Our best egg recipes were concocted for breakfast and brunch in kitchens around the world for our Weekend Eggs series. However, as the breakfast for dinner trend isn’t going anywhere, I thought it time to re-present our best egg recipes as a collection of breakfast for dinner, supper and lunch ideas.
The 22 best egg recipes I’ve compiled for this collection of breakfast for dinner, supper and lunch ideas, include everything from the heavenly Asian crab omelette, above, and creamy scrambled eggs with Arabic lamb sausages and za’atar toast to a Spanish chorizo and caramelised onion frittata and a spicy North African chakchouka recipe. All breakfast eggs dishes well suited to dinner, supper or lunch.
Terence typically whipped up his best egg recipes for his Weekend Eggs series from around the world for our breakfast or brunch, however, following a deluge of breakfast for dinner recipes from around the (food) web in recent months it occurred to me that many of his best egg recipes would also serve as an easy dinner or supper or lunch dish.
The breakfast for dinner trend isn’t new although I’ve been seeing an abundance of ‘brinner’ recipes lately. I couldn’t recall when the trend started, but Google directed me to a 2015 research study in the USA that found 90% of Americans said they ate breakfast for dinner, more than half had ‘Breakfast Night’ dinners once a month, a quarter ate ‘brinner’ once a week, and with more kids cooking than ever many families used it as an opportunity to come together.
Having never been a breakfast for dinner kind of eater, I had thought it was a fad that would soon pass until I stumbled across this Bon Appetit story on Why Breakfast for Dinner is Actually Good for You by chef Seamus Mullen. Subtitled ‘Why you should read on the floor and put eggs on your dinner plate’, Mullen writes how his strongest childhood memory was breakfast for lunch at his school ‘backwards day’. A concept new to me.
Mullen said that he loved that it broke routine and scrambled patterns, a concept that informed his life and healthy eating quest, particularly when it came to repetition and movement. Mullen explains how we all sit at desks the same way every day, chefs hunch over counters and stoves all night, photographers peer through cameras in unnatural positions or sit editing photos for long periods, and eventually it becomes physically uncomfortable to do anything other than what we’re used to.
The chef realised that his American compatriots couldn’t “eat a full meal in a deep squat or sitting on the floor” without discomfort, yet that’s how people all over the world eat. So he started breaking out of habits and breaking up eating patterns, including eating salad for breakfast and eggs for dinner. I’m going to place an order for breakfast for dinner here in our Siem Reap kitchen and see how it goes down. In the meantime, let’s get cracking!
22 Best Egg Recipes for Breakfast for Dinner, Supper and Lunch
As a bit of background for new readers, Terence started his Weekend Eggs breakfast project back in January 2010 when we embarked on our yearlong global grand tour, settling into apartments and holiday houses around the world for two weeks at a time. We were on a mission to inspire people to immerse themselves in places they travelled by living like locals, learning to cook local food, shopping the markets, and cooking in their ‘homes away from home’.
Terence’s recipe series on Weekend Eggs (and The Dish where he cooked quintessential dishes of places) was one of our strategies aimed at persuading people to stay in holiday rentals (nobody used the term ‘airbnb’ back then as few people had even heard of Airbnb) by demonstrating how much fun it was to make home-cooked meals when you’re away. As slow, local and experiential travel continue to be the way we travel, the series continues.
So here are Terence’s 22 best egg recipes reorganised as breakfast for dinner, supper and lunch.
BREAKFAST FOR DINNER
The beauty of breakfast for dinner is that it’s easy. Serve with some crusty baguettes or a sour dough loaf and good quality butter and it’s more filling than breakfast. Inviting friends over for your ‘Breakfast Night’? Toss a salad, pass some cold craft beers around or open a couple of bottles of wine and you’re set.
Frittata with Spanish Chorizo and Caramelised Onions
This chorizo and caramelised onion frittata is one of Terence’s best egg recipes because besides being so delicious, it’s so simple to make. There’s no need to mess about with pastry as you have to with quiche nor flip it as you do with a tortilla. Serve it warm or at room temperature and it still tastes good. Make a Mediterranean style salad, open a bottle of Rosé and you have light meal that’s ideal for Spring.
Frittata Recipe with Chorizo and Caramelised Onions for Weekend Eggs
Spanish Potato and Onion Tortilla
There are few more enjoyable meals than a spread of Spanish tapas and you can keep things simple by making this potato and onion tortilla recipe the only dish that needs to be cooked. Prepare a platter of Spanish cold cuts and cheeses, open a tin of anchovies, fill some small dishes with juicy olives, slice some crusty fresh bread, and it looks like you’ve gone to a lot more trouble than you have.
