Menemen is a traditional Turkish egg scramble that reminds me greatly of the Shakshuka recipe I made a few years ago. However, your spices can make it taste like a completely different dish. And, when I had made the Shakshuka, I think I tried keeping the eggs intact to make them look even nicer. This has its benefits if you’re trying to keep it aesthetically pleasing when serving.

With this Meneman inspired by Gimme Some Oven, it’s recommended to slightly stir the eggs into the tomatoes more. By doing so, this recipes ends up reminding me more of a Texan omelette or frittata. It still has the pretty end result that shakshuka does so stirring it really depends on your preference. Next time, I would replace the salt with add chopped ham or bacon but it’s a great recipe without any meat at all!

Menemen

Ingredients

1 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 Small White Onion, finely diced
3–4 Eggs
1 Large Green Bell Pepper, diced
15oz can Diced Tomatoes, with the liquid
1 Tbsp Butter
1 tsp Aleppo Pepper
Fine sea salt and black pepper, generous amount (less if also using crumbled feta)
Optional garnishes: Chives or Chopped Parsley, Crumbled Feta, Sliced Avocado

Instructions

Heat oil in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Stirring occasionally, add onion and peppers; sauté for 5 minutes, until softened.

Reduce heat to medium. Add the tomatoes, butter, Aleppo pepper, salt and black pepper. Stir until evenly combined, then sauté for 2 more minutes, until the tomatoes are nice and hot.

Crack the eggs on top of the tomato mixture and et them cook for about a minute. Use a spoon to break the yolks and briefly stir the eggs into the tomato mixture. This can be a tiny “swish” to the top of each yolk- it shouldn’t be overdone. Continue cooking until the eggs are to your liking. It should be about 3-4 minutes total but if you don’t like eggs being too runny then you can cook them for longer.

Serve immediately with your desired garnishes along with some crusty sliced bread for dipping. We had run out of crusty bread so we simply toasted all grain sliced bread and it worked well enough. There’s no need to make it “fancy” unless you want to!

Enjoy!

Related:

The Best Frittata Recipe
Salmon Kedgeree Recipe
Herb and Zucchini Egg Bites Recipe