Many of my family’s most requested dinners involve fried or poached eggs and after getting frustrated with babysitting eggs on the stove top, I started experimenting cooking them in the oven and had fantastic results.
The trick is to use a muffin pan. I prefer using a jumbo muffin tin because I like the finished size of the eggs more than I do from a standard tin, but either will work. TIP: Use a non-stick muffin pan and you’ll want to rub a little butter around the inside of every well. I’ve seen other people cook eggs in muffin tins an no one does this step and even with my nicest non-stick, I still get egg gunk stuck around the edges if I don’t use butter. I’ve also found butter works much better than non-stick spray.
Poached Eggs vs. Fried Eggs
The difference between a poached egg and a fried egg is just a tablespoon of water. If you’d like to make poached eggs, after buttering the muffin tin, add a tablespoon of water to each one and then add your cracked egg. The water will rise to the top and gently surround your egg mimicking that water bath on the stove top. If you want to make “fried” eggs, simply skip the water and add the egg directly to the buttered muffin tin. Technically these aren’t “fried” and they won’t get those buttery-crisp edges that a traditionally fried egg gets, but it’s close and looks similar. Here’s a visual of an oven poached egg (bottom) and a “fried” egg (top).
Either way they only need to cook for about 10 minutes (give or take depending on how soft you like them) and it’s completely hands off, which I promise at some point in your life will come in super handy and you’ll be glad you know this trick!
