If there was ever a recipe worthy of “breakfast for dinner” it would be shakshuka. This rich, saucy dish is full of smoky spices, hearty beans, and rich eggs. Make sure to buy or make some homemade crusty bread for dipping, because you’re not gong to want to waste a drop of this delicious tomato sauce!
What is Shakshuka??
Shakshuka is delicious dish cooked all across the Middle East and North Africa. It’s an incredibly simple and hearty dish consisting of eggs poached in a spiced tomato sauce. I decided to take my shakshuka in a slightly different direction by adding cannellini beans to bulk it up a bit, plus a hefty dose of smoked paprika to give it a deep, fire-roasted flavor.
How to Serve Shakshuka
Most people in the U.S. eat eggs mostly for breakfast, but this delicious dish is great for breakfast, brunch, OR dinner. You’ll want to serve the shakshuka with some crusty bread, pita, or naan to sop of the delicious sauce. No bread? No problem. Spoon the saucy mix over a bowl of grits or rice (like we do here in the south). Just don’t let one drop of that sauce go to waste, promise? K.
Smoky White Bean Shakshuka
Servings 4Ingredients
- 2 Tbsp olive oil ($0.32)
- 4 cloves garlic ($0.32)
- 1 yellow onion ($0.16)
- 1 28oz. can whole peeled tomatoes ($1.69)
- 1/2 Tbsp smoked paprika ($0.15)
- 1 tsp ground cumin ($0.10)
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano ($0.05)
- 1/8 tsp crushed red pepper ($0.02)
- Freshly cracked black pepper ($0.05)
- 1/4 tsp salt, or to taste ($0.02)
- 1 15oz. can cannellini beans ($1.19)
- 4 large eggs ($1.10)
- 1 handful fresh parsley, chopped ($0.20)
- 2 oz. feta, crumbled ($1.12)
Instructions
- Mince the garlic and finely dice the onion. Cook both in a large deep skillet with olive oil over medium heat until the onions are soft and transparent (about 5 minutes).
- Add the canned tomatoes and their juices, crushing the tomatoes with your hands as you add them to the skillet. Add the smoked paprika, cumin, oregano, red pepper flakes, and some freshly cracked pepper as well. Stir to combine.
- Allow the sauce to come to a simmer. Let the sauce simmer, stirring occasionally, for 5-7 minutes, or until it has thickened slightly. Add 1/4 tsp salt, then taste the sauce and adjust the salt or other spices to your liking.
- Drain the white beans, add them to the skillet, then stir to combine. Allow the skillet to return to a simmer. Simmer for 2-3 minutes more.
- Crack four eggs into the skillet, then place a lid on top and let them simmer for 5 minutes, or until the whites are set but the yolks are still soft. Top the skillet with the crumbled feta and chopped parsley.
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Nutrition
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How to Make Shakshuka – Step by Step Photos
Start by mincing 4 cloves garlic and finely dicing one yellow onion. If you want to, you can also dice a jalapeño and toss it in there as well. Add the garlic and onion to a large skillet along with 2 Tbsp olive oil and cook over medium heat until the onions are soft and transparent (about 5 minutes).
Add a 28oz. can of whole tomatoes (with the juices) to the skillet. Use your hands to crush the tomatoes as you add them to the skillet. Word on the street is that the best tomatoes are reserved for the “whole” canned variety, while lesser tomatoes are used for “diced” or “crushed”. I’m not sure if that’s true, I just liked the organic shapes of the hand crushed tomatoes rather than perfectly diced bits. You can use diced or crushed if that’s easier for you.
Along with the crushed tomatoes, add 1/2 Tbsp smoked paprika, 1 tsp cumin, 1/2 tsp oregano, 1/8 tsp red pepper flakes, and some freshly cracked pepper (about 10 cranks of a pepper mill). Stir to combine.
Let the sauce come to a simmer over medium heat. Let it simmer for 5-7 minutes, or until it’s slightly thicker and saucy. It starts out more watery, but you want it closer to the thickness of V8 juice (if you’re familiar with that!).
Now that the sauce has thickened, it’s time to add the salt. Stir in 1/4 tsp salt, then taste and adjust to your liking. You can also add more smoked paprika or red pepper flakes, if you like an extra punch.
Drain a 15oz. can of cannellini beans and add them to the sauce. Cannellini is the best white bean to use for this recipe because they are larger, tend to be more firm, and don’t break down as easily as navy or great northern beans. Garbanzo beans also work well in this.
