Last month I submitted a recipe to the Eggland’s Best “Your Best Recipe Just Got Better” contest. The idea was to adapt an original recipe to make it healthier using at least 2 eggs and less than 10 ingredients.
My recipe was one of four finalist winners. I didn’t win the grand prize, but I’m happy to have won a $250 Amazon gift card — which will go toward my highly anticipated kitchen pantry makeover. I’m so excited to create an uber-organized pantry space! Thank you to the folks at Eggland’s Best!
My winning recipe is a unique twist on a pasta dish I grew up eating. My mother would throw this meal together a few times each month from staple ingredients she always had on hand; it was her go-to dinner when she needed a quick weeknight meal. The original version of this classic Italian dish combines thin spaghetti tossed with eggs that have been fried in lard. I adapted the dish to be healthier by using olive oil instead of lard, and whole wheat pasta instead of white pasta. I also added baby spinach and cherry tomatoes to the dish for beautiful color and flavor, as well as a healthy dose of flavonoids, antioxidants, fiber, lycopene, and additional vitamins and minerals. The added anchovy is rich in omega 3 fats, and provides a little vitamin E, D, calcium, and selenium.
Spaghetti With Eggs, Tomatoes & Spinach
Ingredients
- 1 pound thin spaghetti
- 5 large Eggland’s Best eggs
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 large clove garlic minced or chopped
- 1 tsp anchovy paste
- ½ pint cherry tomatoes sliced in half (about 1 cup)
- 2 cups baby spinach packed (or 2 big handfuls)
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Salt
- Freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Bring a pot of salted water to boil. Add pasta and cook until al dente.
- Sauté garlic and anchovy paste in oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat, until garlic is lightly browned.
- Add 5 eggs gently to the oil, and cook until the whites are set, but the yolks are still soft (“over easy”).
- Reserve 1 cup of pasta water before draining pasta.
- In a large serving bowl, toss cooked pasta with eggs and oil mixture (when tossing, the eggs will break up and form a creamy sauce). Add 2 ladles of the reserved pasta water to the bowl to help make the sauce (the eggs will finish cooking in the heat of the pasta).
- Add the sliced cherry tomatoes and baby spinach to the bowl, gently combining until spinach wilts. Spinach will wilt from the heat of the pasta, but you may need to add 1 more ladle of pasta water as the ingredients will absorb the sauce.
- Serve immediately, sprinkling individual bowls with grated Parmesan cheese.
