Spinach & Eggs Recipe – Breakfast, Lunch Or Dinner

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Eggs and spinach for breakfast, anyone? Or lunch or dinner, for that matter.

If you’ve never tried this spinach and eggs recipe, we’re sure you’re going to be converts once you do make it.

We go through spells where it’s on our menu more than once a week. And that’s no bad thing because this dish is also really healthy!

Definitely one of our favourite egg recipes.

Discovering Spinach

We arrived to live in Turkey as non-spinach-lovers.

Well, in the UK, we had bought the odd bag of baby spinach leaves from the supermarkets just because we knew spinach is exceptionally good for you.

And because it was the ‘New Cool’ to have baby spinach leaves in your salads.

Neither of us were experts on its flavour. And we certainly certainly never experimented with other spinach recipes outside the world of salads.

Spend any amount of time in Turkey, however, and it’s impossible to escape the fact that spinach is a significant feature of Turkish cuisine.

At the moment, Fethiye market is packed with the stuff.

Huge piles of dark earthy green muddy leaves, still attached to their roots.

By The Bagload

You don’t buy a (very expensive) sealed cellophane bag of washed, delicate, baby spinach leaves.

You buy kilos of unwashed greenery, rammed into a bag. As much as will fit in.

And it’ll only set you back a few lira, depending on the time of year.

Eggs And Spinach – A Perfect Combo

So, what to do with all this spinach?

We hate walking around Fethiye market and ignoring foods that are obviously in season.

We started to look into more Turkish recipes as soon as we arrived in Fethiye just so we could make use of the seasonal produce. And maybe learn to love the vegetables we always avoided back in England.

Spinach definitely fits into the category of one of those greens we have learned to love. And experimenting with Turkish recipes is completely responsible for that.

We love to make spinach and cheese börek. And also a çintar mushroom and spinach börek.

Staying with the pastry theme, our Turkish spinach and potato puff pastry rolls always go down a treat with friends.

One-Pan Eggs And Spinach

But spinach and eggs all cooked together in the one pan – with a couple of added extras, too. This is dream food.

Ispanaklı Yumurta – to give it ts Turkish name – is a favourite for so many people in Turkey.

And, as soon as we had our first serving of it, all those years ago, we could see why!

Spinach And Eggs Recipe – Ispanaklı Yumurta

As we said above, when you buy your spinach from the markets of Turkey, you will not be buying delicate shoots that have been pre-washed.

The leaves are often rugged and muddy. So you’ll need to remove the stems and give the leaves a good wash.

(Save your stems to make spinach stem salad – it’s yummy!)

Village Eggs And Spinach

The amounts in our spinach and eggs recipe are meant as a guide only.

Sometimes, we have oodles of spinach. Others, not quite so much.

We also use free range village eggs. This dish is a celebration of the spinach and eggs combo. So only the best quality ingredients will do.

Extra ingredients include sauteed onion and salça (tomato paste). These are completely optional but they really boost the flavours of the dish, we think.

As you can see in the photo above, you will often end up with a kind of egg and spinach omelette as the whites of your eggs spread around the pan, fusing the ingredients together.

How To Serve Your Spinach And Eggs

If you want to, you can just serve your spinach and eggs on a plate as it is.

Just run your spatula down the centre of your pan and divide the mix into two.

We love to serve our spinach and eggs on top of a slice of hot toast, however. It makes for a more wholesome meal. Especially if we are eating it later in the day.

If you’re not particularly hungry, of course, there is no set of rules that says you must have two eggs. Use more spinach instead and have just the one egg.

And, well, we are in Turkey.

What do the people of Turkey love as an addition to so many of their meals?

A good dose of natural yoghurt, of course. And we can tell you that when it comes to spinach and eggs, natural yoghurt is the perfect accompaniment.

Okay, let’s get going with our spinach and eggs recipe – Ispanaklı Yumurta…

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Spinach & Eggs Recipe – Breakfast, Lunch Or Dinner

This healthy spinach & eggs recipe is delicious, quick and easy to make. Eat eggs and spinach for breakfast, lunch or dinner. It's up to you.

Course Breakfast

Cuisine Turkish

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes

Total Time 25 minutes

Servings 2

Calories 290kcal

Author Turkey’s For Life

Ingredients

• 300 g spinach washed, stems removed & roughly chopped
• 4 eggs village or free range
• 1 large onion peeled & finely chopped
• 1 dessert spoonful tomato paste tomato paste
• 1 tsp sweet paprika
• 1 tsp chilli flakes
• 1 tbsp olive oil for frying
• salt & pepper to season

Instructions

• Gently heat your olive oil in a large frying pan.
• Add your onions and sauté until they start to sweat and soften slightly.
• Now add your spinach. Don’t worry if it’s all piled up in the pan. It will wilt quickly.
• As your spinach wilts, stir it around to mix with your onions.
• Now add your tomato paste (salça) and mix it in thoroughly before adding around 200 mls of water.
• Add your paprika, chilli, salt and pepper.
• Stir everything in and simmer for a couple of minutes over a low heat.
• Now make 4 wells in your mixture and crack your eggs into the wells.
• Allow the egg whites to spread around the pan.
• Cover the pan and leave to simmer for 4-5 minutes until your egg whites have set.
• Serve your spinach and eggs immediately either on its own or with toast and natural yoghurt.

Notes

• The calories in this spinach and eggs recipe are meant as a rough guide only – they will differ depending on your choice of ingredients.
• If you want to, you can make spinach and eggs with two eggs rather than four.
• We serve our spinach and eggs on top of hot toast.
• It is also extra tasty with natural yoghurt on the side.

Afiyet Olsun!

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