Our best Asian egg recipes for breakfast, brunch, lunch, snacks, and dinner include a half-boiled eggs recipe for the classic Singaporean and Malaysian kopitiam eggs, a Chinese tea eggs recipe for marbled eggs steeped in an aromatic stock of tea, spices and soy, Japanese egg donburi recipes, a Thai son-in-law eggs recipe, and Indonesian boiled egg curries.
If you’re a lover of savoury egg dishes then you’re going to love this collection of our best Asian egg recipes for breakfast, brunch, lunch, snacks, and dinner, which I’ve compiled for this week’s edition of Weekend Eggs.
It doesn’t include all our Asian eggs recipes, just a selection of some of my favourites. You’ll have to browse our Weekend Eggs archive for more egg recipes from Asia, the region we’ve called home for the last 12 years.
I’ve included everything from a katsudon recipe for a crunchy Japanese pork cutlet, cooked in eggs and spring onions, served atop a bowl of rice and sprinkled with slices of scallions to another donburi (rice bowl) recipe for oyakodon, a Japanese chicken and egg rice bowl made from eggs, spring onions and chicken simmered in dashi.
I’ve also added recipes for egg bhurji, a delicious classic Indian spicy scrambled eggs with a little twist courtesy of a different scrambled egg technique, and an akuri recipe for Parsi style scrambled eggs with tomato, coriander and green chillies.
If you’re new to Grantourismo, Weekend Eggs is our recipe series of quintessential eggs dishes from around the world, which we launched back in 2010 when we launched Grantourismo with a yearlong global grand tour aimed at promoting slow, local and experiential travel.
On that trip, we spent two weeks in each destination, staying in apartment rentals and holiday homes to get an insight into how locals lived their lives and in each place we settled into, we explored the local food, connected with local cooks and chefs, and learnt to cook local specialties, including egg dishes.
Before I tell you about our best Asian egg recipes, we have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader-funded. If you’ve enjoyed our recipes or other content on the site, please consider supporting Grantourismo. You could buy us a coffee and we’ll use that donation to buy cooking ingredients for recipe testing or contribute to our epic original Cambodian cuisine history and cookbook on Patreon.
Another option is to use our links to book accommodation, rent a car or campervan or motorhome, buy travel insurance, or book a tour on Klook or Get Your Guide. Or purchase something on Amazon, such as these James Beard award-winning cookbooks, cookbooks by Australian chefs, classic cookbooks for serious cooks, cookbooks for culinary travellers, travel books to inspire wanderlust, or gifts for Asian food lovers, picnic lovers and travellers who love photography. We may earn a small commission but you won’t pay extra.
You could also shop our Grantourismo store on Society6 for gifts for foodies, including fun reusable cloth face masks designed with Terence’s images. Now let’s tell you about our best Asian egg recipes for breakfast, brunch, lunch, snacks, and dinner.
Best Asian Egg Recipes for Breakfast, Brunch, Lunch and Dinner from our Weekend Eggs Archive
This collection of our best Asian eggs recipes is a short selection of some of my favourite egg recipes from the region we’ve called home for 12 years. You’ll find many more in our Weekend Eggs archives.
Half Boiled Eggs Recipe for Classic Kopitiam Eggs
This half-boiled eggs recipe makes the classic kopitiam eggs tailor-made for having with kaya toast in a Singaporean or Malaysian coffee shop and it’s one of our best Asian egg recipes for breakfast.
The just-set, still runny yolks and milky whites are perfect for dipping toast ‘soldiers’ into. The secret is getting perfectly soft eggs every time.
Terence’s technique is flawless for achieving the perfect soft boiled eggs every time. He uses a stainless steel vacuum insulated coffee mug. He has more tips for making half boiled eggs in the post.
We’ve especially been missing the experience of lingering over a long, slow, weekend breakfast or brunch at a local cafe or coffee shop and whatever that entails wherever we are in the world, and this half-boiled eggs recipe was a result of us craving the quintessential kopitiam breakfast in Singapore and Malaysia.
Half Boiled Eggs Recipe for Classic Kopitiam Eggs to Go With Your Kaya Toast
Chinese Tea Eggs Recipe for Perfumed Marbled Eggs
This Chinese tea eggs recipe makes marbled eggs – aromatic boiled eggs that have a marbled appearance when peeled – and it’s one of our best Asian egg recipes for breakfast, brunch, lunch, a snack or dinner.
