Healthy Shakshuka Recipe

This is a healthy shakshuka recipe that is delicious and super easy to put together! There are many ways to make this dish, you can use this recipe as a base and add or change it a bit as you wish. I’ll list a few different ingredients that you can add but I want to give you this basic healthy shakshuka recipe that is a classic Israeli breakfast. I have the Healthy Shakshuka Recipe printable at the end of this post for you. 

---

For me, the peak of the growing season is that time when I look at my harvest and I know that I can make a whole meal from what my homestead produced. That aside from olive oil, salt and black pepper and maybe a few more seasonings, I have everything that I need to put together a hearty meal. 

If you are a homesteader, you know what I’m talking about. You know that moment of satisfaction when you look down at your plate and you say to yourself… Everything that is on this plate came from my homestead…

And then the joy that comes from eating that food that you worked so hard to grow. The joy that comes from knowing how healthy it is for you and the joy of the delicious taste. 

I’ve learned through the years that there are a number of dishes that I can fairly easily grow all the ingredients for. This healthy shakshuka recipe is one of those dishes and therefore, it’s a regular around here during the summer months.

Healthy Shakshuka Recipe…

Ok, who am I kidding? It’s a regular around here during the rest of the year too, it’s just that it’s extra special during the summer because all the ingredients come from the homestead.

But with all due respect to healthy eating, eating in season, the homesteading movement or whatever other movements, yours truly here is not going through a whole winter without tomatoes. I have my limits.  

So you see, even if you are not a homesteader, even if you landed on this page just because you were looking for a shakshuka recipe, even if you don’t know that this is a homesteading blog, well, it doesn’t matter because you are about to discover a delicious recipe that is so healthy for you and that you can make a regular breakfast dish.

If you are a homesteader than you’ll see that you can easily preserve tomatoes by canning tomato sauce or by freezing whole tomatoes, you can easily preserve peppers by making pepper paste or by freezing them, garlic and onions we just hang or store in a cool root cellar, and eggs come from the chickens (my chickens lay during the winter as well and I hope yours do too).

That is pretty much all you need. Of course, everything is better when it’s fresh out of the garden but you can make this healthy shakshuka recipe anytime with vegetables you preserved from the summer garden as well. 

What is Shakshuka? 

Shakshuka is a very common Israeli breakfast. Honestly, I don’t know if it’s a Middle Eastern thing or just an Israeli thing. I am guessing that you’ll find this dish all over the Middle East but I can tell you for sure that you won’t find an Israeli that didn’t grow up with shakshuka being a regular dish at the table.

Shakshuka is basically eggs cooked in tomato sauce. But don’t think pasta or pizza sauce, it’s a sauce cooked from fresh tomatoes (preferably, but again you can use preserved tomatoes), and onions, and peppers… It’s kind of a party of summer vegetables with a few eggs dancing in its center.

We usually eat it for breakfast but there are no laws preventing you from making it for lunch or dinner, so you are safe there. 

I’m gonna show you how we make it and I hope that you’ll give it a try because there is really no healthier breakfast for you. And, of course, it’s delicious… 

Ok, let’s get to it!

How to Make Shakshuka…

The first thing we gotta do is gather our vegetables. We are going to need…

3 lb of ripe tomatoes

2 medium green or red bell peppers

1 large onion (or a few smaller ones. When you grow your own vegetables you know that not every vegetable you harvest is big and beautiful. Still tasty though…)

And 4 cloves of garlic.

Before moving on I recommend just standing there for a moment, staring at the vegetables, and feeling deep gratitude for the beautiful earth we get to harvest from.

I also suggest giving yourself a pat on the back and acknowledging the great job you did in growing those vegetables or going all the way to the store to get them and supporting a farmer somewhere in the world.  

Nothing is more important than self-love. Seriously. Also, all the joyful energy makes the dish tastier. 

Ok, moving on… 

We’ll also need..

1/4 cup olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon paprika

1/4 teaspoon sugar

Cayenne or red chili flakes or ground chili is optional if you want to make this dish spicy. You can also add one or two jalapenos or other spicy peppers if you’d like. I don’t personally like spicy food and I feed four little kids so I keep everything mild, but it’s very popular to make shakshuka spicy. 