Tortilla de Cebolla Recipe – How to Make the Best Spanish Potato Omelette with Onions
Vietnamese Style Crab Omelette Recipe
This is one of the best egg recipes if you’re inviting friends over for breakfast for dinner and are out to impress as it just looks so wonderful. Originally from China, this Vietnamese style crab omelette can easily be eaten on its own or you could serve an Asian salad on the side. It washes down well with a cold beer or glass of white wine.
Kai Yat Say
On the subject of omelettes, this Thai ‘stuffed’ eggs recipe is another terrific breakfast for dinner dish, although this egg ‘parcel’ of stir-fried pork mince, diced vegetables and oyster sauce is not really a breakfast dish in Thailand and is one of those street food snacks you can find on the footpaths of Bangkok any time of day or night. It’s a substantial dish so you don’t need anything with it, other than some cold Singha beers.
Kai Yat Say Thai Stuffed Eggs Recipe for Weekend Eggs Bangkok Edition
Poached Eggs, Asparagus, Pancetta and Parmesan
These poached eggs with crunchy asparagus, crispy fried pancetta and fresh parmesan are an Italian classic and are terrific for breakfast for dinner for two. Terence made this in Venice in the kitchen of a palazzo apartment rental overlooking the Grand Canal to use the spring asparagus that had just come into season. Served with a crisp white wine it’s a fantastic Spring dinner or lunch dish.
Poached Eggs, Asparagus, Pancetta and Parmesan Recipe – Weekend Eggs Venice Edition
Poached Eggs, Asparagus, Pancetta and Parmesan – the Fancy Version
One of Terence’s very best egg recipes, this is one of my favourites, as this poached eggs, asparagus, pancetta and parmesan dish is simply a more creative and contemporary version of the classic eggs dish above. It’s perfect for a breakfast for dinner party if that’s a thing, as it’s pretty, so it looks like you’ve gone to more trouble than you have, and it’s a playful take on the class, making it fun to eat. A crunchy baguette and Italian salad will fill your guests up.
Poached Eggs with Asparagus, Pancetta and Parmesan, a Contemporary Take
North African Chakchouka
This North African chakchouka recipe for eggs poached in a spicy tomato sauce is thought to have originated in Tunisia or Algeria, yet is found right across the Middle East and North African region. It’s another of Terence’s best egg recipes and one of the best examples of chakchouka I’ve ever eaten. Warming and comforting, it’s a fantastic breakfast for dinner dish for our friends in the Southern Hemisphere where the cooler Autumn (‘Fall’ for North Americans) season is starting.
North African Chakchouka Recipe for Poached Eggs in a Spicy Tomato Sauce
Huevos Revueltos Con Chorizo
Huevos revueltos con chorizo (scrambled eggs with chorizo) is such a quintessential Mexico City breakfast that it does seem odd to eat it for dinner and yet it can easily be made into a filling dinner with larger than normal portions of refried beans, a stack of fresh tortillas or bowl of quality corn chips, and dishes of extra chilli sauce, white cheese or sour cream, and some jalapenos. This is the best of our best egg recipes. If I had to choose one, this would be it.
Authentic Huevos Revueltos con Chorizo Recipe Based on Our Mexico City Favourite
Scrambled Eggs with Arabic Lamb Sausages and Za’atar Toast
These scrambled eggs with Arabic lamb sausages and za’atar toast was created in Dubai, our home for some years, and was the dish that kicked off our Weekend Eggs series when we launched Grantourismo and our year-long grand tour in the UAE. This could be an Arabian style hot English breakfast and who wouldn’t want that for dinner.
BREAKFAST FOR SUPPER
Supper is that late meal you make when it’s really too late to be making anything at all. You want something quick and easy, something satisfying but not too filling because you’re not long out of bed. Eggs are perfect for supper and the simpler the better, so an omelette or scrambled eggs ideally. You don’t need a salad, nor fancy bread. If anything, a couple of pieces of toast or the leftover tortillas in the fridge.
A Perfect Omelette
So friends have dropped in after a gig or a show or they came for lunch and never left and you don’t want them to go home hungry. An omelette is what you need to make and this is the best eggs recipe for a seriously perfect omelette that you’ll find.
Fast Omelette Recipe
This fast omelette recipe is the omelette you make when you’re simply too tired to make that perfect omelette above. There’s nobody to impress. It’s super late and you’re tired and starving but you’re not prepared to pull out the cereal box yet.
Herb Omelette
One of our best egg recipes is for a Cambodian saom omelette, which is traditionally a thinner, browner and crispier omelette, but Terence makes it in the French style, which I much prefer. It’s more filling for one, so better suited as supper. We use sa’om or climbing wattle, a stinky green herb when fresh which becomes sweet and garlicky when cooked. I absolutely love it, but you can really use any herbs you have in the fridge, from fragrant coriander to sweet Thai basil to transform your omelette into more of a meal.
