As March ends beach season inches just a little bit closer, so put down the pizza and head to the fridge! This week we decided to whip up a low-cal, simple dish that you can eat for breakfast, lunch or dinner: the frittata. In case you don’t know, this yummy food item is basically an omelette with all of the stuffings mixed right into the eggs. This particular frittata doesn’t contain meat, but toss in any variety you would put in an omelette and you can’t go wrong. Prep time really won’t take more than 10 minutes and the ingredient list is very limited. No excuses about not having time for this one!
Ingredients:
– 12 large eggs
– 1 medium tomato, chopped
– 8-10 stalks of asparagus (depending on size), chopped
– 1/2 medium red onion, chopped
– 1/2 c. unsweetened almond milk
– 2-4 tbsp hot sauce (make it as little or as hot as you like!)
– 2 cloves minced garlic
– tsp pepper
– tsp salt
Set your oven to 350 degrees and warm up your cast iron skillet (or other oven safe pan, the one I’ve used is 12 inches) over medium heat. If you don’t have that large of a pan, simply scale the ingredients down accordingly. Once hot, add about a tablespoon of butter to the pan.
Add in the onions, salt and pepper. Cook for roughly 5 minutes, or until they become slightly translucent.
While the onions are cooking, whisk together the eggs, hot sauce and a half cup of unsweetened almond milk. Regular milk or heavy cream are perfectly acceptable, but I chose to keep this paleo since I’m having an ongoing fight with my scale…
Add in the asparagus and minced garlic to the skillet after the onions are finished. Cook for another 5-7 minutes, or until the asparagus becomes tender. As soon as the asparagus is tender, add tomatoes to the pan and cook for only a minute. The tomatoes may become too soft inside of the frittata if they cook too long in direct heat.
Pour the egg mixture over into the cast iron skillet. I like to mix mine quickly to make sure all of the ingredients are evenly distributed in the skillet. Leave the skillet on your burner for about 45 seconds to one minute. This will help ensure you get a “crust” on the bottom so it doesn’t fall apart when you eat it. No one wants a sloppy frittata.
Bake for approximately 20 minutes in the oven. DO NOT wait for the frittata to brown on top. If you do it will be over cooked in the middle. I like to take mine out of the oven as soon as the eggs are set and then toss under the broiler for a few minutes to brown the top. Disclaimer! This dish is great, but even better with cheese melted on top. If paleo really isn’t your thing or you don’t care about clogging the proverbial pipes, pile some delicious cheese on top before you broil. Fontina and gouda in particular come to mind for this recipe. As long as you keep the eggs, almond milk, salt and pepper the same, you can really play around with this and add anything you like with your eggs!
