Forget the annoyance of poaching an egg in boiled water – utilize your oven for easy, mess-free egg poaching!
For years my mom had been making me poached eggs using an ‘egg poacher’ she’d received as a gift one year. It was my favorite way to eat eggs, but I never knew how to make them myself. When I was living on my own, I always craved poached eggs, but didn’t have an egg poacher. So, I taught myself how to make poached eggs the old-fashioned way. Boiling water, making a whirlpool, slowly and carefully dropping the egg into the water, taking it down to a simmer, the whole nine. I somehow perfected the technique on my first try, but it was just too much of a pain for this then busy college kid to want to deal with.
I’m a girl who likes to throw everything together in one pan, plop it into the oven and call it a day. I pride myself on being someone who is very driven and the antithesis of lazy, but when I’m busy, the laziness and impatience shines through in regards to cooking and preparing meals. At the same time, home girl wants a poached egg, which isn’t the easiest task for a lazy, busy girl. Am I making sense?
I love this technique because 1) it’s easy, 2) it’s great for multi-tasking (keep working while your breakfast is cooking), 3) the result is just as if you cooked them the old-fashioned way, 4) you can easily feed a crowd an otherwise tedious dish!
[Tweet “Here’s how you can poach 12 eggs at once:”]
[Tweet “Did you know you could poach eggs in the oven?”]
Here’s how it’s done:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Grease a muffin tin with cooking spray (I used olive oil spray). I am assuming you’re not poaching 12 eggs, so just grease however many spots you need for each egg.
3. Add 1 tbs of water to each spot.
4. Break eggs into muffin tin.
5. Place in the oven for about 10-15 – keep an eye on them and remove depending on how soft/medium/hard you like your yolk!
6. When removing, keep in mind that there will be residual water, which can be confusing and may look like your eggs are not done. Trust me – it’s water! Take them out and test one to make sure they are done.
That’s it.
I understand this technique isn’t true to the definition of the word ‘poaching’ (poaching means you are fully submerging a food item in hot liquid to cook, usually eggs and fish) – but it gets the job done.
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Girl you are a genius!!! I love poached eggs, but i suck at poaching them and almost always fail! gonna try this the next time i want poached eggs
I hope ya love ittt!! Thanks Rachel <3
I’m totally trying this!! I’ve never been able to really properly poach an egg so I love this short cut 😉
Yay I hope you enjoy!!
“I’m a girl who likes to throw everything together in one pan, plop it into the oven and call it a day” <– MY LIFE. I'm so intimidated by doing "fancy" things with eggs…aka anything other than scrambled. I need to learn to like the taste of eggs and then I can experiment with cooking them ha.
They are just so delicate you’re right it can be intimidating !
What a great idea! I’m not very good at poaching eggs but I do like them so this definitely seems like an idea worth trying!
It is ridiculously easy I highly recommend you give it a try!!
Would you judge me if I poached 12 eggs? Because i like them that much 😛 Thanks for sharing this tip. I literally can never get the egg to poach properly with the swirling water (though I heard that vinegar in the water helps?). Can’t wait to try this!
I most certainly would not haha! Yes vinegar helps to keep the egg white attached, but it can result in a vinegar taste which I hate blegh!
Genius! My friends and I were on the biggest poached egg craze over our beach trip/college reunion and competed every morning to see who could make the prettiest eggs. They all came out ugly when we used the traditional boiling method so I’m going to remember this for next year!
Hhaha oh nooo yeah its pretty tedious to make it the old-fashioned way. I hope you win next years competition ;D
IM SO CONFUSED AT THIS EGG!!!! Things have officially changed in my life big time. hahah. its so cute i can’t get over it.
Hahaha I am so happy to have changed your life, it’s an honor
I love poached eggs! I have never made them at home though for that very reason. But these are easy and delish!
Me too – definitely my favorite way to eat eggs. I hope you enjoy them this way!!
THIS IS GENIUS! And these pictures of that yolk are perfection…I wish I could reach through the screen and eat it right now! XOXO
I loooove me some yolk porn 😀 thanks Katie!! <3
Well this is certainly amazing! And yes, you were making total sense to this like-minded individual 😉
What a genius technique!! I tried to make poached eggs over the stove once, and I ended up with watery egg drop “soup”. Must try!
I’ve never poached an egg before.. in fact I’ve never done anything with an egg before besides scramble it..I’m not very egg-savvy… buuuut this looks like something I might be able to handle!!
You are a poaching genius goddess. Also I burst out laughing at “home girl wants a poached egg” – I might make a shirt out of that
Omg….. you’re the genius! I smell an apparell line..
Oh my gosh! Girl! What a great idea! Thanks so much for sharing! I love it… and can I also say that this little sammie you’ve got here looks amazing as well! YUM!
I never knew you could do this! I can’t wait to try it. Thanks, lady.
Why have I never done this before?!! This is genius. I can’t wait to try.
I love poached eggs but they always seemed so messy. This looks like it will make it ten times easier. Thank you!!
OH MY GOSH waaaaay easier than the ‘traditional’ technique! Girlfriend, you are my hero!
Poached eggs are my favorite! I can’t wait to try this new aPrOACH (get it?) 😉
Great instructions, thanks for sharing your work.. I was searching it as I bought a new microwave; seems to be very easy, will try it soon.