backyard chicken eggs have egg whites that are still clear when they are cooked and no longer runny! This can throw you off and lead to a hard cooked yolk, which in my book, is not a happy thing.

I love that Aimee uses the stems of the greens, too, and cooks them longer than the leaf/greens part, like I do! Yum.

EDITED to add:  if you're using a pan that holds heat, like a cast iron pan, or a hot pot of chili, you might have cooked the eggs perfectly, but if they sit in the pan, they will keep cooking and your yolks will harden! So get them on a plate (or in a bowl) almost immediately!

William Bronson wrote: Egg yolk,  perhaps the world's greats sauce!

Yes! And in this post, I talk about my favorite, easiest Hollandaise sauce, ever. If you have any leftover and put in it the fridge, it becomes the texture of Cheez Whiz (yes, I typed that!) and is spreadable on crackers or toast. YUM.

Or, gently re-heat by putting your bowl of congealed Hollaindaise sauce in a bowl of warm water, and stir, then whisk to reheat all the way through. You might need to replenish the warm-hot (not boiling) water in the outer bowl in this method.

I'd never eaten that before and as I had some chard in the garden I decided to give it a try. It was very delicious but I did my eggs wrong and they ended up more scrambled in. Could have something to do with the fact that I was making 3 breakfasts at the same time with 3 different types of eggs. My stove is very grease splattered, I know.

Elle, still it still looks delicious!
I too have often have a greasy stove, but I treat it like sawdust on a chainsaw, evidence of honest work,  to be cleaned when the job is done.

The kitchen is the workshop that most homes have and use the most, so it should be treated as such.

Apple and pie for the pictures - lovely!

Some prefer scrambled and can't handle *any* evidence of the egg yolk which always surprises me.

Very nice sounding and looking goodies here.
For me, the only greens with eggs in any shape or form (any eggs, except ostrich which I would like to try but no place to buy) is LOTS of finely chopped chives or green leaf parsley.
Kind of simple and nothing exotic