EGGS IN A NEST

Makes 12 “nests” When Stacy was growing up, Sundays were a day when her mom made special breakfasts. Often it was the same breakfast Stacy’s mom had asked for when she was a kid: an “egg in a nest.” Back then, the nest was a piece of toast, pan fried, with the center torn out. Drop the egg into the hole and, voila—an egg in a nest! The egg nests were a fun breakfast that we all missed, so we thought we’d use a slightly different approach to make our own eggs in nests. Since sausage tastes better than toast, it is a nice replacement. Best of all, you can bake a big batch of these little nests in advance and have them available and ready to reheat early in the mornings without any effort at all! INGREDIENTS • ½ lb nitrate-free breakfast sausage, loose • 12 medium eggs • 2 Tbsp (30 ml) olive oil INSTRUCTIONS AND HOW KIDS CAN HELP 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees 2. Thoroughly grease muffin tin or use silicone muffin pan. 3. Use a heaping spoon of sausage to make a nest on the outside edges of the muffin tin—use a thin layer around the edges so that there is room to drop in the egg. We recommend making one complete nest with an egg first before lining the rest to ensure you have enough space for the egg. 4. Open eggs one at a time and drop carefully into each lined egg cup. 5. Drizzle top of each egg with olive oil. 6. Bake at 350 degrees for 23-28 minutes, until eggs are cooked to your liking. 7. Let nests cool about 5 minutes, release the edges of the nests with a butter knife and pop them out.

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These eggs in a nest press breakfast sausage into crispy little muffin-tin cups with a whole egg cracked into each one — a Paleo rebuild of the toast-with-a-hole original. A single batch turns out twelve nests, so Sunday morning feeds the whole week. A drizzle of olive oil over each egg is what sets them to a golden finish.

Pro Tips

• Line just one muffin cup with sausage and crack an egg into it first — that dry run shows you how thin the walls need to be before you commit all twelve.
• Use loose bulk breakfast sausage, not patties; loose sausage presses into the wells and holds its cup shape as it cooks and shrinks.
• Thoroughly grease the tin or use a silicone pan — egg white welds itself to bare metal.
• Bake 23 minutes for set whites with a jammy yolk centre; push toward 28 only if you want them fully hard, since they keep cooking a minute after leaving the oven.
• Run a butter knife around each nest while still warm — once the eggs cool, they glue the nests to the tin.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I make eggs in a nest ahead and reheat them?

Yes — that's the whole point of the batch. Refrigerate baked nests up to four days and reheat briefly in the microwave; a minute under the broiler crisps the sausage edges back up.

Can I freeze them?

They freeze for about a month, though the whites turn slightly rubbery on reheating. Thaw overnight in the fridge and warm gently rather than blasting them hot.

What if I don't eat pork?

Any loose breakfast sausage works — beef, chicken, or turkey sausage press into nests exactly the same way. Just keep it nitrate-free.

Why did my eggs overflow the nests?

The sausage walls were too thick. Keep the sausage a thin layer around the edges of each cup so a whole medium egg has room to sit inside.

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