Many people love eggs benedict, but never make it at home because the thought of making hollandaise and poached eggs sounds more stressful than fun.
If you have been following Espresso & Lime for a while, you are probably already familiar with my super simple hollandaise sauce and today we are making absolutely fool proof poached eggs, so next weekend you can make yourself a beautiful and stress free eggs benedict right in your own kitchen.
Let’s get started…
Poached eggs have a wonderful texture. The eggs white is fully cooked and set surrounding a silky, golden egg yolk inside. They are perfect for any breakfast, but notoriously used in eggs benedict. There is something truly wonderful about the way that runny yolk spills over everything, adding its richness and delicious flavor to anything else on the plate.
Traditionally, eggs are poached by swirling hot water and dropping the egg into the swirl using good timing and a little luck to have the egg collect in one area as it hits the heat forming a little poached egg pocket that is eventually fished out of the water with a slotted spoon when the egg is cooked to your liking. This technique has been used for a long time and can be quite successful after a little practice, but who has the time? So, today, we are letting the oven do the hard work…
Start by preheating your oven to 350 degrees and grab a standard sized cupcake tin. Depending on how many eggs you need poached, spray that number of cupcake cavities with non-stick spray (if I want to poach 4 eggs, I spray 4 of the cupcake cavities).
Next, add a tablespoon of water into the greased cavities and carefully crack an egg into the water. Be sure not to break the yolk!
Sprinkle the top of each egg with salt and black pepper and slide the cupcake tin into a 350 degree oven…
Bake the eggs for 10-11 minutes for runny yolks, 12 minutes for soft yolks and 14 minutes for set yolks.
The eggs gently cook inside the water creating perfectly poached, evenly sized, evenly cooked eggs every time…
As soon as you pull the cupcake tin out of the oven, use a slotted spoon to extract your poached eggs and transfer them onto something delicious.
Easy peasy, right? And they always turn out great! Plus, if you happen to find yourself needing a large amount of poached eggs for a big family breakfast or maybe a poached egg convention in town, this is a wonderful way to have a large number of poached eggs all done at the same time.
Oven poaching your eggs is such a game changer and now you have no excuse to not whip up a fancy eggs benny breakfast at home this weekend…
Oven Poached Eggs
Ingredients
- non-stick spray
- water
- eggs
- salt and black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees
- Spray the number of cupcake cavities needed with non-stick spray
- Add 1 tablespoon of water into each greased cavity
- Carefully crack an egg into each cavity and sprinkle with salt and black pepper
- Bake the eggs for 11-14 minutes, depending on how set you prefer your yolk
- Use a slotted spoon to carefully extract the poached eggs as soon as you pull the cupcake tin out of the oven
- Enjoy!
