Easy Amazing Shakshuka Recipe

hey i'm john cannell and today on preppy kitchen we're making shakshuka so let's get started first off we have a little bit of chopping to do so grab one big onion or one and a half small ones and just get that skin off and give it give it a good dice shakshuka is a delicious cozy dish that you can have for breakfast you can have it for lunch or dinner this comes from north africa and the name shakshuka which i love saying roughly translates to like mix it up or mixed it's because you have all

these delicious ingredients mixed together in a pan and it is like the easiest hearty meal you could make any time shakshuka has thousands of variations all over the world like i think almost everybody loves this dish and they've made it their own with different spices different peppers different additions and you can make this at home with so many different ingredients you don't have to use what i'm showing you here you could add your favorite things and if there's something that you think really needs to be in shakshuka let me know in the comments for example

i love a little bit more spice in this dish but because i have the kids and brine at home we're sticking with a bell pepper today you can use like any peppers that you love and make it as spicy as you want i'm giving four cloves of garlic a smash then we're going to mince them up this releases that papery skin and it also gives all those oils a chance to get out extra flavor when we went over the ingredients i didn't show you any bread but like this is the dish that you want to

have like some nice crusty like bread or pita with just like soak up all that tomatoey goodness i'm almost done with my prep i want to talk about the pan for just a second get a large one out it could be stainless oh it could be cast iron either one will work if you're using cast iron just make sure it's well seasoned and most of you are going to make this and enjoy it right away you don't want to let the acidic tomatoes sit in cast iron for too long it'll like start messing with your

season and also leech some stuff out with that being said for the pans it's time to get our oil nice and hot pan over medium heat about three tablespoons of olive oil or so a little extra olive oil never hurt anybody all right while that's getting nice and hot i want to see that oil shimmering in the light that's how you know it's ready we're going to chop up our bell pepper and like i said earlier if you like things spicy go ahead and like you can add in your jalapeno like whatever you want my

four-year-old boys are not that into the spice so they're good sports and they'll give it a try but they're like it's too hot for me it's too spicy i was like okay thank you for trying get those ribs out we do not want the seeds it's always a good idea to cut skin side up if you do it the opposite way i swear unless your knife is very sharp or freshly sharpened it's gonna stick together so skin side up my oil is dancing in the pan it's time to add our onions in you want your

onions to be nice and translucent so just keep mixing them up occasionally not burnt not charred just mellow and delicious i'm also going to add the bell pepper in right now this will intensify the flavor as it cooks and really soften it up i like the textures in this to be really soft and we have it with that crisp bread oh it's so good this can cook for about 10 to 12 minutes or until everything is nice and soft the onions are translucent and maybe just starting to take on some color you can stir this

occasionally it's not a constant hovering over situation so go ahead have a cup of coffee and just stir once in a while while this is cooking i'm just going to open up my can of tomatoes today i'm using whole peeled tomatoes but you could definitely use crushed tomatoes the fire roasted really like almost anything works one thing i will do with the whole tomatoes is pour off just a little bit of the liquid i don't need that much your shakshuka has to have a certain consistency that's a bit thicker it shouldn't be like very watery

because like what are you gonna do with that like watery tomato juice you want full flavors a lot of the liquid's gonna get reduced off if you want to make your own version of this go ahead and raid the fridge see what veggies you have available like just give them a smaller chop and put them in with the bell peppers so they're nice and tender i swear almost anything will work and it's really up to you like what do you want to add to this make it your own dish this is just like a template

for you to follow but you can go in any number of variations right now you can see my onions are starting to become translucent they're taking on a little bit of color and we're almost there i do want them to be just a bit more so so take a look here and see once it's at this stage you're getting close now it's time for spices one teaspoon of paprika a teaspoon of chili powder two teaspoons of ground cumin let's mix this up right now mmm it smells so good i'm also going to add the garlic

in now it's time for the garlic and some serious stirring so it doesn't burn it's going to be overheat for about two minutes with just the garlic and the spices in there and just like i said about the vegetables this is the same deal for the spices you can add any of the spices that you love in here it'll just bring more flavor so some other spices you could enjoy here like ross all good news like the list goes on let me know in the comments what you would add i'm adding my tomatoes now and

you see they're whole tomatoes so we're just gonna use our wooden spoon to break it up but they're gonna also break down with the heat now i can add some more of my tomato juice in here i just wanted to have control sometimes you open up a can of tomatoes and it's a lot of liquid in there so it's better just to add it in as you want for your consistency our tomatoes are broken up i hope they get back together and this is gonna come to a boil right now just the edge is bubbling

but the center is not close so leave it over medium heat once it comes to a boil then we're gonna reduce to a simmer until we get like a thicker just delicious consistency once we get to the right consistency you'll see why we actually need that consistency in order to cook the eggs properly this can't just smell good it has to taste good so i'm going to add in half a teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of pepper i'm using kosher salt which has like larger grains than fine table salt so if you see

in my palm they're like big pieces of salt over here if you're using table salt i would add in a quarter and then up it to taste freshly cracked black pepper i'm reducing it to a simmer and this can just bubble away for like 15 to 20 minutes or until it's noticeably thicker the cook time really helps the flavors meld and make delicious things happen my mixture's really reduced it smells amazing and right now i actually want to give it a quick taste just to see if the salt and pepper is right oh my gosh

that's really good okay good handful of your cilantro parsley whatever and i'm saving a little bit for the top now it's time for the eggs this dish is so delicious because it has like our veggies but it has protein from the eggs that's really one of the reasons you can enjoy it any time of the day and it's just like delicious i have my wooden spoon i have a little bowl you could use a ramekin too i'm gonna crack an egg into the bowl now create a well it's like a little depression in the sauce

with the back of your spoon and slide your egg in there you don't want your egg to go all over the place it should be pretty contained and as you go along you can kind of just make a little a little wall to hold it in and cover it a bit it'll help it cook repeat that process for the remaining eggs if you wanted to add like less eggs that's fine too if you want to add more you might be able to fit in one more egg my eggs are baking already but here's the deal

you want a soft runny yolk my favorite thing and a firm egg white or almost firm so go ahead and cover it up this will take about 10 to 12 minutes but everyone's burners are a bit different so go ahead and give it a check after 10 minutes and then we'll baby it from there so this is a very important note i'm actually on propane here at the house and it is hot if you're using electric oh my gosh you're gonna take a little bit longer gas less time propane it's done so so these eggs

are actually perfect after just like four minutes or so it's really fast you can see here the whites are set in the yolks i'm not going to burst them yet but the yolks are still nice and runny so much less time it's all ready to go we're going to take this off heat so i'm finishing this off with a sprinkle of cilantro you could use parsley and a little bit of feta just crumbled over gives you some creaminess and extra flavor scoop it up plate it and get that crusty bread ready oh my gosh let's

take a bite whether you're having this for breakfast lunch or dinner this might just be the perfect meal i hope you get a chance to make this recipe and if you like this video check out my breakfast playlist