We’ll also need eggs, of course, I used 6, and a few chopped basil leaves for garnish. Usually, we use parsley but I have a boatload of basil in the garden (I make delicious almond basil pesto with it) so I use basil instead of parsley. I mean… basil and tomatoes… There is no way to go wrong here. 

I start by washing my peppers, removing the stem and seeds, dicing the peppers, and setting them aside. 

Next, I clean and dice my onion…

And then I peel and dice the garlic cloves…

And last but not least; the tomatoes. I give them a good wash and dice them. I add all of the tomatoes to a mixing bowl and set aside. 

Cooking This Healthy Shakshuka Dish…

I love making this dish in a 12” cast-iron skillet. We are going to need to cook it covered for just a few minutes in the end and unfortunately, those cast-iron skillets don’t come with a lid, but I just use a lid from another pan. Of course, you can use any kind of saute pan, just make sure you have a way to cover it.

I start by heating the oil. When the oil is hot I add the diced onion and lower the heat to medium-high. I saute the onions for about 10 minutes until it starts to brown. 

Then I add the garlic and mix. I cook the garlic and onions for an additional 2 minutes. 

Then I lower the heat to medium, add the peppers, mix, and cook for an additional 5 minutes.  

Next, I add the tomatoes and stir. 

After adding the tomatoes, I keep cooking (uncovered) for another 10 minutes or so until the tomatoes are completely soft. I make sure to stir the sauce once in a while. 

Now it’s time to add the seasonings; salt, black pepper, paprika, sugar, cumin, and any spicy seasonings (cayenne, chili…) if you like. 

I give it a good stir and cook (still uncovered), stirring frequently, for an additional 15 minutes until the sauce thickens just a bit. 

While the sauce is cooking, I gather my eggs and give them a quick wash. I used six eggs in this dish because I love that we all have plenty of sauce with each serving, but you can fit probably around eight eggs in a 12-inch skillet. 

Before I add the eggs, I make sure to taste the sauce and correct my seasonings if I feel that I am missing something. It’s impossible to mix this after we add the eggs so this is a good time to do this. 

I move the sauce just a bit with my wooden spoon and crack the egg right into that space.

Then I cover the pan and cook for 5-7 minutes. This leaves the yolk a tiny bit soft (you’ll see in the picture below) and this is how we like it. You can cook a little more or a little less depending on how done you like your eggs. 

That’s it! Once it’s done turn the heat off and remove the pan from the heat. 

Now we have two things to do before we dig in…

The first is to garnish with chopped basil leaves. You can also do parsley or cilantro…

And the second thing we have to do is grab the best, tastiest loaf of bread we can possibly find. This is my homemade no-knead artisan bread that is crusty but super soft inside. 

I want to encourage you to bake your own homemade bread or pick up the most special loaf you can find at the grocery store. It really matters here!

Then all you gotta do is join this delicious summer party! Don’t be shy to use your bread, just go for it. We usually finish a whole loaf in a meal. The sauce is delicious and after you’ll make it a few times you’ll know just how long to cook the eggs to make them perfect for you. 

It’s all working together beautifully in a Mediterranean sort of party. 

Now… You can make this a meaty shakshuka by adding the sausage of your choice. If you do that, add the sausage before you add the peppers and cook it with the onions for a few minutes. Then just continue with the steps of the recipe. 

You can add spinach or chard if you’d like. To do that, add the leaves before you add the tomatoes. Cook them for a couple of minutes until they wilt and then continue with the steps of the recipe. 

Another popular addition is feta cheese. I love adding my homemade feta cheese to this recipe. The cheese doesn’t need to cook so we add it at the very end after the eggs are done. Just sprinkle as much cheese as you’d like all over. 

That’s it! I hope you’ll give this delicious and healthy shakshuka recipe a try. If you do, please come back and tell me how you liked it in the comments below. 

If you’d like to try another way of making shakshuka, without the peppers and with canned tomatoes, you can check out this recipe from The Healthy Maven. 

Here is the handy printable…

Please share this content if you like it. Thank You!