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!
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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
Have you tried this recipe?Mention @budgetbytes or tag #budgetbytes on Instagram!Scroll down for the step by step photos!
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!
Tried this one this weekend, ended up delicious and filling! I’ve tried a couple different shakshukas before and I think this one might be my favorite. I’ve had issues in the past of them being a little salty for my taste. I think the whole tomatoes really made the difference here, although perhaps the sodium content was just lower in the brand I got (Wegmans store brand). Also really enjoyed the beans for a protein boost! Great all around fresh and delicious meal.
Yummy!!
Been following you for quite a few years and this is still one of my favourite recipes! Please never archive ;) I’ve since added my own flair to this. I add a bell pepper with the onions and add spinach with the beans. I also like to double the herbs and spices. By far the yummiest shakshuka recipe I’ve tried. Love your recipes!!
I have passed this over for a while but gave it a go today— and it was delicious! I used 5 fresh tomatoes and one 14 oz can fire roasted, and I put cut up boiled eggs on my family’s servings and a poached egg on mine rather than cooking the eggs in the sauce— I’m the only one who likes runny eggs. Delicious! And so easy! I have a couple lunches left for me, and I’ll definitely make this again.
Quick to come together. I prepared the dish exactly as stated, increasing the cumin and salt slightly. Another great recipe!
This recipe is awesome – all your recipes are! Ever since Trader Joe’s discontinued theirs I have been looking for a replacement. I added some green lentils and subbed feta for goat cheese and parsley for cilantro 👌🏼
I was afraid that was the case with TJs version. I’ll have to try this one!
Very easy, perfectly spiced. My husband and I both loved it. Saved to the regular list!
This is one of my all-time favorite Budget Bytes recipes. My partner and I have made this dozens of times – it’s quick, filling, nutritious, with wonderfully complex flavors, and is just the thing for when I come home from work tired and hangry. If we have some not-too-delicate veggies, such as a zucchini, we’ll toss that in along with the onion to bulk it out a little further, and we’ll often use five eggs instead of four – there’s plenty of beans & tomatoes to go around.
I have made shakshuka before but adding the beans were a great choice. I also loved the spices you suggested. Being a quick, complete meal, this will be in our rotation for a while.
So satisfying for a cold day. This kind of dish is right up my alley, but my partner was skeptical. He rated the recipe 2/10, but once I actually made it, he went back for seconds and told me it was a 12/10!
I love the addition of beans to make it more hearty and nutritious. It nicely offsets the acidity of the tomatoes as well. I didn’t even end up eating it with bread, since it was so good on its own.
Haha! I’m so glad he tried it despite his skepticism! :)
Great recipe! I added a little sugar to balance the acid. I also substituted in chipotle powder for the red pepper. Everyone loved it! The balance of spices and flavors was just right and really hit the spot on a cold winter day.
This was really good, I used zucchini instead of beans and added a little sugar and vegetable stock powder to mellow the acidity of the tomatoes, I served over roasted potatoes.:)
This was so good and so easy to make, thank you for sharing!!! When my husband and I made this, we added half a bell pepper because it was hanging out in our fridge waiting for a purpose and used black eyed peas instead of cannellini (we use dry beans because they’re cheaper and black eyed peas were the beans I batch-prepped this week). I personally dislike poached eggs so I put my egg in earlier so the yolk would harden. We served it on brown rice with a bit of pita bread. It was delicious and it took a LOT of willpower to not eat the whole batch. It’s being added to our list of go-to recipes!
Satisfying and very quick meal. Really wouldn’t recommend if you don’t have the eggs, the bread, or the cheese, as they really mellow out and blend the flavour away from its base “dilute tomato acidity” (though maybe I should just have let it simmer longer) – they add the “rich, satsifying” descriptors to this meal. Not something I’d prepare for company, but it will definitely become a weekday go-to when I want something good, warming, and fast!
This is one of my favorite recipes from this site, and I make it fairly often. I can’t eat onions or garlic, but I can tolerate shallot and scallions better, so I often sub those in depending on what I have on hand. Today I made it for my boyfriend who can’t eat eggs, so I swapped the eggs and white beans out for two cans of garbanzo beans. It paired nicely with bread and was a big hit! I’ll keep making it with eggs for me, but it’s nice to know this variations works.