Skillet Fried Eggs over Microgreens with Bacon Crumbles

It’s pretty tough to beat cast-iron fried bacon and eggs for breakfast, especially on a crisp morning at camp. But I’ve got a recipe that is instantly going to elevate your classic campfire breakfast to a whole new level. Enter microgreens. These tiny plants are simply vegetables, herbs, or edible flower plants that have been harvested at the seedling stage of life. They are packed with nutrients and intense flavor, which makes them a popular ingredient among chefs. 

I developed this healthy breakfast recipe the summer I worked for a microgreen farmer. It was the hearty dish I’d quickly make for breakfast before heading to the grow shop. Learning how to grow and cook with my own microgreens has been an incredibly rewarding and delicious experience.

I start this recipe by making a bed of greens with freshly harvested sunflower shoots. Then I pile on top a couple runny fried eggs, bacon bits, and red pepper flakes. Depending on how much time I have I’ll even throw on a few extra veggies like diced tomatoes, green onions, radish shavings, and capers.

While any variety of microgreen could work for this dish, I especially enjoy the sunflower microgreens. Sunflower shoots grow thick and meaty as a seedling, similar to a succulent sort of texture. Because they carry quite a bit of water weight they are crunchy and crisp, which pairs well with runny yolk and the soft whites of skillet fried eggs. The flavor of sunnie-greens is quite sweet and buttery, definitely a far cry from the bitter greens we’re used to eating in salads.

The beauty of this breakfast microgreen salad is that you can really be creative with the ingredients. As long as you’ve got a runny egg to create a dressing and microgreens as a base, you can test your creative limits with other garden-fresh ingredients.

Skillet Fried Eggs over Microgreens
with Bacon Crumbles

Serving: 1 | Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 10 min | Total Time: 20 min

Ingredients

• 2 fresh eggs

• 2 slices bacon
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 handful microgreens 
• Sliced red onion
• Red pepper flakes
• Salt & pepper to taste

Instructions

1. On medium heat, fry sliced bacon in a cast iron skillet. 
2. Once bacon is cooked, remove it from the skillet and crumble it into pieces. Set aside.
3. In the same hot skillet fry two eggs to your liking. 
4. While eggs are frying, place a handful of fresh microgreens on a plate to create your salad bed.
5. Add any vegetables to your breakfast salad such as diced tomatoes, sliced onions, radish, cucumber, capers, etc. Or, skip this step to keep it simple. 
6. Place fried eggs on top of the microgreens and puncture the yolk so it runs like dressing.
7. Sprinkle bacon crumbles over the eggs. 
8. Top with a dash of salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes.