Make-Ahead Spinach, Feta and Egg Cups

You’ve surely heard the valuable information that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Which is why it’s a bummer that it seems breakfast is also the most difficult meal to fit into your schedule, especially on busy mornings during the week. When you’re trying to leave the house for work and beat traffic, and help everyone else in your family do the same, you’re lucky if you have time to finish a cup of coffee, much less eat a healthy, balanced meal. Before you know it, it’s halfway to lunch time and you’re starving, struggling to focus and sluggish. As you may have read, skipping breakfast is never a good thing – after all, it’s named breaking your fast for a reason! When you wake up, your body hasn’t had any fuel for at least eight hours, which is why breakfast is so important. You don’t need to eat a full brunch every day, but making time for a quick breakfast will benefit you for the rest of the day, no matter what your day ahead looks like. It helps keep your energy levels and blood sugar stable, to help keep you focused and energetic, instead of famished and sluggish.

If you’ve gone years thinking that you don’t have time to eat breakfast, you’re not alone. But what many other people don’t realize is that they have the time to eat breakfast – just not the time to make food for breakfast. You can always nibble on something in the car or when you’re settling down at your desk – you just can’t bring a toaster with you! That’s why we’re sharing this delicious recipe for make-ahead breakfast egg muffins. If you don’t even have time for things like toast or cottage cheese, you probably don’t have time to chop up veggies and scramble eggs every day, and you definitely don’t have time to cook them sunny-side up! That’s where the beauty of this egg muffin recipe comes in. In just a few simple steps, you can make a full batch of these spinach egg muffins in advance, then enjoy them all week long. And if you still think you don’t have time for breakfast? These breakfast egg muffins heat up in seconds, and offer vegetables, fresh herbs and healthy fats from the egg mixture. Who needs sunny-side up eggs when you’ve got all that? You can even pack them and heat them up at the office – everyone will be jealous of your mini frittatas, and eager for you to share the recipe.

While these spinach egg muffins do take a bit of weekend prep, we promise it’s only five steps. Plus, they’re low carb, super simple and totally customizable, too! If you really want to pack in the protein, you can use egg whites instead of whole eggs. (About ¼ of egg whites, or two egg whites, equals one whole egg.) If you want that extra protein delivered in a more savory fashion, trying adding meat like bacon bits, sausage or ham. We love spinach because it’s chock-full of iron, but if you’re low on spinach or want to try a different vegetable, it’s easy to turn these spinach egg muffins into tomato egg muffins, red pepper egg muffins, mushroom egg muffins and more! You can mix up whatever veggies are in your refrigerator and experiment to see which you like best in these egg muffin cups. We think that onion would be an excellent addition, but if you don’t have it on hand, you can use onion powder. (Tip: onion powder is three times stronger than onion, so use it sparingly!) And lastly, there’s the cheese: we know feta isn’t everyone’s favorite, so if feta egg muffins don’t sound good to you, feel free to sub in cheddar or another favorite cheese blend (just not cottage cheese, of course). Cheese helps add structure and flavor to this great recipe, so we recommend keeping it in for the best results, even if you’re trying to watch calories. Herbs are another great way to add flavor: this recipe calls for chives, but you could swap in basil or parsley. Think of this recipe as a guideline for the veggies, spices and herbs you have access to.

While there are plenty of ways to change this spinach egg muffin recipe to your liking, we hope you love it! These egg muffin cups will keep in the refrigerator for about a week, or in the freezer for two months to three months. To store, we recommend packaging them in an airtight plastic container or zip-top bag. Time-saving tip: You can even make a double batch and store half in the freezer, and thank yourself next weekend! And while they’re called muffins, make sure you don’t store them at room temperature. To reheat your egg bites, pop them in the microwave or toaster oven for 30-60 seconds, depending on your microwave or toaster oven’s power and how hot you want them. The egg bites will heat up more slowly in a toaster oven. 

If you’d like to make snack-sized egg bites, you can use a mini muffin pan, and follow the same recipe. Note that this recipe will make 16-24 miniature egg muffin cups, depending on how you divide the egg mixture, so make sure you’re using a 24 cup muffin tin! If you have an Instant Pot, you can even try to make these egg bites with an egg bite tray. Egg bite trays are a great Instant Pot tool, especially for making easy, tasty egg muffins. Simply pour the egg mixture into the egg bite tray, place the egg bite tray in your Instant Pot, and cook for about ten minutes. If you want to get really fancy, you can fill your Instant Pot with water and try to make copycat sous vide egg bites – more on that method and how much water to use here. And lastly, this would be a great recipe to make a tasty omelette, if you wanted to heat it up in a skillet – just know that a skillet would reduce its convenient grab-and-go ability for breakfast. Unless you’re really hungry of course!

Now that we’ve given you plenty of options for making these spinach egg muffins your own, let’s check out this great recipe! You can read the steps below. Try them today!