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Short-Order Kitchen

Low-Carb Breakfast Skillet

By Wes Ellis2 min read
An egg and spinach frittata with melted cheese in a small cast iron skillet.
Recipe card
Servings
2 to 3
Prep
15 minutes
Cook
10 minutes
Method
Skillet
Heat
Medium-high, then medium
Difficulty
Easy
Jump to ingredients & directions ↓

Part 12 of the thread Low-carb mornings

THE SHORT VERSION4 points
  • Brown the meat over medium-high, then drop to medium for the sauce.
  • Make wells for the eggs and leave them alone.
  • Cover the pan to set the tops faster.
  • Pick a low-sugar salsa and pasta sauce to keep the carbs down.
THE RECIPE · LOW-CARB BREAKFAST SKILLET

Ingredients

You'll need

  • Large skillet with a lid
  • Spatula or spoon

Directions

  1. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high. Brown the meat, breaking it up, and drain off extra grease.
  2. Chop the kale while the meat browns.
  3. Turn the heat down to medium. Stir in the salsa, pasta sauce and kale and simmer a minute or two, until the greens wilt.
  4. Make small wells in the mixture and crack the eggs and egg white into them.
  5. Let the eggs cook undisturbed a couple of minutes, until the whites start to set. Cover the pan to help the tops along.
  6. Sprinkle the cheese over everything, eggs included.
  7. Keep cooking until the eggs are done how you like them and the cheese is melted and bubbly.
  8. Serve straight from the skillet.
Notes Leftovers keep 2 to 3 days in the fridge; the eggs firm up when reheated, so warm it gently. The whole skillet comes to roughly 1,290 calories and 141 g protein, give or take, so divide by however many plates you're filling.

wesellis.com/blog/low-carb-breakfast-skillet/

Part shakshuka, part chili, all one pan. Ground meat simmers in a mix of salsa and pasta sauce, kale wilts into it, and the eggs cook right in the sauce. Cheese goes over the top at the end. It works as dinner just as well as breakfast.

Two sauces, one pan

Salsa brings acid and heat, and pasta sauce brings body. Together they taste like something that simmered a lot longer than two minutes. The one thing to watch is sugar. Jarred sauces vary a lot, and a sweet pasta sauce can add more carbs than everything else in the pan put together. Read the label before it goes in the cart.

Tip

Make the wells deep enough that each egg sits down in the sauce, not perched on top. The sauce holds the white in place and helps it cook evenly.

Lid on, then cheese

Eggs cooked in sauce set from the bottom, so the tops lag behind. A lid traps steam and fixes that in a minute or two. Once the whites are mostly set, add the cheese, cover again, and cook until the yolks are where you want them.

The Low-Carb Southwestern Egg Skillet does a similar eggs-over-meat trick but finishes in the oven. If one-pan breakfasts are your thing, the Southwestern Hash is the griddle-and-potato cousin.

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