Easy Poached Eggs - Healthy Recipes Blog (2024)

Ingredients

You'll only need four ingredients to make this recipe. The exact measurements are listed in the recipe card below. Here's an overview of what you'll need:

• Vinegar for the water: Any vinegar will work. I use distilled white vinegar.
• Egg: I use large eggs in most of my recipes, including this one.
• Salt and pepper: Used to season the egg.

Variations

The best way to vary this recipe is to use different seasonings for the eggs. If you want to try something other than salt and pepper, you can sprinkle the eggs with garlic powder and/or smoked paprika. You can also season them with hot sauce.

In the photo below, I seasoned the eggs with salt, black pepper, red pepper flakes, and dried parsley:

You can use an egg poacher for the stovetop or microwave. A stovetop poacher is the best way to poach several eggs at once. But if you don't own a poacher, using a saucepan is entirely doable. It's simply a matter of technique.

The recipe (and video) below will show you how to poach eggs in a saucepan with boiling water, vinegar, and a whisk. The vinegar helps the egg white congeal - that's its only purpose. Don't worry - it doesn't give the eggs a vinegary taste.

The detailed instructions for making this recipe are listed in the recipe card below. Here are the basic steps:

Bring a small pot filled with water to a gentle boil. Break an egg into a small bowl.

Add vinegar to the boiling water. Vigorously whisk the water, then slide the egg in.

You can gently push the egg white closer to the yolk if it spreads too much:

Cover, turn the heat off, and wait for five minutes.

Lift the egg out of the water with a slotted spoon and place it on a paper towel to drain.

Season with salt and pepper, and serve.

My Daughter's Feedback

My twenty-something daughter texted me a few days ago, sharing her positive experience making these eggs:

Here are the beautiful photos she attached:

Using a Microwave Poacher

I own a microwave egg poacher, but I rarely use it, because it almost always produces firm yolks.

To use it, you crack the eggs into the cavities, cover them, and microwave them for 40-60 seconds (assuming your microwave is 1200 watts, like mine).

The problem: 40 seconds produced undercooked eggs, while 50 seconds produced overcooked eggs with nearly firm yolks, as shown in the photo below:

Using a Stovetop Egg Poacher

A stovetop egg poacher works better than a microwave one, although you will still need to experiment with how long to poach the eggs. Unlike my method of poaching the eggs in hot water after turning the heat off, here, you crack them into the cavities, cover them, and poach them in gently boiling water:

So, they only need to be poached for three minutes for runny yolks:

Or four minutes for jammy yolks:

Expert Tip

Adding vinegar to the water helps the egg whites congeal. The faster the egg whites cook, the less risk the egg will disperse in the water, leaving you with an unappetizing and messy boiled scramble.

You add just a small amount of vinegar, so you don't actually taste it. Regardless, using mild-tasting vinegar, such as rice or champagne vinegar, is a good idea. Having said that, I've used plain white vinegar plenty of times, and it was just fine.

What is poaching?

Poaching iscooking food in a hot liquid kept just below the boiling point. In the case of eggs, the idea is also to cook the egg out of its shell, and that's the challenge. You want the egg to end up round and pretty, with perfectly cooked whites and a thick, liquid yolk.

How long does it take to poach an egg?

Is it easier to use an egg poacher?

Serving Suggestions

I usually serve poached eggs on a toasted keto English muffin(as shown in the photo below) or toasted and buttered almond flour bread.

They are also excellent with hollandaise sauce in this keto eggs benedict recipe. Sometimes, I use them to top sauteed kale or sauteed spinach, turning the vegetable into a complete meal.

In the photo below, I served them with microwave broccoli for an easy meatless lunch:

When you serve the eggs on any type of bread, make sure to drain them for a few seconds on a paper towel to prevent soggy bread.

Storing Leftovers

While you can find tips online for storing and reheating poached eggs, I don't like storing them. I only make as many as my family will eat right away.

More Egg Recipes

Easy Poached Eggs

Making these five-minutepoached eggs is easy, and youdon't need a special poacher.

Servings: 1 egg

Calories: 73kcal

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Nutrition per Serving

Serving: 1 egg | Calories: 73 kcal | Carbohydrates: 0.4 g | Protein: 6 g | Fat: 5 g | Saturated Fat: 1.5 g | Sodium: 302 mg