Shirred eggs, more commonly known as baked eggs, are eggs that are baked in a flat-bottom dish. Although they are traditionally prepared with minimal ingredients, my variation is a little different in that I like to use cupcake pans and layer a host of ingredients into a cup lined with ham or other form of cured meat. I like the idea of building your whole breakfast at once.

These baked eggs are a great way to treat guests that come over for brunch, or everybody’s favorite meal, “breakfast for dinner.”



(Serves six)

12 eggs

5 tbsp butter or ghee

12 slices cured pork – ham, prosciutto, pancetta, etc

5oz frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed

2 fully-cooked bratwurst or kielbasa sausage, diced, or some chopped (cooked) bacon

1 small onion, diced

1 small red pepper, diced

1/2 tsp each salt and pepper, and more to taste

Cut up your sausage, onion, and red pepper, and set aside.

For this recipe I used US Wellness Meats’ Natural Smoked Bratwurst, which was mild and very tasty. This particular sausage has a little added sugar, so if you are on a Whole30 you could use all sorts of alternatives – sugar-free sausage, bacon, whatever floats your boat.

Heat up 1 tbsp of the butter or ghee in a skillet on med/low heat, then add the onion and sausage. Sauté for five minutes, stirring every minute or two, until the onions are softened like in the picture above.

Add the red pepper and sauté for another two minutes, adding a little salt and pepper if you’d like.

Remove your onion/pepper/sausage combo and set it aside.

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Melt the remaining butter/ghee and pour a little of it into 12 different cupcake holders in a cupcake pan.

Mold your ham or other cured pork to form a small cup. It’s okay if it tears a little bit, the spinach will act as insulation.

Put a little of the thawed spinach in the bottom of the cut (be sure to squeeze any water out!). You are totally welcome to use fresh, blanched spinach instead of frozen spinach.

Add a couple spoonfuls of the onion/pepper/sausage combo, leaving enough room in your cupcake mold for an egg.

Lastly, crack an egg into the cup.

Bake at 425 for 15-20 minutes, until your eggs look done enough for you. We liked ours more gooey than runny, so we cooked ours for just shy of 20 minutes.

Let them cool for a minute or two, then serve and enjoy. And because you asked so nicely, here are some more pretty pictures of the eggs.

Two egg cups per person sounds pretty fair, although we were all fighting over who got a third cup.

Printer-friendly version