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Omelet

(It's eggs. Folded. Around cheese.)

If you can scramble eggs, you can make an omelet. It's the same eggs, you just stopped stirring at some point and put cheese on it. That's the whole trick. I know the French made it sound complicated - they make everything sound complicated - but the actual move is "cook eggs, add stuff, fold." You've got this. Probably.

Prep: 5 min Cook: 5 min Serves: 1 Easier than you're making it

Ingredients

Required

Optional Fillings (all good, not exhaustive - use whatever you've got)

Instructions

  1. Beat the eggs. Crack 2 or 3 into a bowl and mix with a fork until the yolks and whites are one uniform yellow. If you don't know how to do this, go read the scrambled eggs recipe and come back.
  2. Pre-cook the fillings. Yes, you have to. Throw ham, bacon, onions, peppers, or mushrooms into a separate pan and sauté until cooked through. Bacon should be crisp. Tomatoes are the exception - they can go in raw, or briefly cooked to drive off water so your omelet doesn't turn into soup. The eggs cook in roughly two minutes. Raw onion will still be raw onion. Pre-cook the fillings or accept your fate. Set them aside.
  3. Heat the pan. About a tablespoon of butter in a small nonstick pan over medium heat. Butter is the default. Oil is allowed if you're out of butter, but it's the backup plan, not the move.
  4. Pour in the eggs. Once the butter is foamy and the pan is properly hot, pour in the beaten eggs. Give the pan a little swirl so the eggs coat the bottom evenly. Don't stir. You're not making scrambled eggs. We just covered that.
  5. Cheese and fillings go on BEFORE the fold. When the bottom is set but the top is still glossy and a little wet, scatter the cheese and pre-cooked fillings across one half of the eggs. Cheese first or simultaneous - just not after you've already folded. Adding cheese after the fold gets you cold, ungrateful cheese sitting on a closed envelope of eggs.
  6. Optional flip - know which camp you're in. If you want the top fully set and the cheese fully melted, slide a spatula under and flip the whole thing (or flip it in the pan if you're feeling brave - don't come crying to me when eggs hit the burner) and cook another 20-30 seconds. The classic French method skips the flip entirely: cover the pan for a few seconds if needed, then just fold once the top is mostly set. Both are correct. Pick one and commit.
  7. Fold and serve. Tilt the pan, slide the spatula under the filling-free half, and fold it over onto the loaded half. Slide it onto a plate. Eat it immediately. An omelet sitting on a plate is a clock running out.

Things That Will Save You

Medium heat. Not high. High heat browns the bottom before the top has any idea what's going on. Medium. Not medium-high. Medium.

Small pan. An 8-inch nonstick pan gives you the right egg thickness for 2-3 eggs. A giant pan makes a flat egg crepe. Different food.

Don't overload the fillings. An omelet is mostly eggs with stuff inside, not stuff with eggs holding it together. A small handful of fillings is plenty. More than that and the fold gives up.

Tomatoes leak. If you skip pre-cooking the tomatoes, dice them small and don't add many. Otherwise you've got watery eggs.

Stuff You'll Need

A small nonstick pan (8-inch is the sweet spot). A bowl. A fork or whisk. A rubber or silicone spatula. A second small pan for the fillings. If you don't own a nonstick pan, you can do this in a well-seasoned cast iron, but you're playing on hard mode and I won't pretend otherwise.