The Herby Sauce That Totally Kicks Up Your Fried Egg Game

Looking for a versatile, nutritious, cost-efficient, and most importantly, tasty way to fill your belly? Eggs, my friend. Eggs. Whether you like 'em creamy and scrambled to silky smoothness or basted and perfectly crispy, there's an egg recipe out there for you. And once you've found your preferred cooking method, there are still endless ways for you to jazz your eggs up.

Take the humble fried egg, for instance. Most of us cook this classic dish with a touch of oil or butter and serve with salt, but it's easy to make your eggs unbeatable with ingredients like classic, herby pesto. Upgrading your eggs is as easy as substituting your usual cooking fat or oil with a spoonful pesto, since it's oil-based and does the trick just fine. Cook your egg as usual, and then top your toast with another spoonful of pesto before depositing your egg atop for a take that is bursting with flavor and delightfully rich. 

Now, there's no shame in grabbing store-bought pesto. In this day and age, most of us are so tired by the end of a long day that it's a miracle we get any food into a frying pan at all, right? But, if you do happen to have the extra time and energy, homemade pesto isn't that hard to pull off. In fact, you don't even have to stick to traditional pesto recipes. This recipe for garbage pesto proves that it's the ratio that's important, rather than the exact ingredients. As long as you have about two cups of green vegetables or herbs, olive oil, some nuts or seeds, and a bit of cheese, you're golden.

Once you make your own pesto, the sky's the limit regarding what you can use it for, so get as creative as you'd like. You can treat it as a base to make other sauces, like a dressing for a Cobb salad with boiled eggs or pesto mayo for a fried egg sandwich. Lime, peanuts, and rice wine vinegar change pesto from an Italian classic into a sauce that would seem right at home in Thai-inspired version of this hack. And of course, for those with dietary considerations, it's possible to make nut-free pesto or leave out the cheese. Whatever you choose, your eggs will thank you.