My Menu Mentor · mymenumentor.com/recipes/cottage-cheese-egg-bites-spinach
Back to the indexHigh Protein
Cottage Cheese Egg Bites with Spinach
Blended cottage cheese and a water bath give these the custardy texture the coffee shop versions have.
- Prep
- 15 minutes
- Cook
- 30 minutes
- Total
- 45 minutes
- Yield
- 12 bites (4 to 6 servings)
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Egg bites made by pouring beaten egg into a muffin tin come out spongy, domed and slightly rubbery, then collapse into a crater as they cool. Two things cause it: not enough fat and dairy to interrupt the egg proteins, and dry oven heat that drives the outside to set long before the middle. The texture people actually want from these is custard, and custard has rules.
Blending the eggs with cottage cheese solves the first problem — the curds disappear completely and what they leave behind is fat and moisture distributed through every bite, which keeps the set tender. The water bath solves the second. Sitting the tin in an inch of hot water holds the surrounding temperature near boiling instead of oven-hot, so the bites cook gently and evenly and rise without doming. It takes two extra minutes to set up and it is the entire difference.
The spinach has to be squeezed genuinely dry, which is the step most often skipped; frozen spinach holds a startling amount of water and it will pool in the bottom of each cup. Twelve bites at about a hundred calories and nine grams of protein each keep five days refrigerated and three months frozen, and they reheat in a microwave in thirty seconds. They are as useful as a snack as they are as breakfast.
What you need
Ingredients
Measurements
Metric converts only measures that are mathematically safe. Density-dependent cups stay as Nicole wrote them.
Scale the batch
12 bites (4 to 6 servings)
- Butter or oil, for the tin
- 10 large eggs
- 1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) full-fat cottage cheese
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
- 10 ounces frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed very dry
- 1/2 cup finely diced roasted red pepper, patted dry
- 3/4 cup grated Gruyère or sharp cheddar
- 2 tablespoons finely sliced chives
How it goes
Method
Read the whole thing once before you start. Nothing here is difficult, but the timing is unforgiving at the end.
Squeeze the spinach until it stops giving water
Wrap the thawed spinach in a clean towel and wring it hard over the sink. Keep going until almost nothing comes out — you should end up with a dense ball roughly the size of a tennis ball. Any water left behind will pool in the bottom of the cups and make the bites weep.
Set up the water bath first
Preheat the oven to 325°F (165°C) and put a kettle on. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin generously, including the top surface, and set it inside a larger roasting pan. Preparing this before the batter is mixed means the eggs go in as soon as they are blended.
Blend until the curds vanish
Blend the eggs, cottage cheese, salt, pepper and nutmeg on high for 45 to 60 seconds, until completely smooth and slightly frothy with no visible curds. Whisking by hand leaves lumps of cottage cheese that read as grainy; blending is what makes the texture custardy.
Distribute the solids, then pour
Divide the squeezed spinach, red pepper, cheese and chives among the muffin cups, then pour the blended egg over to fill each about four-fifths full. Solids first means every bite is evenly loaded rather than everything sinking to one side.
Pour hot water around the tin
Slide the roasting pan into the oven, then carefully pour boiling water into the outer pan to come about an inch up the sides of the muffin tin. The water holds the temperature near boiling, so the bites set gently instead of puffing and cratering.
Bake until just set, then rest
Bake 28 to 33 minutes, until the centers are set with only the faintest wobble and the tops are barely golden. They continue to firm as they cool. Rest 10 minutes in the tin, then run a thin knife around each and lift them out.
On the bench
Equipment
3 of these change the result. The rest are conveniences, with a workaround given. Nothing here is a brand recommendation — the spec is what matters.
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Standard 12-cup muffin tin
The cup size sets the cooking time. Jumbo or mini tins will not follow the timings here.
- What matters
- Standard 12-cup tin, roughly 1/3 cup per well. Light-colored metal browns the edges less than dark nonstick.
- Search for
- “12 cup muffin tin standard” (paid link)
Blender
The whole texture depends on cottage cheese curds being broken down completely. A whisk cannot do this, and the bites come out grainy.
- What matters
- Any countertop blender. Blend a full 45 to 60 seconds even if it looks smooth sooner.
- Search for
- “countertop blender 48 oz” (paid link)
Roasting pan or deep baking dish
It holds the water bath. It only needs to be large enough that the muffin tin sits inside it with a little clearance.
- What matters
- Large enough to hold the muffin tin with an inch of water around it, and at least 2 inches deep.
- Search for
- “large roasting pan deep” (paid link)
Silicone muffin liners
OptionalEgg sticks tenaciously. Silicone liners make release reliable and the bites come out with clean sides.
- What matters
- Standard-size reusable silicone cups.
- If you skip it
- Grease the tin very thoroughly, including the top rim, and run a thin knife around each bite after a 10-minute rest.
The list
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Cook's notes
What we would tell a friend
- Full-fat cottage cheese, 4 percent, gives the custardy result. Nonfat versions have too little fat to interrupt the egg proteins and bake up noticeably rubbery.
- The mistake to avoid is under-squeezing the spinach. Ten ounces of thawed spinach can hold most of a cup of water, and it all ends up in the bottom of the cups.
- Fresh spinach works: wilt 1 pound in a dry pan, cool it, then squeeze it as you would the frozen.
- Swap in cooked crumbled bacon, sautéed mushrooms or roasted broccoli, keeping the total volume of add-ins to about 2 cups so the egg still binds them.
From the kitchen
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