I know you know I love tacos, but what maybe you did not know is that I also love tostadas which are like tacos, but flat and hard to eat. Or flat and FUN to eat if you want to think positively about it, which I do. This thing I have for tostadas is the reason I totally love huevos rancheros, or BREAKFAST TOSTADAS, which is what these would be called if they served them at Taco Bell. Then a year later they would be revamped into BREAKFAST DORITOS TOSTADAS, where the tostada would be replaced by a giant, flat, round Doritos Nacho Xplosion, and then six months later everyone in America would be dead when their hearts turn into cheese and xplode.
That is why you should really learn to make your own breakfast tostadas, just in case the future is a darker, more Doritos-filled place than we can imagine.
- 1 teaspoon oil
- ¼ cup finely chopped onion
- 1 jalapeno, chopped (and seeded if you like)
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- ¼ teaspoon ground cumin
- 2 cups chopped tomatoes (fresh or canned)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1-2 teaspoons butter
- 2-4 eggs
- 2-4 corn tortillas
- Refried beans and cilantro for serving
- Optional: cheese, avocado,
- Toast the corn tortillas under the broiler on low heat for 1-2 minutes on each side until crisp, or bake in the oven at 350 for 5-10 minutes until crisp. Set aside.
- Heat the oil in a skillet large enough to hold however many eggs you want.
- Saute the onion, jalapeno, and garlic for a few minutes to soften.
- Add the cumin and fry 30 more seconds.
- Add the tomatoes and some salt and pepper.
- Cover the skillet and reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer 5 minutes until the tomatoes are soft. You may need to add a couple tablespoons of water to make a sauce if your tomatoes were not very juicy.
- Remove the lid and make a little well or hole in the sauce for each egg you are cooking.
- Drop a half-teaspoon of butter in each well and then crack an egg into each.
- Reduce the heat to low and cover the pan. Cook the eggs for 5 minutes or until done to your liking. If you’d like the yolks well-done, pop the pan under the broiler for a minute.
- Spread about ¼-1/3 cup refried beans on each tostada, then top with an egg and some of the sauce.
- Sprinkle with cilantro and cheese if you want.
- Yummy!!
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I create short-form, educational, and occasionally hilarious cooking videos geared towards beginner and intermediate cooks, as well as people who are just looking for simple, low-cost recipes. Everything is made from scratch, people!
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
I love Huevos Rancheros. It’s a good substantial breakfast to have usually on the weekend. Your photo is lovely — give the food stylist a bonus.
I’ve commented before how many similarities there area among regional and national cuisines, influenced by the available ingredients. If you take away the tortillas, the beans, and the spice selection, Huevos Rancheros are the trusty eggs poached in tomatoes. If the eggs were poached in a sauce of tomatoes, chili peppers, onions, and cumin, then served with pita bread, it’d be the Middle Eastern dish of Shakshouka. If the eggs were poached in tomato sauce with olive oil, olives, basil, and a grated cheese like Parmigiano-Reggiano, Parmigiano-Reggiano, or Cacio di Roma, the dish would be U’Ova All’Inforno (Eggs in Hell ). That’d be great with a crusty Italian, French, or Vienna bread. You’re a traveler, Hilah. Have you run into other regional variations? The world over, we’re just the same.
(My technical questions for this episode are: Why the cold open? Why the stainless steel pan instead of the ubiquitous cast-iron frypan? These inconsistencies are hobgoblining up my little mind.)
Mmm. You’re making me hungry. Of course, I haven’t eaten breakfast yet, so egg-talk is going to!
I love the similarities one finds between cuisines. To me, those are kind of more interesting than the differences. It makes it clear that humans have pretty much been eating the same things for so long that similar preparations were bound to show up. I’ve also seen eggs baked right inside hollowed-out tomatoes. That’s a pretty presentation.
For your tech questions, I think Chris answered the first. I’ll answer the second. When I’m cooking a lot of tomatoes for longer than a minute, I like to use the stainless pan to avoid darkening the sauce from the acid reacting with the iron.
Hollowed-out tomato baked eggs sound hreat. It’d be a nice presentation.
I’ve cooked scrambled eggs in a hollowed-out orange peel; baked a cake in one, too. Those are Scout tricks, like poaching an egg in a paper cup over a campfire; or frying bacon and eggs in a paper sack hanging on a bindle stick; or baking brownies in a cardboard box covered in foil. Jay from The Aimless Cook probably can pass along the Canadian trick of baking bannock bread on a stick over a fire. (Sorry, I wander.)
Omigosh, those sound like such fun! Wish I’d been a scout. How in the hayell do you cook bacon and eggs in a sack without catching it all on fire??
Once I made meatloaf-stuffed orange shells. Not bad. It scented the meat nicely.
You take two thick slices of bacon and one egg. Put the bacon inside a brown paper lunch bag, covering the bottom completely. Crack the egg on top of the bacon. Fold the top of the bag down and poke a 3-foot-long stick through the bag. Hold it over the coals until done. The bottom will smoke and char so turn it from time to time to cook evenly. Both the ends and sides should be exposed to the hottest coals. Here’s a video.
I have wondered how to make Huevos Rancheros for a long time, it looks great. Thank you.
You’re welcome, William! I hope you try it soon. You won’t be disappointed!
Sometimes, I get inspired by one of your recipes, but have to make do with what’s in my cupboard and refrigerator. Tonight’s supper, for example: http://tinyurl.com/82bstt7 That’s what’s know as having coping skills.
Oh man, that looks so.. good… I still need to do the pancake recipe as well.
You do! You do!
Awesome site, and great recipe. However your videos are next to useless as the only option to watch them is in HD and not everyone in the world has as fast internet as say america. Just saying, I think I’d be a fan of your site if I could actually watch the videos (without waiting for far longer than the length of the video to get them to down load). Just saying, you’d really help your audience if there were options for lower settings like how on youtube you can adjust them – I find 360 on youtube is quick, doesn’t suck up too much precious download limits but gives good quality, heck even if you had 400 and something whatever that it is would work on my connection and computer…. only having HD makes your videos impossible to view by me and I guess a lot of other people are in the same boat globally….. I have a good connection by Aussie standards and an OK but not fancy but recent enough computer to cope with most things… -sigh- I really wish your videos were more accessible. Let me know if you can make this possible, then I might be a fan (and you might find an even wider audience).
The videos are all on YouTube, too, in standard-def or high-def. http://youtube.com/hilahcooking
WOAH…made your own salsa, I didnt know how to do that; the secret is in the tomatoes releasing water. I am going to totally make those tostadas. But now that I see how to make Salsa…im gonna see if I can make it better than PACE! Ohh what about green verde salsa….See if I can make something better than La Victorias Green salsa, will I need green tomatoes to make green verde?
Or make a hybrid, dump some PACE or LaVictoria in with my own recipe.
What about hot sauce? How is that made? Like Taptio style, or green hot sauce?
This is totally rad!
Oh yes, I love making my own salsas and condiments! I hope you try it. I think you’ll be able to come up with something WAY better than Pace. I have a recipe here for salsa verde that I really love. I think it might be my favorite salsa!
Speaking of hybrids, sometimes when I’m in a time crunch I’ll just add some fresh lime, cilantro, sometimes onion and garlic too, to a bottle of salsa. It makes a huge improvement.
But I’m still working on perfecting my hot sauce…
You said you have a video or article on how to poach eggs. I can’t find it. I know I could get how to do it on the internet, but I want to see how you do it!
I need to try this.