America's Test Kitchen

Hearty Eggs for Breakfast

With these foolproof recipes, you just might find yourself making time to enjoy eggs a bit more often. Most of us might not have time to prepare (and enjoy) egg dishes during the week, but come the weekend, eggs are a terrific way to begin a leisurely day. In this chapter, we wanted to take a look at a couple of our favorite egg dishes—scrambled eggs and omelets—and see how we could make the most of them. Sometimes you want something heartier than simple scrambled eggs. But adding meats, cheeses, and vegetables weighs down the eggs’ fluffy texture and, worse, turns the eggs watery. We wanted to solve these problems and turn out scrambled eggs that could stand up to the addition of hearty ingredients. And we also wanted an interesting mix of additions, so maybe we’d be inclined to make these eggs for dinner too. Omelets made for one or two aren’t difficult to prepare. But what if you’re making omelets for the whole family? You don’t want to be standing at the stove playing the part of short-order cook, right? We wanted to create one big omelet, big enough to serve 4. Working with such a large omelet wouldn’t be easy—we’d need to figure out how to cook through such a large omelet without it drying out, how to add the fillings (and heat them through), and how to turn the omelet out of the pan without it breaking apart. Recipes: Scrambled Eggs with Bacon, Onion, and Pepper Jack Cheese Scrambled Eggs with Sausage, Sweet Peppers, and Cheddar Scrambled Eggs with Asparagus, Prosciutto, and Parmesan Eggs in a Hole Family-Sized Cheese Omelet Family-Sized Tomato, Bacon, and Garlic Omelet Tasting Lab: Is Fresh Breakfast Sausage Best? Equipment Center: Plastic Nonstick Spatulas Science Desk: How Scrambled Eggs Work