Serious Eats: Recipes
Eat for Eight Bucks: Mexican Eggs
Mexican eggs. [Photograph: Robin Bellinger]
Shopping List
7 eggs (pro-rated): $1.40
5 tortillas (pro-rated): $0.90
Cilantro (pro-rated): $0.50
1 small onion: $0.25
3 ounces Monterey jack: $0.75
1 cup instant refried beans: $0.25
1 pound potatoes: $1.00
Pantry items: Oil, salt, pepper, garlic, cumin, salsa (optional).
Total cost (for 4 portions): $5.05
For years I called this dish chilaquiles, migas, and then huevos rancheros before throwing my hands up and settling on Mexican eggs. It's a favorite last minute dinner for us, combining as it does ease and speed of preparation with delicious tortillas and cheese. We ate it no fewer than four nights in busy December.
If you have tortilla chips on hand, you needn't fry your own. Take two cups of crushed tortilla chips (about 4 ounces); scramble half of them into the eggs before cooking and stir the rest in with the final addition of cheese. Of course, you can also bake corn tortilla strips brushed with a little oil in a 400 degree oven for about 10 minutes, a healthier and only slightly less yummy alternative.
On the night pictured I served the eggs with aggressively roasted potatoes and instant refried beans, an experimental purchase from my favorite natural grocery store. I can't say I'd buy the beans again for eating straight up, but mixed into the eggs they weren't half bad.
Mexican Eggs
About the author: Robin Bellinger is a freelance editor and shameless cookie addict. She lives in San Francisco and blogs about what she feeds her husband and her daughter at home*economics.