Lisa’s Letters Home: Mini Breakfast Frittatas to Go!

I love small food because small things do not contain many calories. Therefore, you can shove five small foods in your mouth and still be eating healthily. I also love small bites because they work well as toddler food: five for me, two for her.

I always need some sort of protein for breakfast, otherwise I feel like gnawing my own arms off by 10am. I love eggs, but they can get boring pretty quickly and I don’t often have time to cook before I head to the office. Enter the mini frittata. I make a batch in a muffin pan and stick them in the fridge, ready to be grabbed in the morning.

“But why don’t you make a normal-sized frittata and cut it into wedges?” you ask. Mini frittatas are CUTE, and the kids seem to like things better when they’re miniaturized. Also, see my point about calories above. On a practical level, they cook more quickly than one large dish.

You can make these with whatever vegetables and/or meat that you fancy. The only “rule” is that you should slightly undercook the frittatas if you’re going to reheat them in a microwave at a later point. Otherwise, go wild and get as creative as you want. I always make these with spinach and mushrooms, just because they are two of my favourite things with eggs. That, and bacon. Everything is better with bacon.

I tend to line these with bacon (surprise!) but you can use Parma ham/prosciutto, smoked ham, or nothing at all. The pork products help to stop the frittatas from sticking to the tin, so make sure you oil the tin well before adding the egg mixture. Many variations contain cheese, which is also a lovely thing with eggs, but I am slightly lactose intolerant and try to avoid it when I can.

The version I make is an adaptation from the wonderful Nom Nom Paleo site (http://nomnompaleo.com/), a great resource if you’re avoiding dairy and/or grains. I love that this uses frozen spinach, which is such a good ingredient to have on hand. It works brilliantly in these frittatas and also in curries. It also calls for coconut flour (you can use regular flour or corn starch), which changes the texture from an omelet to more of a muffin sort of thing. What this does is make the frittatas more structurally sound and lunchbox-resilient. Also good for toddler hands that like to squish things before eating.