Warm Bulgur and Kale Breakfast Bowl with Chickpeas and Tahini
Fine bulgur steamed under a lid while kale and chickpeas crisp in a garlicky skillet, built into warm bowls with lemon tahini, toasted sesame, and a halved egg.
Why You'll Love This Recipe
I want a bowl rather than a plate here: something warm that holds together and takes one pan and a kettle. Bulgur is the reason it is quick: it is cracked wheat that has already been parboiled, so it needs nothing but boiling water and a lid for ten minutes while the rest of the cooking happens beside it. I keep a bag of the fine grind in the cupboard for exactly this. The whole thing lands in about twenty five minutes, most of which is the kale getting properly dark in the skillet.
What makes it worth eating is the contrast. Bulgur underneath is soft and a little nutty, the kale on top is crisped at the edges the way a good chip is, and the chickpeas are browned outside and floury inside. Lemon tahini pulls it together, thinned with cold water until it pours in a ribbon rather than sitting in a lump. The egg is cooked until the yolk is just set through, so it is still deep gold and creamy when you cut it, and it makes the bowl feel like breakfast rather than a salad you are eating early.
I put this in the rotation on weeks when mornings are crowded, because every part of it can be made ahead and it goes together in the time the kettle takes. Cooked bulgur keeps for days, the tahini sauce keeps for a week, and eggs cooked on Sunday get used all week long. On a slower morning I cook it properly from the start and eat it out of the skillet with the sauce spooned straight over. Either way it eats like a real meal and holds through a long stretch of the morning.
Ingredients
- 1 cup fine or medium bulgur (makes about 3 cups cooked)
- 1 large bunch lacinato kale (about 10 oz), stems stripped out and leaves torn into wide pieces
- 1 (15 oz) can chickpeas, drained, rinsed, and patted dry
- 4 large eggs
- 1/4 cup tahini, well stirred
- 3 tbsp sesame seeds
- 2 1/2 tbsp lemon juice, from 1 large lemon
- 4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
- 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 4 scallions, thinly sliced
- 1/2 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
- 1/8 tsp cayenne
- 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
Instructions
- Start the bulgur and the eggs: Put the bulgur in a heatproof bowl with a pinch of the salt and pour over 1 3/4 cups boiling water. Cover tightly and leave it alone for ten to twelve minutes, then fluff it with a fork. At the same time, lower the eggs into a small pan of gently boiling water and cook them for nine minutes, which is long enough to set the yolk through while keeping it deep gold and creamy. Move them to cold water, then peel and halve them.
- Crisp the chickpeas: Set a large skillet over medium-high heat with the olive oil. Add the chickpeas in one layer with the cumin and cayenne and leave them still for three minutes, until they take on color underneath, because a chickpea that gets shuffled around the pan only steams and stays soft. Shake the pan and cook two minutes more, until several of them have split and the skins have gone papery.
- Add the garlic and kale: Push the chickpeas to the edge, drop the sliced garlic into the middle of the pan, and stir it for thirty seconds until it is pale gold and fragrant. Add the kale in two handfuls with the rest of the salt, tossing after each. Cook for four to five minutes, pressing the leaves against the hot metal now and then, until the thin tips are dark and crackling and the thicker parts have gone silky.
- Make the lemon tahini: Whisk the tahini with the lemon juice in a small bowl. It will seize and go stiff, which is what it is supposed to do. Add cold water a tablespoon at a time, whisking, until it loosens into a pourable sauce about the thickness of heavy cream, usually three to four tablespoons in total.
- Toast the sesame and build the bowls: Toast the sesame seeds in a small dry pan over medium heat for two minutes, shaking constantly, until they smell nutty and a few begin to jump. Divide the bulgur among four bowls, pile the kale and chickpeas over it, and set two egg halves on each. Pour the tahini over the top and finish with the sesame, scallions, and parsley.
Variations
- With crisped tofu: Add eight ounces of pressed firm tofu, torn into pieces and browned with the chickpeas, for a bowl that skips the egg entirely.
- Tomato and sumac: Scatter halved cherry tomatoes over the finished bowl and add a squeeze more lemon, which pushes the whole thing tart and summery.
