Recipe: Shortcut shakshuka
Shakshuka is one of the greatest gifts of Middle Eastern cuisine to the world. This shortcut shakshuka uses a couple of “cheat” ingredients to make it as quick as it possible without sacrificing taste.
In case you don’t know, shakshuka is a breakfast dish of eggs cooked in a chunky tomato-based sauce. Common ingredients in the sauce, besides tomatoes, include onions and capsicum. There are also green shakshukas made, obviously, with green vegetables and herbs. These are often less saucy and more hash-like.
Besides eggs, there are many other toppings or add-ins such as cheese, sausages, chickpeas, mushrooms, lentils, eggplant, fresh herbs, and a big etcetera.
Shakshuka is usually eaten with bread and often served with tahini, olives and/or salad on the side.
You can see my other (non-shortcut) recipes for shakshuka below:
To see how a few different shakshukas look like in Israel check out my posts: Eating in Israel for fuel and pleasure and Eating in Israel for fuel and pleasure 2023
But today’s recipe is all about time efficiency. To this end, I used a ready-made sauce: Slendier Eggplant & Zucchini Organic Italian Pasta Sauce. Even though it is labelled as pasta sauce, it’s versatile enough to be used in shakshuka. I haven’t tried all their pasta sauces (see my review here) because they are not available in my local shops but I can imagine the Red Capsicum and Lentil and Mushroom sauces would work perfectly as well.
The other shortcut I used was a spice mix, in this case Mingle za’atar seasoning. You could also use other spice blends available in supermarkets provided they go with the Middle Eastern theme.
Shortcut shakshuka
Ingredients
- 1 jar ready-made tomato-based sauce see recommendations above
- 4 eggs
- 80 g feta cheese or chevre
- salt and pepper to taste
- Middle Eastern-inspired spice mix of choice see recommendation above
Tahini sauce
- 2 tbsp tahini
- 2 tbsp water
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- salt to taste
To serve
- coriander and/or parsley leaves
- bread
- tahini sauce optional
- olives optional
Instructions
- Pour sauce in a pan, heat at medium to high heat until lightly bubbling.
- Make 4 wells in the sauce with the back of a spoon and crack one egg in each well. Cover pan with a lid.
- While eggs are cooking, make the tahini sauce (if using) by whisking the ingredients together. Add more water if needed (you are looking for a mayonnaise consistency). Also toast your bread if you like it toasted.
- Check the eggs at the 7-8 minute mark. You want the whites fully cooked but the yolks still runny.
- Once eggs are cooked, turn off heat and season eggs with salt and pepper (remember the sauce is already seasoned). Crumble cheese on top of the shakshuka, sprinkle with spice mix of choice and garnish with coriander and/or parsley leaves.
- Serve with bread, olives and tahini sauce as desired.
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