A great way to get lots of summer vegetables in, this is a nice easy hands-off recipe for baked eggs. The vegetables are all roasted together in the oven before eggs are added for the last few minutes – so it’s more of a cool summer day recipe – good as is or with some nice crusty bread. Think of it as a slightly drier baked shakshuka.
For some more warm-weather egg recipes, try this savoury baked pancake with tomatoes and pesto, early summer potato salad, or stovetop ‘baked’ eggs with chard.
Ingredients
Ingredient Notes and Substitutions
- Vegetables: change these up, keeping the same approximate amounts, to suit your preference. You could sub eggplant for the zucchini, for example. If you want something with more liquid, double the tomatoes and omit one pepper.
- Eggs: I like to use slightly smaller eggs for this recipe if they’re available. Extra-large eggs swamp the dish a bit.
- Hot pepper: omit if you don’t like spice in your food.
- Thyme: substitute rosemary or oregano. See thyme substitutes. Instead of herbs you could use spices like cumin and smoked paprika.
Step by Step
Step 1: mix the vegetables, oil, and herbs together in a baking dish.
Step 2: bake until the vegetables are lightly browned, about 30 minutes.
Step 3: make divots with a spoon and crack the eggs in.
Step 4: bake for another 6-10 minutes, until the eggs are cooked, and serve.
Recipe Notes
While there are some food photography tricks (you’ll often see these in magazines) to keep the yolks yellow for baked eggs – like skimming the white off the top halfway through cooking – I want the recipe to look like it will when you make it at home without any tricks. When the eggs are soft-cooked, there will be a bit of white covering the yolks.
The time needed for the eggs to cook will vary depending on how large the eggs are and how soft you like them. I use rather small eggs and like them to be quite soft, so six minutes is usually just right.
How to Store
Storage: the eggs don’t store well. If you have some roasted vegetables leftover but have eaten the eggs, it’s great cold with bread.
Freezing: I don’t recommend freezing this dish. You could freeze the roasted vegetables, thaw in the refrigerator, then bake again with the eggs for a speedier version of the dish.
Expert Tips
- Make divots: if you don’t make little cups for the eggs to sit in, the whites will spread over the vegetables and cook too quickly (and look a bit unpleasant).
- Check the vegetables: before adding the eggs, try a piece of pepper or zucchini and see if it’s cooked and whether there’s enough seasoning. It can be stirred at this point so if more salt is needed, it’s a good time to add it.
- Make it in season: this recipe is only good in summertime. If you make it when vegetables are imported from thousands of kilometres away in the winter, it will be bland and dull.
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Summer Roasted Vegetable Baked Eggs
Description
Ingredients
- 2 medium sweet peppers sliced
- 1 medium zucchini halved and chopped
- 3 medium tomatoes chopped
- 1 medium red onion cut into wedges
- 1 hot pepper sliced (optional)
- 2 cloves garlic sliced
- 1 tablespoon oil I use olive oil
- 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
- ½ teaspoon sea salt to taste
- ½ teaspoon black pepper to taste
- 4 eggs
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F). Add the peppers, zucchini, tomatoes, onion, hot pepper, garlic, oil, thyme, salt, and pepper to a large baking dish and mix to combine.2 medium sweet peppers, 1 medium zucchini, 3 medium tomatoes, 1 medium red onion, 1 hot pepper, 2 cloves garlic, 1 tablespoon oil, 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves, ½ teaspoon sea salt, ½ teaspoon black pepper
- Bake the vegetables for about 30 minutes, stirring once at the halfway point. Once they're starting to brown and are cooked to your liking, taste and check for seasoning.
- Take the vegetables out of the oven and make four divots in the mixture with the back of a spoon. Crack an egg into each space, sprinkle with a little salt, and then place the dish back into the oven.4 eggs
- Bake for another 6-10 minutes, depending on the size of the eggs. They're ready when you shake the dish and the eggs have a slight jiggle in the yolk.
- Serve immediately with bread or some kind of cooked grain. The vegetables can be stored in the refrigerator (with no egg) for a day or two.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate. If this information is important to you, please have it verified independently.