Israeli · Breakfast

Green Shakshuka

The green version: eggs baked into a pan of wilted greens, leek and herbs rather than tomato, with feta and a lemony crunch on top. Faster than the red one and lighter.

35 min total Serves 4 servings Easy
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Green Shakshuka

Photograph credit: Liat Portal for Foodie Disorder - Green shakshuka with spinach and egg by HaJunkiyada · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons · this resized copy is shared under the same licence

Storing and Planning Ahead

Best immediately. The greens base keeps 3 days refrigerated; reheat it and add fresh eggs.

Making Green Shakshuka

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  1. Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat and cook the leeks 8 minutes until soft and sweet.

  2. Add the garlic, chilli, cumin and coriander and stir for 1 minute.

  3. Add the grated courgette and cook 3 minutes, then the chard and spinach in handfuls, stirring until each batch wilts.

  4. Season with the salt and pepper and keep cooking, stirring, until the pan is dry and no liquid pools when you push the greens aside. This takes about 5 minutes and it is the step that decides whether the eggs set.

  5. Stir through most of the dill and parsley and the lemon juice.

  6. Make six wells in the greens with the back of a spoon and crack an egg into each.

  7. Scatter the feta between the eggs, cover the pan, and cook over a low heat 8 to 10 minutes, until the whites are just opaque and the yolks still wobble.

  8. Take off the heat, scatter with the remaining herbs, the lemon zest and the pumpkin seeds, and serve straight from the pan with bread.

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A Few Pointers

  • Cook the pan dry before the eggs go in. Everything else about this is forgiving.
  • Lid on for the eggs. Uncovered, the tops of the whites stay translucent while the bases turn to rubber.
  • Pull it a minute before it looks ready — residual heat finishes the job.

Behind the Recipe

Greens hold a great deal of water and the eggs will not set in a wet pan, so the leeks and greens are cooked until the base is genuinely dry before the wells are made. Cooking the eggs covered is the other half: the lid traps steam that sets the tops of the whites at the same time as the base cooks, so you are not choosing between a raw white and a hard yolk. Take it off when the whites are just opaque, because the pan carries on cooking them for a minute afterwards.

What to Put Next to It

Warm flatbread · A cup of strong coffee · Pickled chillies

Ingredient Swaps

  • Dried chilli flakes can stand in for the green chilli. Heat varies a great deal between chillies and between jars, so start with a small pinch and add more to taste.
  • An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.

Nutrition per Serving

Per serving, an approximate calculation from the ingredient list. Treat it as a rough guide: where a line offers a choice of foods, only one of them is counted; part of the energy comes from foods, or weights per item, with no recorded source. How the figures are worked out.

441Calories
23gProtein
22gCarbs
29gFat
5gFibre
6gSugar
1230mgSodium

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Compiled by Turab

Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.

First published ; last changed .