Kitchen Experiments: Egg Bites

On Thursday on social media I shared my experiments about making an approximation of the Starbucks sous vide egg bites that I love but do not want to get sucked into a habit of paying for often:

https://twitter.com/GeekMelange/status/979368069591158784

I ended up getting so many requests from friends for the recipe that clearly a blog post needed to be made!

A few notes:

  • I bought the SENHAI silicone egg cups from Amazon, $8/6 cups. I’ve had no problem washing them in the dishwasher (top rack).
  • A couple of people asked whether I needed to hit the silicone cups with some nonstick spray before adding the egg mixture. So far in my experience making these, I haven’t had to, but I don’t think it’ll hurt your eggs at all if you do.
  • Because you’re popping the egg cups into a gentle boil, you’ll likely get some water bubbling over into the cups while the egg is cooking—this is NOT a problem and won’t hurt the eggs, because you are still poaching them. The cups are just meant to help keep the eggs in a neat cup shape. If you find the cups have a bit of water in them when the eggs are cooked and ready to come out, just tip the cup to let the water run out before letting the eggs cool enough to handle.
  • Many of the recipes online I found to work from called for a mix of whole eggs and egg whites. You can certainly play with the mix of eggs to hit on a ratio that works for you! My dietary needs aren’t such that I felt it was necessary to do anything more than use whole eggs but that’s totally up to you. Same with fillings, use whatever you want, cheese, no cheese, different kinds of cheese, add meat (although with something like bacon or proscuitto or spam, I’d advise cooking them first to crisp up the meat), use different veggies (again, with something like raw mushrooms, sautee those first to remove the excess moisture and bring out flavor; same with onions and garlic, for my money those will taste better added to the egg mix fully cooked rather than raw), leftovers, etc.
  • The Starbucks egg bites are made sous vide, which is a different cooking method from poaching. So there will be a difference in texture if you’re expecting these to turn out just like the Starbucks ones—in my opinion, the Starbucks egg bites are more dense and velvety in texture, while the poached egg bites are more fluffy and while still smooth, not quite as velvety. But for me, they were close enough for me to be satisfied. Sous vide equipment is NOT cheap. I may eventually save for a sous vide precision cooker, but for now, the poached method serves my purposes, and at $8 for 6 cups vs a minimum of $110+ for sous vide equipment, it’s not even a contest. I have also heard of other people using an instapot for this as well, but can’t vouch for the results since I’ve no plans to buy one.

Ingredients (makes 6 egg bites)
5 whole eggs
1/2 tblsp rice flour (to help bind the eggs – regular all purpose flour should be fine)
A couple of tblsp milk (I used rice milk because that’s what I had on hand but regular milk should be just fine, I eyeballed my initial amount so this is approximate)
1/4 red bell pepper, diced
baby spinach leaves (it was about 3 per egg cup), torn
feta cheese to taste (maybe 1/2 tblsp each?? I don’t know, I eyeballed it)
salt & pepper to taste
(can also add seasonings like spices or dried herbs)

Instructions

1) whisk eggs til blended; whisk in rice flour and milk and salt/pepper/seasonings

2) divide bell pepper, spinach, and feta among 6 egg cups

3) divide egg mixture among cups to *just* cover fillings, *don’t fill the cups to the top* because the egg will fluff up as it cooks

4) Bring a big pot of water to a gentle boil. Carefully add cups to water so they’re floating, not touching the bottom of the pan. Cover pot, cook for 8-10min (if you have a glass cover, even better so you can watch the eggs).

5) remove cups with a slotted spoon, don’t worry if there’s a bit of water in the cup, it won’t hurt the egg, just tip the water out before letting the eggs cool enough to handle the cups — they’ll pull away from the cup sides as they cool so 1-2 min for cooling should be fine. Pop ’em out, eat, or let cool completely and store in the fridge.

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