The 1-Ingredient Upgrade for Better Fried Eggs

You know those comical white chef hats that perch perilously high and have a ton of pleats all the way around? It’s called a toque blanche in French and I own one! It only cost me a ton of culinary school student loans.

All jokes aside, when I received this funny-looking hat for completing the program, I learned that the pleats in the hat represent the 100 ways a trained chef should know how to cook an egg. I don’t know 100 ways to cook an egg, but if there is a method out there, I’ve probably tried it.

. They are quick, affordable, full of protein, and according to my fancy chef’s hat, can be cooked 100 different ways. If I had to pick, fried eggs are my favorite. They take only minutes and don’t require an ice bath, peeling, or really any precision to make. I fry them in olive oil so the edges get crispy, lacy bits while the yolk stays creamy and soft.

I eat eggs this way at least five times per week for lunch, and if I’m being truly transparent, I have them for dinner some nights too.

Cookbook author and New York Times columnist Melissa Clark, one of my cooking heroes, shares this sentiment. In her book, , Clark dedicates an entire chapter on how to serve eggs for dinner, each recipe looking tastier than the next. One genius fried egg upgrade I picked up from this book is to add fresh herbs to the frying pan.

How I Make Fried Eggs With Fresh Herbs

Once the oil is hot, add a sprinkle of fresh herbs, then crack the egg right on top. Not only do the herbs infuse the oil with flavor, but they also get impossibly crisp, adding a really lovely textural contrast to the luscious egg yolk.

Clark calls for fresh sage leaves in her recipe, which I love in the winter months. My go-to, however, is parsley—it adds a super fresh, verdant flavor to the eggs, and the crispy bits that form when the leaves hit the hot oil are incredibly tasty.

This upgrade works best with tender herbs like sage, cilantro, basil, parsley, tarragon, mint, or dill. You could use the same principle with harder herbs like thyme, rosemary, or oregano by throwing a whole sprig into the oil to infuse the egg with flavor, just discard the herbs before serving. They’re too tough to chew.

Hopefully, this instant upgrade to fried eggs will save you the trouble of learning to cook eggs 99 other ways. It’s so tasty you may never want to try it any other way!