Menemen-Style Eggs with Green Peppers, Chickpeas, and Cold Yogurt
Mild green peppers and cherry tomatoes cooked down in olive oil with chickpeas, eggs stirred through until softly set, and a cold spoonful of strained yogurt at the table.
Why You'll Love This Recipe
Menemen is the breakfast half of Turkey eats and the reason is that it costs almost nothing and tastes like a great deal. Peppers, tomatoes, eggs, olive oil. I have added chickpeas, which is not the classic version but is how I want to eat it on a morning when the plate has to carry me a long way, and they suit the dish because they take on the tomato without turning to mush. What stays the same is the order and the patience: the peppers get their time alone, the tomatoes get theirs, and the eggs go in last and quickly.
The pan does two different jobs here. First it is a hot, fairly dry pan that softens the peppers and drives the water out of the tomatoes until they collapse into something jammy and concentrated. Then, once the eggs go in, it becomes a gentle pan, and the heat comes down. Eggs stirred slowly over low heat set in soft curds and stay tender; eggs left over high heat tighten into something squeaky in about forty seconds. That switch is the only real technique in the recipe, and it is worth watching the burner for. If you have a heavy cast iron skillet, remember that it keeps radiating heat for a minute after you turn the flame down, so give it that minute before the eggs go anywhere near it.
Cold yogurt on the side is not optional as far as I am concerned. Menemen is sweet from the tomato and rich from the eggs and oil, and a tart, cool spoonful of strained yogurt resets your mouth between bites so that the tenth is as good as the first. The herbs do the same job from the other direction, and there is a lot of dill in this because dill and tomato belong together. Keep the yogurt in its own dish rather than stirring it in, so you control how much lands on each forkful. I make this on Saturdays with everyone standing around the pan, and on Tuesdays for supper, which is a perfectly ordinary thing to do with it in Turkey.
Ingredients
- 8 large eggs, beaten with a fork
- 12 oz cherry tomatoes, halved
- 3 mild green peppers (poblano or Anaheim, about 8 oz), seeded and cut into thin strips
- 1 1/3 cups canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 1 1/4 cups plain strained nonfat yogurt, Greek style
- 1/2 medium onion, cut into small dice
- 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, plus 1 tsp for the yogurt
- 1/2 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
- 1/3 cup chopped fresh dill
- 1 tsp sweet paprika
- 1/2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
- 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
Instructions
- Get everything cut before the pan is hot: Menemen moves quickly once it starts. Cut the pepper strips, halve the tomatoes, dice the onion, drain and rinse the chickpeas, beat the eggs, and chop the herbs. Stir the yogurt with the extra teaspoon of olive oil and a pinch of the salt, and leave it out on the counter so it is cool rather than cold.
- Soften the peppers and onion: Warm the 2 tbsp olive oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium heat. Add the pepper strips and onion with the salt and cook for eight to ten minutes, stirring occasionally. You are looking for peppers that have gone floppy and sweet with a few blistered spots, not browned all over.
- Collapse the tomatoes: Add the halved tomatoes and the paprika and raise the heat slightly. Cook for six to eight minutes, pressing the tomatoes against the pan with a spoon as they soften. They are ready when the skins have slipped, the liquid has cooked down, and the whole pan looks jammy rather than soupy.
- Warm the chickpeas through: Stir in the chickpeas and the black pepper and cook two minutes, pressing a few of them lightly so they take on the tomato. Taste the pan now, before the eggs go in, since it is the last easy moment to adjust the salt.
- Stir in the eggs over low heat: Turn the heat to low and wait thirty seconds for the pan to settle, then pour in the beaten eggs. Stir slowly with a wooden spoon, lifting from the bottom, for three to four minutes. Keep going until the eggs are set in soft curds with no glossy liquid left anywhere in the pan.
- Herbs and yogurt: Take the pan off the heat and scatter the parsley and dill over the top. Spoon the menemen straight from the skillet onto four plates and put a quarter cup of the yogurt beside each one so the two never quite mix until you want them to.
Variations
- White beans in place of chickpeas: Cannellini beans go creamier and blend further into the tomato, giving you a softer, more velvety pan.
- With a little heat: Add half a teaspoon of red pepper flakes with the paprika, which is closer to how menemen is eaten along the Aegean coast.
- Feta finish: Crumble a small handful of feta over the eggs off the heat and let it soften in the residual warmth.
