10 ways with eggs

Article Updated Sept 2026. First published on my original blog (EcoGreenGP Ponders) in 2021.

In 2019 I became an ambassador for the fledging organisation The Real Food Campaign. One of the jobs I was doing within that was helping to create a resource of recipes and ideas for those wanting to switch to Real Food. (see either the real food campaign website above or my post https://ecogreengp.home.blog/2019/11/28/real-food/). Real food is all the things I am passionate about. It boils down to “Good for You, Good for the Planet”... and it is one of the big steps that has led me to setting up Hope-for-Health.

Whilst working as an ambassador I wrote a series called "10 Ways with ..." and I am slowly going to update them and transfer them onto my blog here. I have already added 10 Ways with Carrots.

Eggs are definitely good for us, and if the chickens are treated well, and fed well then chickens and eggs can be good for the planet. Maybe we can’t all go as far as owning our own chickens (although I highly recommend it if you can, we had chickens in our back garden for 15 years in total and I do miss collecting their eggs and watching them peck about) but we can make small steps – buying local and/or organic, or even going in with some friendly ‘allotment neighbours’ for a few chickens on the allotments.

Here are 10 ways to then cook your eggs to give yourself a non-meat protein boost without ending up feeling everything is ‘too eggy’.

A. Simple Eggs

1. Boiled: Medium or Soft – with toast soldiers or if you are tryingt o decrease carbs then cucumber sticks (as my daughter prefers). Alternatively peeled and smashed onto toast / onto a salad. Hard – in a lunch box to eat whole, mashed with mayonnaise, sliced and added to rice dishes or salads

2. Poached or Fried

3. Scrambled: by themselves or with cream and butter – different people in my household say different things about these. You can leave it soft or cook it longer. Keep going long enough and you get what I call “crispy egg” – a bit like those onion bits you can get to sprinkle on salad.

4. Baked or Coddled: these are really traditional ways with eggs, yet few people now know them … both require the breaking of egg(s) into a small oiled dish. For baked eggs those are just put into the oven as they are, for coddled eggs they are placed in a water bath before putting in the oven. They can be topped with (or placed on top of) ham / spinach or even cream / cheese etc or left plain.

B. Eggs Plus

1. Take your simple scrambled egg and make it into a full meal by stirring in any of the following: cooked bacon or ham, cooked chopped veg (peppers, onions, leaks all work particularly well), cooked or raw mushrooms, a sprinkle of cayenne / dash of tabasco.

2. Omlette – French or Spanish – two totally different meals with the same name in my opinion. – fill with whatever takes your fancy. French omlette is a fast meal, Spanish omlette takes a good while (an hour or more on the hob) as the potatoes should be slowly cooked in the olive oil until tender before the egg is added and then the whole thing kept on a low heat to set.

C. Egg Recipes

1. A more full recipe version of "adding to scrambled eggs" - Make my quick(er than the authentic) Nigerian Eggsauce: start with 2 plum tomatoes, 1/2 onion, fresh chilli to taste (ideally scotch bonnet for flavour, but only if you can tolerate the spice levels happily) and 1 red pepper - put all into the food processor and whizz up. Add to some olive oil in a big frying pan and cook on low/medium for 15 mins until soft. Add 1-2 tbs Nigerian curry powder - or if you can't get that then Carribean / Jamaican will do fine - and similar of smoked paprika. Add some water or tinned tomatoes if needed and stir. Then whisk up 4-6 eggs and pour them in. stir around and keep stirring until it reaches your desired consistency - anything between a thick sauce and a hard scrambled egg. (serves 2)

2. Egg Fry – this is basically a stir fry I do of whatever appropriate veg are in my fridge, along with some good seasoning, which I then add beaten egg to, in a slow steady stream, constantly stirring, so I end up with tiny bits of egg that I cook until crispy. … then just bung the whole thing on a plate.

3. Yorkshire Puddings and pancakes – recipes people often don’t fiddle with, but are very adaptable and the egg quantity can be increased easily if you want it to be your many protein in a meal. I often do 1 egg per pancake with only enough flour to hold it together and a bit of ground almond or other ground seed or nut to add further nutrition.

4. Egg in Smoothies - the ultimate way to add protein to your fruit and veg snack https://www.hope-for-health.com/post/smoothies