Baked Scotch eggs combine two of my favorite keto protein foods – meatballs and hard boiled eggs. They are easy to make, portable and delicious!
These baked Scotch eggs make a fun, tasty meal or snack. They’re great for dinner, lunch, or breakfast, and can be enjoyed warm, at room temperature or straight out of the fridge.
What are Scotch eggs?
The traditional Scotch egg is a hard or soft-boiled egg wrapped in sausage meat, coated in bread crumbs and baked or deep-fried. So as you can see, the traditional recipe is not very healthy. In my version, I bake the Scotch eggs, and I skip the breading.
Can Scotch eggs be cooked in the oven?
Absolutely! While deep frying is no doubt delicious, it’s unhealthy, and it’s also something that I hate to do with passion. Baking is so much easier than deep frying, and baked Scotch eggs are absolutely delicious, so I don’t think you will miss the deep frying at all.
How to serve them?
They’re usually considered a snack rather than part of a full meal. And needless to say, unbreaded baked Scotch eggs are the perfect keto and paleo party or game day food! I also like them for my lunch the day after I make them, with salad and quick pickles. And sometimes I do serve them for dinner, warm, with a salad.
How to make healthier Scotch eggs
It’s easy to make a healthier version of the traditional deep fried recipe. Here’s what I do:
1. I bake them instead of deep frying. They are really good when baked, so I think it’s worth it. Especially because baking is so much easier than frying!
2. Rather than using store-bought sausage, I usually use ground beef and add my own seasonings.
3. To keep them keto and paleo, I use no bread crumbs in my recipe.
What about leftovers?
You can keep leftover baked Scotch eggs in the fridge, in an airtight container, for 2-3 days. Reheat them very gently, in the microwave on 50% power. But cut them in two before reheating, or the eggs could explode in the microwave.
Or simply enjoy them cold. I sometimes grab one straight out of the fridge and eat it cold, when I feel like a quick low-carb snack.
Baked Scotch Eggs
INGREDIENTS
- 4 large eggs
- 1 lb. lean ground beef
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- Olive oil spray
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
INSTRUCTIONS
- Cook the eggs: remove the eggs from the fridge. Fill a small saucepan with water and bring the water to a boil. Carefully lower the eggs, one by one, into the boiling water. When the water comes back to a rolling boil, turn the heat off, cover, and remove the saucepan from the heat. Allow the eggs to cook in the residual heat for 8 minutes, then pour out the hot water and fill the saucepan with cold water. Keep the cold water running while you peel the eggs. This method should result in very easy to peel eggs.
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil and fit it with a wire rack. Spray the rack with olive oil.
- In a medium bowl, mix the ground beef with the salt, pepper and garlic powder. Divide into four balls. Pat each ball into a round patty. Alternatively, you can use pre-formed beef patties and sprinkle them with salt, pepper and garlic powder.
- Place each egg in the center of each beef patty. Gently stretch the beef to wrap the egg, shaping and molding it with your hands, pinching together areas where it comes apart, until each egg is fully wrapped by a ball of beef. This takes patience, but is quite doable, so don’t give up.
- Place the beef balls on the prepared wire rack. Spray them with olive oil and sprinkle the tops with paprika – this will give them a nice color in addition to flavor.
- Bake the Scotch eggs until browned on the outside and done to your liking on the inside – I like my ground beef pink in the middle, so I bake them for 20 minutes. If you prefer yours more done, loosely cover the Scotch eggs with foil after 20 minutes and continue baking for 5-10 more minutes.
- Allow the baked Scotch eggs to rest 5-10 minutes before serving. Leftovers are very tasty cold, with some hot sauce or mustard. In fact, baked Scotch eggs make a perfect picnic food, or portable snack.
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