Steeped in a stock of five spice, star anise, soy and tea flavours that perfume the eggs, marbled eggs are a tasty snack when eaten on their own, or add soy sauce, chilli sauce and steamed rice and you have a lovely light
You might see this Chinese tea eggs recipe presented as ‘Cha Yip Dahn’ in cookbooks, such as Charmaine Soloman’s The Complete Asian Cookbook. More correctly it is spelt wǔxiāng cháyè dàn or 五香茶叶蛋 in Mandarin, which translates to 五香 – Spiced, 茶 – Tea, 叶 – Leaf, 蛋 – Egg.
You’ll need rock sugar for this recipe. Often used in Chinese cooking, it’s crystallised sugar cane juice, very popular in savoury dishes as it can add an extra sheen to slow cooked meat and sauces. Chinese cooking chopsticks are also essential.
We eat the eggs with Lao Gan Ma (chilli sauce) with peanuts and a little soy sauce. You can also eat them with the more popular Lao Gan Ma with Spicy Chilli Crisp but we prefer the one with peanuts for Chinese marbled eggs.
Chinese Tea Eggs Recipe for Perfumed Marbled Eggs Almost Too Beautiful To Eat
Katsudon Recipe for a Japanese Pork Cutlet and Egg Rice Bowl
This katsudon recipe makes a crunchy Japanese pork cutlet, cooked in eggs and spring onions, served atop a bowl of rice and sprinkled with slices of scallions, and it’s one of our best Asian egg recipes for breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner.
Katsudon is a donburi or rice bowl meal. Like oyakodon, another rice bowl meal, katsudon is a delicious, comforting and filling dish that can be eaten out at specialised restaurants or you can cook at home.
The name ‘katsudon’ is derived from ‘katsu’, which means ‘cutlet’ – a breaded piece of pounded meat dredged in flour, egg and breadcrumbs (in Japanese cooking, it’s panko breadcrumbs) before being fried – and in this case, ‘tonkatsu’ (pork cutlet), and ‘don’ from ‘donburi’, a Japanese rice bowl.
Top your katsudon with extras such as finely sliced ginger, an egg yolk, some Japanese chilli powder, or a big squeeze of Japanese mayonnaise.
Katsudon is completely addictive, so don’t be surprised if you polish it off in one sitting, though you’d be better off saving some for leftovers.
Katsudon Recipe for a Japanese Pork Cutlet and Egg Rice Bowl for Weekend Eggs
Oyakodon Recipe for a Japanese Chicken and Egg Rice Bowl
Our easy oyakodon recipe makes a Japanese chicken and egg rice bowl made from eggs, spring onions and chicken simmered in dashi and served on steamed rice and it’s easily another one of our best Asian egg recipes for breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner.
Oyakodon is a popular donburi dish – donburi meaning a ‘rice bowl’ meal – where a generous topping is placed on a bed of rice in a bowl. In Japan, donburi is an affordable fast-food lunch or dinner for students and workers, as much as a comforting home-cooked meal and perhaps the most quintessential of Japanese comfort foods.
A comforting, filling dish, oyakodon – which means ‘parent and child bowl’; ‘parent’ being the chicken and ‘child’ the egg – is, like most donburi, both a home-cooked meal and fast-food eaten for lunch or dinner, but we also love it for a big weekend breakfast.
Firstly, you need to hunt down some bonito flakes and kombu to make the dashi. This is not negotiable, otherwise it’s not oyakodon. Dashi is a much-loved Japanese stock made by simmering kombu – dried sea kelp – in water and then steeping with dried bonito flakes, which are dried, smoked and fermented fish flakes.
If you are shopping online or have a great Asian market you can visit, pick up some ‘shichimi togarashi’ as well. Togarashi, which is sprinkled over the top of this dish – as well as some udon noodle dishes – is a blend of seven spices and has chilli as a base. The most common brand of togarashi you’ll find on the shelves is S&B brand.
Also look for one of these specially-made oyakodon pans to cook the dish in, and while chefs in Japan just slide the eggs off in one motion, Terence finds a silicone spatula is helpful.
Easy Oyakodon Recipe for a Japanese Chicken and Egg Rice Bowl for Weekend Eggs
Thai Son-in-Law Eggs Recipe for Fried Boiled Eggs with Tamarind
Our Thai son-in-law eggs recipe for kai look keuy makes golden-brown fried soft-boiled eggs with an ever-so-slightly crispy skin and it’s one of our best Asian egg recipes for breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner.
