Poached Eggs and Asparagus (Healthy vegetarian breakfast)
As always, atch the video for a in-depth tutorial on how to make this dish. If you enjoyed watching, please give me a thumbs up/subscribe to me on YouTube!
I’ve been on the constant lookout for veggie breakfast options lately. Unfortunately, most meat options for breakfast are not the healthiest. While having breakfast at work one day, I came across some grilled asparagus with hollandaise sauce. After flipping through Pinterest, I realized that having asparagus at breakfast is actually a pretty common thing. So I got inspired to create this super-duper—is this even cooking—easy recipe of sautéed asparagus with poached egg.
To make the dish a bit healthier and easier, I swapped out the hollandaise sauce for a sprinkle of parmesan cheese.
I love eating tomatoes for breakfast. I was convinced that they were a breakfast staple after having them in a traditional English breakfast. They also go really well with eggs (Chinese stir-fried tomatoes with eggs, anyone?) and provide a nice acidic element to break up the greasiness that a lot of breakfast items tend to have.
Make sure to sauté your asparagus for a few more minutes longer than the tomatoes since they’re quite fibrous and will take longer to soften. No one wants to bite into a piece of asparagus that takes forever to chew first thing in the morning.
I’m not really one to count calories (I used to be, but those were dark times). But I ended up doing a breakdown of the calories in this dish to convince you—and maybe myself as well—that this is actually a pretty healthy dish.
Nutritional Value
Disclaimer: I’m by no means a nutritionist, and this is just based off googling the calories for approximately the amount that I used. (Just want to give out this warning since a reader in the past was quite finicky about this -_-)
5 sprigs of asparagus = 15 calories
1 egg = 70 calories
1 cup cherry tomatoes = 30 calories
1 tbsp of olive oil to sauté the veggies is about 120 calories, but realistically you’re only having half of that—or less (I had a bunch of oil left over in my pan) = 60 calories
1/2 tbsp parmesan cheese = 10 calories
1 slice of baguette = less than 100 calories
less than 1/4 tbsp butter = 25 calories
less than 1/4 tbsp jam = 25 calories
which comes out to be about 335 calories total… which is actually pretty good considering those 5 sprigs of asparagus will fill you up pretty well :)
Poached Eggs and Asparagus
Healthy vegetarian breakfast under ~350 calories/serving
Ingredients (serves 2 people)
- 10 sprigs of asparagus, with ends discarded
- 10-12 cherry tomatoes
- 2 eggs
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- salt and pepper
- white vinegar (for poaching the egg, if desired)
- baguette or any other toast
- butter and jam (or anything else you like to spread on top of bread)
Takes , Makes enough for 2 people (romantic brunch here we go!).
Instructions
- Slice up the bread and toast in a 350°F oven for about 10 minutes. You can use your toaster as well, but I find the oven is better for toasting a large number of baguette slices.
- While the bread is in the oven, heat olive oil in a skillet and sauté the asparagus and tomatoes. Start with the asparagus since they take much longer than the tomatoes. Asparagus: around 10 minutes, tomatoes: around 1-2 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.
- For the poached egg: Crack the egg into a small bowl to avoid egg shells when you add it into the water. Make a "tornado" in the water with a spoon before adding the egg. This will allow the egg to spiral onto itself and prevent it from falling apart in the water.
- Should you add vinegar? It’s totally optional. A little bit of white vinegar can help the egg stay firm, but I’ve made plenty of poached eggs without it.
- Poach the egg for 3-4 minutes, and let it drain on a paper towel before serving it.
- Spread butter and jam onto the baguette slices and assemble the tomatoes and asparagus onto a plate. Then top the asparagus (very carefully) with the poached egg. Sprinkle on some parmesan cheese at the very end and complete the dish with freshly cracked pepper.
Super duper easy, right? I also want to point out that the photos and video was taken on my new Canon Rebel T7i, which I’ve been in love with. It definitely takes a lot more thinking to take one photo than on the iPhone, but I’m pretty impressed with the results.
♥ Cindy