- Quinoa base: Swap the bulgur for three cups of cooked quinoa, which gives a lighter, looser bowl and suits anyone keeping wheat out.
- Extra heat: Stir a spoonful of chile paste into the tahini sauce so the heat runs through every bite rather than sitting on top.
Storage & Leftovers
The parts keep better than the built bowl, so store them separately. Cooked bulgur holds five days in a sealed container, the kale and chickpeas four, and the tahini sauce a week in a jar, where it will thicken in the cold and loosen again with a spoonful of water and a stir.
Reheat the kale and chickpeas in a dry skillet over medium-high for two or three minutes so the leaves crisp up again. The bulgur is best warmed with a tablespoon of water under a lid, which steams it back to fluffy. Assembled bowls go soft in the refrigerator overnight, though they still eat well cold with extra lemon.
Cooked bulgur freezes for three months in flat portions and thaws in the refrigerator overnight. Do not freeze the eggs or the sauce. Both take minutes to make fresh, and neither one comes back from the freezer in a state anybody wants to eat.
Notes & Tips
- Dry the chickpeas properly: Straight from the can they are wet, and wet chickpeas steam into softness. Roll them in a towel first and they will brown and split in five minutes flat.
- Give the kale a still, hot pan: Stirring constantly is what keeps kale from crisping. Press it down, leave it, and let the leaves touching metal go dark before you toss.
- Nine minutes is the number for the eggs: That is the point where the yolk sets through and stays creamy and deep gold. A minute or two longer and it turns chalky with a gray ring.
- Stir the tahini jar first: Tahini separates in storage and the oil sits on top. Scooping from an unstirred jar gives you either pure oil or dry paste, and neither one makes a sauce.
- Toast sesame seeds in a cold pan: Start them in the pan before the heat comes on and shake constantly. They go from pale to nutty to burnt in about fifteen seconds at the end.
Nutrition & Mindful Eating
- Bulgur, chickpeas, kale, and tahini are doing four different jobs in one bowl. The bulgur gives it body and whole-grain fiber, the chickpeas add protein and their floury texture, the kale brings color and crunch, and the tahini carries the fat that makes all of it taste rich.
- Kale cooked hard and fast in a little oil keeps its color and its bite, and it is one of the leafy greens whose calcium your body absorbs readily. The crisped edges taste toasted rather than bitter, which is the whole argument for cooking it this way.
- Tahini is ground sesame and nothing else, which is why a quarter cup carries so much calcium along with its bitter, nutty richness. Whisked with lemon it turns pale and pourable, and it coats every grain of bulgur in the bowl.
- The egg is what makes this eat like breakfast. Cooked until the yolk is just set, it stays creamy enough to fold into the grain, and it brings choline and vitamin B12 along with protein that holds you well past the middle of the morning.
- Sesame seeds and sliced scallion go on at the very end for the noise and the sharpness. That toasted, nutty smell coming off a hot dry pan is one of the most reliable pleasures in cooking, and the seeds carry iron along with it.
- As you eat, look for the contrast between the papery kale tips and the soft grain underneath, and let the first few spoonfuls go slowly enough that you actually taste the sesame and the lemon.
Frequently Asked Questions
What kind of bulgur should I buy?
Fine or medium grind, which only needs soaking in boiling water. Coarse bulgur is a different product and wants fifteen to twenty minutes of simmering, so if that is what is in your cupboard, start it before anything else and give it a proper pan of water.
My tahini sauce turned into cement. Did I ruin it?
No, that is the normal reaction to acid and it happens to everybody. Keep whisking and add cold water very slowly, a tablespoon at a time. It goes from stiff paste to seized clump to smooth pourable sauce, and cold water loosens it faster than warm.
Can I use a different green?
Collard greens work well and want two extra minutes, and mustard greens bring a peppery bite that suits the sesame. Chard is a poorer choice here since it carries too much water to crisp, and you end up with something closer to a braise.
How do I make this ahead for weekday mornings?
Cook the bulgur and the eggs on Sunday and keep them in the refrigerator. On the morning, the skillet part takes eight minutes and the sauce takes two, so a full bowl comes together in about ten minutes without much thought.