The eggs are drizzled in a sweet and sour homemade tamarind sauce (although you could be very generous with the sauce and drown the things in it if you like) and sprinkled with fresh coriander (cilantro), spicy dried chillies, and crunchy fried shallots and crunchy fried garlic.
It is important to make the eggs soft-boiled. We need the egg whites to be firm enough not to break or fall apart, but we still want soft yolks, so around 5 1/2 to 6 minutes is perfect.
You also need to use a high smoke point oil, such as rice bran oil. The reason we’re deep-frying at such a high temperature is to make the surface of the eggs golden brown while keeping the yolks soft.
You can eat these crispy boiled eggs on their own as a light breakfast or snack, or as the Thais do with steamed rice to make a meal out of them.
Thai Son-in-Law Eggs Recipe for Fried Boiled Eggs with Sweet Tamarind Sauce
Egg Bhurji Recipe for India’s Popular Scrambled Eggs
Our egg bhurji recipe makes the delicious classic Indian spicy scrambled eggs with a little twist courtesy of a different scrambled egg technique. Eaten at all times of the day with myriad kinds of Indian bread – as well as bread rolls – it’s a rich fragrant version of the kind of scrambled eggs that we love.
The first time Terence made egg bhurji it reminded us of a great Indian feast. These Indian spicy scrambled eggs have all the flavour notes and aromas of Indian food that we love so much. The word ‘bhurji’ means ‘scrambled’ and you’ll see ‘anda bhurji’, ‘anda’ meaning ‘eggs’ in Hindi.
There are many egg recipes in Indian cuisine besides egg curries or egg masala. Parsi cuisine in particular – which developed with migrants from Persia who settled on the coast of Gujarat – has many egg dishes that I will be exploring in the future.
This egg bhurji recipe makes a scrambled eggs dish that is spicier than the classic Parsi egg dish called akoori (or akuri), below, to which it is often compared. Egg bhurji is a bit more complex, however, boasting wonderful spices so synonymous with Indian, such as cumin, turmeric and garam masala. It’s so delicious and is easily another of our best Asian egg recipes on Grantourismo.
Egg Bhurji Recipe With a Twist – Our Take on India’s Most Popular Scrambled Eggs Dish
Akuri Recipe for Parsi Style Scrambled Eggs
This akuri recipe makes Parsi style scrambled eggs with tomato, coriander and green chillies and it’s yet another of our best Asian egg recipes for breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner, if you’re a breakfast for dinner kind of person.
Also spelt akoori, these tasty scrambled eggs are often compared to egg bhurji, one of India’s most popular scrambled eggs dish, but whereas bhurji is flavoured with spices, akuri is fresh and fragrant thanks to its coriander, tomatoes, onions, and green chilli
“Akoori eggs are good for Sunday breakfast,” writes cookbook author Jeroo Mehta, “And may also be served on toast as a savoury and on biscuits or bite-sized pieces of toast as cocktail eats.”
This recipe is based on the akuri recipe in Jeroo Mehta’s cookbook 101 Parsi Recipes, a gift from a friend that opened our eyes to a culture, cuisine and culinary history, that up until then we’d known very little about. We’ve been slowly cooking our way through the cookbook ever since.
If you don’t know a lot about Parsi cuisine, it originated in ancient Persia and Zoroastrianism several thousand years ago. Persecuted for following their religion, Zoroastrians fled Persia in the 9th century, many settling in India, particularly in Gujarat, where locals called them Parsis.
Akuri Recipe for Parsi Style Scrambled Eggs with Tomato, Coriander and Green Chillies
Indonesian Egg Curry Recipe for Telur Petis from Java
Our Indonesian egg curry recipe with fragrant lemongrass and funky shrimp paste for telur petis comes from the Indonesian island of Java although variations can be found right across the archipelago.
This dish is called telur petis on Java where it originates. ‘Telur’ means ‘egg’ and ‘petis’ is the shrimp paste that adds a subtle funkiness to this spicy egg curry. It’s easily another one of our best Asian egg recipes for breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner.
While this rendition makes a gently-spiced boiled egg curry that’s eaten as breakfast, lunch, dinner or a snack, the spiced eggs (without the gravy) are also used to decorate a festive rice dish.
