Baked Microgreens Frittata
I don’t want to say the P word, but I have to: Pandemic. I wish it was yesterday’s news, but no matter how hard I hope, Covid-19 and its ugly mutated-spawn variants remain relevant. But people are only human; and that means that tourist season has started in San Diego.
Selling at a farmer’s market during tourist season means TALKING A LOT to all the visitors who have never heard of microgreens. It means, fielding questions about how microgreens are for eating and not planting. And I spend a lot of time explaining how you use them— raw and on top of your meal, or in places you’d use lettuce like a sandwich, or in places you’d use herbs.
But every rule has exceptions: today we are bucking the rule about eating microgreens raw. Let’s bake some microgreens!
Microgreens Baked Eggs
A over a decade ago, I used to get scores of magazines. Martha Stewart Living, Food and Wine, Sunset, Vegetarian Times, Real Simple and Marth Stewart Cooking. Those things tend to pile up fast, so, I usually just tore out any recipes that looked enticing. Then I filed the recipes by category in a binder— I clearly had much more time on my hands that I do today. Now, I enjoy flipping through my old recipe journals for inspiration.
As I leafed through my recipe journal recently, my eyes fell one such torn out recipe, “Spinach Frittata with Green Salad” for One. Like most of those torn out pages, I never actually made the recipe. All the sautéing, cooking down spinach and onions, squeezing them out, and finally baking them with eggs felt like a lot of work for one person to have one meal. I could just crack the eggs with spinach in the frying pan and be done, why bother with baking?
But, this time, it dawned on me all that precooking would be unnecessary if I just used chopped up microgreens instead of mature spinach. Microgreens are already so tender that they would probably cook up at the same rate as the eggs, and would not have too much moisture either. It totally worked.
The best thing about this recipe is that you can play around with microgreens varieties. I prefer brocoli and kale and aged cheddar, but I bet gouda, radish, and smoked salmon would be delicious. You can also easily scale up to making two or three at a time. They taste wonderful cold too. Do you have left over cooked veggies? Add them in too.
If you’ve got picky eaters, or are trying to eat more greens, this is an easy way to do it. Feel free to add even more microgreens. I’ve used an entire round tray of broccoli microgreens without sacrificing the egg flavor.
If you are making these to impress, keep in mind that they will deflate as they cool, so serve them as soon as you pull them from the oven.
Microgreens Baked Eggs for One
Ingredients
Instructions
- Place a 1-cup ramekin (or heatproof dish, a small mug will do in a pinch) on a baking sheet and place in the oven. Preheat to 425 degrees. Meanwhile, whisk egg whites and egg with 1 Tablespoon of cheese, and milk. Add salt and pepper to your liking. Tip: If your cheese is salty, use less salt. Stir all of the chopped microgreens into the egg mixture.
- Carefully remove the hot dish from the oven. Coat with cooking spray, or if using oil/butter, very carefully oil the dish. Then, while the dish is still piping hot, pour in egg mixture and top with the remaining cheese.
- Bake until the eggs are puffed and browning, about 15 minutes.
Notes:
Do not attempt to use a mason jar as a baking dish. Trust me; it will crack and you will be sad. Microgreens work really well in baked eggs because they don't require any pre-cooking to perfectly wilt as the eggs bake. Feel free to play around with the amount of microgreens you use. I sometimes use an entire tray of broccoli micorgreens (about 1/2 chopped). Can't find microgreens in your area, pick up one of our kits and grow your own!
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