- Green and herby: Stir a few large handfuls of spinach into the tomatoes before the eggs go in for a darker, greener skillet.
- Mint instead of dill: Chopped mint over the top pushes the whole pan toward the sweeter, cooler side and pairs especially well with the yogurt.
Storage & Leftovers
Menemen is best within a few minutes of leaving the pan, so cook what you will eat. If you do have some left, it keeps two days in a sealed container in the refrigerator and the flavor holds up better than the texture, which loosens as it sits.
Reheat leftovers gently in a skillet over low heat with a teaspoon of water, stirring, for two minutes. High heat or a microwave will squeeze the water out of the eggs and leave a puddle in the dish. Fresh herbs stirred in at the end bring it most of the way back.
The pepper and tomato base freezes well on its own for up to three months, which is the smarter thing to make ahead. Freeze it flat in a sealed bag before the eggs go in, thaw overnight, warm it in the skillet, and you are five minutes from breakfast.
Notes & Tips
- Give the peppers the first ten minutes alone: Peppers added with the tomatoes stay crunchy and taste like a salad in the middle of soft eggs. Their time in dry heat is what turns them sweet.
- Cook the tomatoes further than looks necessary: The pan should look jammy before the eggs go in. Every spoonful of liquid left behind ends up as water under the finished eggs.
- Low heat for the eggs, always: Turn the burner down and give the pan half a minute to come off the boil before you pour. Cast iron in particular holds enough heat to overcook eggs after the flame is lowered.
- Beat the eggs lightly: Twenty seconds with a fork, just until the yolks and whites are streaky rather than uniform. Overbeaten eggs set tight and lose the soft folds this dish is known for.
- Rinse the chickpeas well: A minute under cold running water takes off the starchy canning liquid, which otherwise dulls the tomato and leaves a slightly tinny taste in the pan.
- Serve it in the skillet: It cools fast on a plate. Bringing the pan to the table and spooning from it keeps the last serving as warm as the first.
Nutrition & Mindful Eating
- Eggs, chickpeas, and yogurt are the three things that turn a pan of vegetables into a breakfast. The eggs carry the richness and most of the protein, the chickpeas bring fiber and something to chew, and the yogurt adds tang along with calcium and more protein still.
- Cherry tomatoes cooked down until jammy taste sweeter and deeper than they do whole, and cooking is also what makes their lycopene easier for the body to take up. The olive oil in the pan helps with that too, which is a happy accident of how this dish has always been made.
- Green peppers given ten minutes to themselves lose their grassy edge and turn silky and sweet. They hold a surprising amount of vitamin C for something this humble, and the strips give the skillet a texture that keeps it from being uniformly soft.
- Chickpeas stay whole in the tomato and give the pan its weight. Their fiber is largely the slow-fermenting kind that gut bacteria are fond of, and rinsing them well before they go in is what keeps their flavor clean.
- Dill and parsley go on after the pan leaves the heat, so they stay green and sharp against all that softness. Both bring a bright, almost peppery lift, and dill in particular is what makes this taste specifically Turkish rather than generally Mediterranean.
- As you eat, alternate a forkful of the hot skillet with a little of the cool yogurt and notice how the tomato tastes different each time, and let that back-and-forth set the pace of the meal.
Frequently Asked Questions
What kind of peppers should I use?
Long, thin-walled, mild green peppers are what this is made with in Turkey, sold as sivri biber. Poblano and Anaheim are the easiest stand-ins in an American store and behave the same way in the pan. Bell peppers work too, though they are sweeter and hold more water, so give them a couple of extra minutes.
My eggs went watery and separated. What happened?
The heat was too high when they went in. Eggs cooked fast squeeze out their water and it pools at the edges of the pan. Drop the burner to low, wait half a minute before pouring, and stir slowly. Cooking down the tomatoes properly first also matters, since a soupy base has nowhere to put its liquid.
Can I make this without the chickpeas?
You can, and then you have a classic menemen. The pan will be softer and lighter and you will probably want bread with it. The chickpeas are there to make the skillet a whole breakfast on its own, so if you take them out, plan on something alongside.
Does the yogurt have to be strained?
Strained yogurt is thick enough to sit in a spoonful next to hot eggs without running across the plate, which is the point. Regular plain yogurt tastes right but will loosen the moment it touches the pan. If that is what you have, drain it in a sieve lined with a coffee filter for an hour.