Name: Easy Stovetop Eggs in a Hole
Total time: 30 min
Yield: Serves 2
Ingredients: 2 slices hearty white or wheat sandwich bread; 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces and softened; Vegetable oil spray; 2 large eggs; ⅛ teaspoon table salt; Pinch pepper

Why This Recipe Works

This two-in-one breakfast keeps things simple by cooking toast and eggs together in a single skillet. Covering the skillet while the eggs cook traps hot steam inside, which helps the egg whites and yolks finish cooking at the same time. As egg whites cook, they transform from clear or translucent to solid white. (If your skillet has a clear lid, have kids watch the eggs as they cook to see if they can observe this change.) Egg whites are made of lots of tiny, curled up proteins floating in liquid that’s mostly water. As the eggs cook, the proteins unfurl and link together, making a kind of mesh that traps their water and changes the color and consistency of the egg white.

Before You Begin

If you don’t have a 2½-inch round cutter, you can use a sturdy drinking glass to cut the holes in the toast.

Instructions

Place bread in toaster on lowest setting. Toast until bread feels dried out and is very light brown. (You may have to toast it twice.)

Use butter knife to spread 1 piece of softened butter evenly over 1 side of each piece of toast.

Place toast on cutting board, buttered side up. Use 2½-inch round cutter to cut and remove circle from center of each piece of toast. Reserve toast circles.

Spray 12-inch nonstick skillet evenly with vegetable oil spray. Place pieces of toast and reserved toast circles, buttered sides down, in skillet.

Place 1 piece of softened butter in hole of each piece of toast. Crack 1 egg into each hole (see photo, “Step-by-Step: How to Crack Eggs in a Hole”). Wash your hands. Sprinkle evenly with salt and pepper.

Cover skillet with lid and cook over medium-low heat until egg whites are set and yolks still jiggle, 8 to 10 minutes for slightly runny yolks or 9 to 11 minutes for set yolks.

Turn off heat and slide skillet to cool burner. Use oven mitts to remove lid. Use spatula to carefully transfer eggs in a hole and toast circles to plates. Serve.