Portuguese-style baked eggs — eggs baked in a cheesy nest set in a quick, spicy tomato and red pepper sauce — are a spectacular choice for breakfast, brunch, lunch, or dinner. Serve with crusty bread and a simple salad and you have a satisfying, crowd-pleasing meal.

If you’re not naturally a morning person, you’ll appreciate that this dish works beautifully for “brinner” (breakfast for dinner) or a relaxed weekend brunch. The sauce is rich, slightly spicy, and full of vegetables and herbs. It’s thickened by simmering red peppers, onions, garlic, and tomatoes with warm spices, then finished in the oven with dollops of ricotta, cracked eggs, and a blanket of cheddar and Parmesan until bubbly and golden.

The result is comfort food at its best: creamy ricotta nests holding tender baked eggs, a lush tomato-and-red-pepper base, and crisp, browned cheese at the edges. Tear off pieces of toasted rustic bread to scoop up the sauce and yolk. At our table we often add olives, radishes with butter and sea salt, and seasonal citrus for a bright contrast.

It’s an easy recipe with a dramatic payoff. My husband’s reaction after his first bite was that it would be the perfect hangover cure: comforting, salty, and satisfying. With flavors like these, it’s not hard to understand why.

P.S. This is a great vegetarian entrée and works well for Lenten Fridays.

Cook’s Notes

Don’t be intimidated by the ingredient list; most items are common pantry or grocery-store staples. Smoked paprika adds a deeper flavor, but regular sweet or hot paprika works fine if that’s what you have.

Any sturdy rustic bread is ideal for toasting and sopping up the sauce — olive or rosemary loaves are especially nice, but a baguette or country loaf will do just as well.

For the fresh herbs, I often toss whole stems of basil and oregano into the simmering sauce and fish them out later, leaving the leaves that fall off. You can strip the leaves before cooking if you prefer less fuss after simmering.

The jalapeños in the sauce are included for flavor rather than intense heat. Pierce them with a knife and leave them whole while they simmer; this infuses the sauce and makes them easy to remove if you don’t want the seeds or pieces in the finished dish.

You can make the red pepper and tomato sauce a day ahead and refrigerate it, then reheat and finish the dish when you’re ready to bake the eggs. This makes it a convenient option for entertaining.

An oven-safe skillet lets you complete the whole recipe in one pan. If you don’t have one, make the sauce on the stovetop and transfer it to a 9×13-inch baking dish or individual oven-safe dishes before adding the ricotta and eggs.

For single servings, use mini cast-iron skillets, ramekins, or oven-safe bowls. Fill each vessel with at least 1 to 2 inches of sauce, add a dollop of ricotta and an egg, then top with cheese. Remember that smaller dishes may cook faster, so watch for set whites.

Leftover sauce freezes well. Cool it, transfer to a resealable bag, remove as much air as possible, and freeze for up to three months for best quality.

Because the eggs continue to cook from residual heat, plan to bake them when everyone is ready to eat. For runny yolks, remove the pan from the oven as soon as the whites are set; for firmer yolks, allow a little extra time in the oven and resting in the pan.

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Tools and cookware suggestions

Large cast-iron skillet or a 9×13-inch baking dish
Individual cast-iron mini skillets or ramekins for single servings
Smoked paprika (optional)

Portuguese Style Baked Eggs

Eggs baked over a bed of ricotta cheese in a spicy red pepper and tomato sauce. Adapted from Bon Appetit.

Ingredients

1/4 cup olive oil
3 red bell peppers, stemmed, seeded, thinly sliced
1 large yellow or cooking onion, halved and thinly sliced
10 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon smoked or regular paprika
2 whole jalapeño peppers, washed and pierced several times
1 can fire-roasted diced tomatoes (14.5 ounces)
1 can whole tomatoes in juice (28 ounces)
4 stems fresh basil, leaves attached (plus extra for garnish)
4 stems fresh oregano, leaves attached (plus extra for garnish)
6 large eggs
3/4 cup ricotta cheese
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Kosher salt and black pepper

To Serve

Rustic bread, drizzled with olive oil and toasted

Optional

Kalamata or other good olives
Fresh radishes with softened butter and sea salt
Clementines or orange segments

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Heat olive oil in a heavy, oven-safe skillet over medium-low heat. Add the sliced peppers and onions with a pinch of salt and cook gently for 6–8 minutes, until the onions are semi-translucent and the peppers begin to soften. Add the garlic, crushed red pepper, chili powder, and paprika and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute.
Add the pierced jalapeños, diced tomatoes, and the juice from the whole tomatoes. Crush the whole tomatoes by hand as you add them to the pan. Stir in the stems of basil and oregano, press them into the sauce, and bring to a simmer. Let the sauce simmer gently for 20–30 minutes, until thick and the vegetables are very soft. Taste and season with kosher salt and black pepper.
If you don’t have an oven-safe skillet, transfer the sauce now to a 9×13-inch baking dish or individual baking dishes.
Use the back of a wooden spoon to make six indentations in the sauce. In each indentation dollop 2 tablespoons of ricotta and press it into the sauce. Crack one egg onto each ricotta nest. Sprinkle cheddar and Parmesan evenly over the top.
Bake for 15–20 minutes, until the sauce is bubbly, the egg whites are set, and the yolks reach your preferred doneness. Remove from the oven, garnish with additional basil and oregano leaves, and serve family-style with toasted bread and any optional accompaniments.

Nutrition (per serving, estimate)

Nutritional information is an estimate. Calculate using your specific ingredients if needed.

This post was originally published March 6, 2015.