Cambodian Saom Omelette Recipe for an Herbaceous Weekend Eggs Dish with Foraged Greens
Scrambled Eggs
Scrambled eggs are even easier to make than an omelette and are a cinch to whip up for supper when you’re completely and utterly exhausted. But add a few delicious ingredients and you have a heartier supper than an omelette equivalent.
Huevos Con Chorizo
This huevos con chorizo recipe (eggs with chorizo) differs to the huevos revueltos con chorizo recipe (scrambled eggs with chorizo), above, in that in this dish the eggs are more lightly scrambled, the chorizo is cured not fresh, and it’s chopped so it’s not as well combined with the eggs. While still spicy it’s a lighter dish despite being creamy, which makes it a better breakfast for lunch rather than dinner dish. Once again, though, you want to roll these up in soft tortillas, corn or flour.
Huevos con Chorizo Recipe for Scrambled Eggs with Spanish Chorizo Made in Jerez
Scrambled Eggs with Sucuk Sausage
Both this Turkish-inspired breakfast dish of scrambled eggs with sucuk sausage, bell peppers, eggplants, and parsley and these scrambled eggs with Njeguski kobasica (a smoky pork sausage from the village of Njeguski in Montenegro) and ajvar (‘Serbian salsa’) make for filling egg-based lunches.
Scrambled Eggs with Sucuk Sausage Recipe – Weekend Eggs from Istanbul
BREAKFAST FOR LUNCH
Eggs for lunch are simply an extension of eggs for breakfast and it doesn’t take much to transform your breakfast eggs into lunch eggs. Sometimes all it takes is a couple of slices of bread or a baguette, a luxury ingredient such as salmon or caviar if it’s a special occasion, or simply a glass of bubbly or wine if it’s the weekend.
Eggs Benedict
There are few more quintessential brunch dishes than eggs Benedict and you don’t need to do anything more than serve it a couple of hours later and open a bottle of sparkling wine to transform this into lunch.
Eggs Benedict Recipe for New York City Edition of Weekend Eggs from Around the World
Scrambled Eggs with Smoked Salmon, Caviar and Dill
These creamy scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, caviar and dill have become something of a Christmas breakfast tradition for us, but by the time we get around to making and eating them it’s normally Christmas lunch. You can serve these year-round but of course the inclusion of caviar makes the dish best suited for a rather special lunch, so buy a good bottle of bubbles to wash them down with.
Scrambled Eggs with Smoked Salmon Recipe – Our Christmas Breakfast in Krakow, Poland
Scrambled Eggs with Truffles
For me, these scrambled eggs with truffles are the winter equivalent of the smoked salmon and caviar with scrambled eggs, which really works year-round. This is another special occasion lunch best saved for a weekend and deserving of a good bottle of sparkling to accompany the dish.
Creamy Scrambled Eggs with Truffles Recipe for Weekend Eggs, the Vienna Edition
Contemporary Huevos Rancheros
Like the scrambled eggs dishes above, Terence’s contemporary take on Mexico’s huevos rancheros or ranch style eggs, served on top of soft tortillas and smothered in a spicy tomato sauce only needs to be served an hour or two later, with a Michelada, and breakfast becomes lunch.
Mexican Huevos Rancheros Recipe for a Contemporary Take on Traditional Mexican Ranch Eggs
Bubur Ayam
The Balinese version of Indonesian congee or rice porridge, bubur ayam, is filling enough for lunch with its poached chicken and shredded omelette. Like a lot of Asian street food dishes, you can really eat this at any time of day and I much prefer it for lunch rather than breakfast.
Bubur Ayam Recipe for Indonesian Congee with Chicken and Shredded Omelette
Banh Mi Op La
Lunches don’t come much easier than what we called a salad roll when we were young and lived in Australia. One of our favourite lunch ‘rolls’ in Asia is the French influenced Vietnamese baguette called banh mi, and best of all is the banh mi op la, which we used to eat in Hoi An, which comes with an omelette. The addition of egg gives it a breakfast feel but it’s fantastic for lunch too.
Banh Mi Op La Recipe – Hoi An Style Banh Mi with Omelette Inspired by the Banh Mi Queen
Classic Salade Lyonnaise
This classic salade Lyonnaise, which Terence made when we stayed in a handsome stone house in Céret in the southwest of France, is another one of those egg recipes that is brilliant for brunch or lunch. It pairs nicely with a crisp white. Everyone washes down their lunch eggs with a glass of wine, right?
Classic Salade Lyonnaise Recipe – Weekend Eggs Southern France Edition
You’ll find more of our best egg recipes filed under our Weekend Eggs series (link at top of post).
