Oven-Scrambled Eggs

Whether you want to cook breakfasts for the whole week ahead of time, or have a huge crew to serve, oven-scrambled eggs are a time-saver that you will fall in love with!

This recipe came out of a need for faster proteins during the week now that both my daughters are in school.  My first attempt at saving time was to buy microwave cookers for making scrambled eggs, but found that the three minutes of stirring every 30 seconds, times two (one for each kid) or three (another one for my husband) was no better than scrambling eggs on the stove top (and eggs on the stove top seem to taste better too!).  And because my kids and husband tend to eat three eggs each every morning for breakfast, even doing a huge batch of eggs in my biggest frying pan at best would last two and a half mornings (which from a time commitment perspective, is really the same as one morning of cooking time saved).

Fun fact about me:  my second summer/weekend job was in the kitchen of an Intermediate Long-Term Care Hospital, where I worked for more than four years (from 16-years old through to the end of my third year of university) cooking dinners for the over 100 residents on weekends. (See this post and this post for what my first ever summer job was!).  This was where I was first introduced to the idea of scrambling eggs en masse.  There, they used a steamer, which I think is also a common technique used in hotel and restaurant kitchens.  I don’t have a steamer at home, but I reasoned that there must be a way to achieve the same goal in my oven.

I headed over to The Google and looking up ways to scramble a lot of eggs all at once in the oven only to discover that “oven-scrambled eggs” are indeed a thing.  I tried a few recipes that I found on the internet (making a variety of substitutions for milk and cream) and was very disappointed by the texture (crunchy bits on the outside and the inside so rubbery that my kids refused to eat them–decidedly not the textural goal!).

But, I persevered! My grandfather (a biochemist who loved to apply his field in his kitchen!) maintained that the fluffiest scrambled eggs come from adding water, and not milk or cream, to the eggs.  Well, that’s one Paleo substitution down, and one that I’ve been using for years on the stove top, but if I want oven-scrambled eggs to taste like “regular”, then I also needed to add some fat.  The problem with the other recipes I tried was that the fat pooled on the top of the eggs, allowing them to brown too much, and then creating an oily texture once you mixed the eggs together at the end.  Not pleasant, to say the least.

I discovered that the secret was to blend the fats with the eggs before baking.  The results was light and fluffy scrambled eggs with fantastic flavor!  I now make this every Sunday and save myself a good twenty minutes every weekday morning!  My kids even enjoy cold scrambled egg leftovers in their school lunches!

Yield: 8-12 servings
Prep time: 5-10 minutes
Cook time: 30-40 minutes

Ingredients:

• 24 eggs
• 1/2 cup cooking fat of choice (I like to use 1/4 cup ghee and 1/4 cup coconut oil)
• 2 cups of cool water
• 2 tsp salt

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Blend all the ingredients together on high for 20-30 seconds (depending on the size of your blender, you may need to do this in two batches–you can blend one dozen eggs with the fat, then the other dozen eggs with the water and salt, then mix in your baking dish).
3. Pour into a 9×13″ (or bigger) deep glass or ceramic baking dish.
4. Bake, stirring at the 10 minute, 20 minute, 25 minutes and 30 minute marks.
5. Remove it from the oven when just slightly underdone (a bit gooey underneath when you stir it), typically at about 30 minutes, and give it a good stir to break up bigger pieces.  Let it sit for 3-4 minutes before serving for it to finish cooking.  If it’s not cooked enough at 30 minutes, check every 3-4 minutes until done.  It shouldn’t take more than 40 minutes, even if you have very large eggs.
6. Serve and enjoy!

For storing leftovers: let the eggs cool and then move to a covered dish.  If the eggs release water while they cool, discard the water (it’ll make the eggs turn green during storage).  Reheat covered in a toaster oven or uncovered in the microwave (see The Paleo Approach and The Paleo Approach Cookbook for a discussions on the safety of microwaves)