Made from a freshly pounded spice paste with lemongrass stalks adding fragrance and flavour to the spicy gravy, we recommend using a mortar and pestle to pound the spice paste. It really doesn’t taste the same prepared in a blender.
Padang Style Eggs Recipe for Gulai Telur Pedang from Sumatra
This Padang style eggs recipe for gulai telur Pedang is arguably another one of our best Asian egg recipes for breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner.
It makes a spicy coconut milk-based egg curry from the Indonesian island of Sumatra – ‘gulai’ is curry, ‘telur’ is ‘egg’ and Padang is the capital city of West Sumatra.
Home to the Minangkabau people, the city of Padang has a wonderful cuisine called Minang food or Padang food, or masakan Padang to Indonesians, and it’s incredibly delicious.
Made with boiled eggs simmered in coconut milk and an aromatic spice paste pounded from fresh galangal, turmeric, ginger, garlic, shallots and chillies, this fragrant egg curry is served with crispy shallots and steamed rice – or it might come as one element of a full spread of breakfast dishes that typically includes fried fish in batter, potato fritters and a tomato-based sambal.
Indonesians favour hard boiled eggs for this dish, but we prefer our soft-boiled eggs. We think they work well in this dish and don’t impact the integrity of the dish or affect the flavour. However, do cook your boiled eggs as you wish.
Padang Style Eggs Recipe for Gulai Telur Pedang, a Spicy Coconut Egg Curry from Sumatra
Traditional Burmese Egg Curry Recipe for a Myanmar Breakfast Favourite
This traditional Burmese egg curry recipe makes a Myanmar curry shop staple that’s typically eaten for breakfast. Served with a spicy tomato and onion-based curry, the boiled eggs are peeled and deep fried in turmeric until golden, which is why you’ll also see this called a Burmese golden egg curry recipe in some Burmese cookbooks.
This classic Burmese egg curry recipe is from the modestly printed Burmese cookbook Cook and Entertain the Burmese Way (1978) by Mi Mi Khaing, which was one of the first Burmese cookbooks – indeed, one of the first books – that we bought on our first trip to Myanmar some years ago. It’s a delight to read and is full of insights into the culinary culture as much as the cuisine.
Mi Mi Khaing explains that one of the “distinguishing characteristic of Burmese curries is the good amount of oil (peanut or sesame) used. At the end of making one of these curries, is the final separation of the oil from the gravy.”
Sesame and peanuts are major crops in Myanmar and both peanut oil and sesame oil (note this is raw sesame oil) are the two main cooking oils used in kitchens there. While this may be disconcerting to the health conscious, the Burmese only eat a small amount of these curries compared to the amount of rice consumed and there’s always a salad or cooked vegetables and relishes on the table to provide balance.
Traditional Burmese Egg Curry Recipe for a Myanmar Breakfast Favourite
Guide to How to Boil Eggs Perfectly Every Time
As some of our best Asian egg recipes require boiled eggs, I thought I’d share our guide to how to boil eggs perfectly every time. Whether you want to find out how long to boil eggs for soft boiled eggs or how long to boil eggs for hard-boiled eggs, we have the answers right here.
Some people see making soft- and hard-boiled eggs as a bit of a lottery. Those who like soft-boiled eggs often end up with a runny mess and uncooked whites, while those who like hard-boiled eggs end up with an unattractive green ring around dry yolks.
Over the years, Terence has tried every method for boiling eggs perfectly, having scoured countless cookbooks and spent many hours of internet research. He’s marked up endless fresh eggs with cooking times and stuck myriad post-it notes to cutting boards. And, yes, we’ve eaten a lot of egg sandwiches during his research.
Even if you’re not a breakfast eggs person and prefer to slurp a noodle soup or tuck into a plate of pancakes, it’s still handy to learn how to boil eggs perfectly. Boiled eggs have so many delicious uses. We use soft-boiled eggs in our creamy curried egg sandwiches and semi hard-boiled eggs in our ohn no khao swe recipe for the wonderful Burmese chicken coconut noodle soup.
How to Boil Eggs Perfectly Every Time for Perfect Soft Boiled Eggs and Hard Boiled Eggs
Please do let us know in the comments below if you make any of our best Asian egg recipes for breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner, as we’d love to know how they turn out for you.
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