Stir in the beans and let it come back up to a simmer. Let it simmer just a few more minutes…
Finally, crack four eggs into the sauce and place a lid on the skillet. Let the eggs simmer in the sauce for about 5 minutes, or until the whites are set and the yolks are still soft. The yolks will be cloaked in a white veil when they begin to cook, so you’ll have to watch the vibrations in the simmering sauce. When they’re still liquidy, they’ll shake from the popping bubbles of the simmering sauce. :)
As it simmers, the sauce will settle some, so I always take a spoon and stir the sauce around the eggs to remix the beans and tomato pieces.
Finally, top the eggs and sauce with 2oz. crumbled feta and a handful of chopped parsley. NOM.
And seriously, every beautifully golden runny yolk deserves some bread for dipping, don’t you think?
Smoky White Bean Shakshuka, it’s what’s for break… dinn… BRINNER!
This was AWESOME! My husband, a big carnivore, made this for us and loved it. It was so filling yet we both kept getting more. I think I may try adding some sliced bell peppers nice time. This will definitely become a staple in our house. Thanks!
I LOVE this recipe! My housemates tease me for eating it so often. I like to add the spices to the onion and garlic before adding the tomatoes, just to toast them a little bit. I also make a lemon-mint yogurt sauce (which I usually eat on an Afghani eggplant dish) sometimes to top it and it is AWESOME! Thanks so much!
I have about a cup of Shredded chicken that I made previously from some drumsticks Lightly seasoned. I mostly wanted the bones and skin to make some broth later on. Do you think the chicken can be added to the recipe to bulk it up even more? I was thinking about a cup of the meat.
Yes, I think that would be fantastic. :)
Incredible. Easy, tasty. Used diced tomatoes instead of whole tomatoes and it worked perfectly!
Just made it. Loved it! Hubby loved it! I always check your website for meal inspiration. I have made several of your recipes. Thank you from Denmark :-)
This was delicious. The flavor reminds me of Spanish brava sauce which is one of my favorites. It was a relatively quick recipe as well, so I recommend it for weeknight cooking. My husband and two-year-old loved it. I will definitely make it again.
Oh, yum! Hubby says a repeat is required. This is easy, fast and delicious with plenty of protein. We particularly liked the feta on top…It added a nice tang.
I’m so sad to say this really didn’t work for me :( The eggs didn’t cook properly in the sauce and by the time all four were cooked, most of them were hard poached. Maybe if you cooked the eggs separately and dumped them in? Probably won’t make this one again :(
great recipe! Made it as written except added some balsamic vinegar at the end. Next time I would add a jalapeño to make it spicier.
My favorite recipe so far. Lots of flavor, not much work.
I’ve been making this for months now and serving it with rice – it’s so good! And really versatile. Sometimes I use chickpeas, sometimes white beans, once I did black beans – and depending on the spices I can take it Middle Eastern, Indian, Italian, Mexican…. yummm. I’ve also learned to cheat by using salsa mixed with a can of tomato sauce as the base. That lets me skip the garlic and onion sauteeing.
Made this last night. I had never heard of Shakshuka before, but I Looked at the ingredientes and preparation, and it seemed easy enough. It was! I was impressed at the tastiness of the sauce with just a bit of paprika. I was worried the kids might say it was too hot but only the youngest (4) moaned a bit (not much, really). I did a lot more than the recipe (there’s five of us a t home) and there were no leftovers. Next time I’ll make some rice to make ir g o a bit longer – I like my dinners to stetch to the next lunch whenever possible.
This is my second BudgetByte recipe in two weeks, I love them all and I think I’m yout fan! The next one will be the cabbage pancakes.
Really good. Added a jalapeno and substituted tomato sauce + 1 fresh chopped tomato. Gave it a thicker, saucier feel. Served with warm pita, buttered on the inside. Yum!!
I love beans and rice and middle Eastern type food in general, but I was not a fan of this recipe and actually ended up throwing away more than half of it. To be fair, I’m really cautious with food safety and don’t eat eggs undercooked – runny eggs also don’t appeal to me – so I did alter that part of the recipe and cook them til fully done.
I don’t like the taste of undercooked canned tomatoes, so I also let it simmer much longer than the recipe said. By the end, I still tasted acidic, undercooked-tasting canned tomatoes, compared to the smooth-tasting tomato base I normally make out of tomato paste when I cook beans.
I added a LOT or extra spice and it was still really bland to me, and I wasn’t really into the feta either.
Maybe I just don’t know how to poach eggs or my pan was too shallow, but the eggs ended up getting spread out into the whole thing with little bits of egg throughout the sauce. I didn’t think this helped.
Overall, I really disliked this and ended up throwing most of it away, although I hate wasting food.
why would you attempt to cook a meal that called for “poached” eggs if you don’t like runny eggs???
I had a craving this morning for eggs and tomato so I made this. It was very yummy! I did make a small change… a splash of soy and 1/2 tsp sugar to balance out the tomato.
Served it with 2 bratwurst and it was divine! Thanks for the recipe. :)