Portobello Baked Eggs with Spinach and Mozzarella

This recipe for Portobello Baked Eggs with Spinach and Mozzarella is sure to be a huge brunch hit!

Today we are going with the super-messy, just out of the oven photos of this recipe. There have been so many times lately that I’ve wanted to share a new recipe and had to re-make it for photos, that it is more the “norm” than me photographing what’s been happening in my kitchen in real-time. So I’ve challenged myself to just run with it, let down my perfectionist tendencies, and try photographing more stuff in “real-time.” So this is what we get. (And it’s not actually too bad!)

Before we get to the recipe, I want to tell you a funny story about stuffed mushrooms. Back in our church small group in college, it was tradition to put on an annual event called “women’s appreciation.” Most of us were single and not really dating around (too busy with school, and various different views on dating) so we’d put together these “appreciation” nights where we got to tell people how much we appreciated them, make them feel special, give out awards, and cook a big dinner. (There was a “guys’ appreciation” too, but that’s a whole different story…) They’d normally fall on or around Valentine’s Day so the ladies would have somewhere to get dress up and go out for a big evening.

Anyways, on this particular night, my Hubby (who was just a few weeks into being my boyfriend at the time) had planned the dinner menu. Now, you would think that being married to a food blogger means that he doesn’t really cook right? Well, you would be wrong. He is an EXCELLENT cook. He’s normally both my hand model and my sous-chef. But the reason I cook so often is 1) because I’m home during the day and cooking for this blog is part of both my “job” and “hobby” and 2) because he has to go all out for anything he puts together. There is no shortcut, no simplifying, and no breaking from the exact recipe. He planned a ridiculously grand menu that included chicken cordon bleu, a super delicious salad, a pretty vegetable, and some sort of pie or tart for dessert if I remember correctly. The menu also included these delicious, small stuffed button mushrooms as an appetizer.

So Hubby makes the guys slave away prepping these stuffed mushrooms (there were about 20 of us total for dinner, so at least 40 mushrooms.) I think we even have to push back dinner because these mushrooms weren’t done. And when we were finally seated for dinner, the guys bring them to the table as the appetizer and give each of us a couple of them. Unbeknownst to Hubby, I am the only girl sitting at the table who even likes mushrooms! So the ladies begin to pick at the filling, trying to be nice, and the guys go back in the kitchen to finish up dinner prep.

As soon as they leave the room, I get a nudge from the girl sitting next to me, and she whispers “I hate mushrooms, can you eat mine so it doesn’t look like we’re being rude?” No big deal, as I’d already polished mine off and really liked them, so she slips hers onto my plate and I make quick work of them, not wanting to be caught, and not knowing when the guys would be back. Here’s where it starts to get funny. Because the girl on the other side of me observed what happened, says she also doesn’t like mushrooms, and would I eat hers too? Not wanting to hurt Hubby’s feelings, I reluctantly agreed. A couple of the other girls bravely choked their mushrooms down, but there were still more than half left on the table. So what happens next? Well, they all catch on that I love mushrooms, and I’m eating them for the others, so they start sneaking theirs onto my plate from around the table! There’s a giant game of pass the mushrooms to Steph going on and I can’t stop it! I begin to feel like I Love Lucy in the famous chocolate factory episode trying to eat all these mushrooms as fast as I can. (Y’all I am just dying laughing right now remembering this story!)

At this point, the guys start coming back out from the kitchen, so I pretty much just dump my whole plate full of stuffed mushrooms into the napkin in my lap as fast as possible. One is still left out on the table, having slipped off a plate, and my mouth is stuffed full of mushroom. The girls have mild panic on their faces, and of course the guys’ first question is “How were the mushrooms?” And I about lost it laughing as the girls all look at me to answer. (Probably because I’m the only one who can give an honest, positive response.) I think I managed to choke down my mouthful and say “They were great!” with a straight face. Then I kept the rest of the mushrooms in my napkin until I could excuse myself and throw them away in the bathroom trash. (Sorry to whoever emptied that!)  

Later that night, Hubby took me home and asked for honest feedback on the meal. I ended up coming clean and telling him that none of the other girls liked mushrooms in the least bit and that I had eaten at least half of them and hid the rest. We had a great laugh over my re-telling of the frantic mushroom eating story, and I pretty much swore off stuffed mushrooms after that. That dinner was about 7 years ago, and I really don’t think I’d eaten another stuffed mushroom up until I made these a few weeks ago. (I have had plenty of mushrooms on burgers and pizza though! Yum!) 

These portobello baked eggs were totally worth breaking my stuffed mushroom fast and they baked up just so pretty! What you may see evidenced on the pan, is the fact that I first thought I could get away with leaving the stem in the center. Well, this resulted in the first cracked egg taking a dive off the side of the mushroom and running away while I tried to pick it up with my bare hands, laughing at myself. (I only had 6 eggs in the house, so I had to get it back on there!) Once the stems were sliced out, it all worked much better. I also decided to cook the spinach down the second time I made these and hide it under the egg. I made that change in the recipe below, but you can also throw it in uncooked if you like the “rustic” look of the eggs in the photo with slightly crispy spinach edges. I think these would be great for a Meatless Monday dinner or a fancy brunch. Just don’t serve them to a room full of women who don’t like mushrooms because I am not volunteering to eat up the extras! 😉    
 

Macros per serving: 178 Calories, 13g Fat, 3g Net Carbs (4g carbs-1g fiber), 13g Protein  

Portobello Baked Eggs with Spinach and Mozzarella

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• Author: Stephanie Powers
• Prep Time: 10
• Cook Time: 15
• Total Time: 25
• Yield: 6 1x

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Ingredients

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• 6 large portobello mushrooms
• 1 cup fresh spinach, chopped
• 1/2 medium onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• A few sprigs of fresh basil, rosemary, or parsley, chopped (whatever you have on hand – dried is fine too!)
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 6 large eggs
• Salt and pepper to taste

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Instructions

1. Pre-heat oven to 425.
2. Wipe the mushroom caps gently with a damp paper towel to remove any dirt, then remove the mushroom stems and use a spoon to scrape out the gills.
3. Brush both sides of the mushroom with a light coating of olive oil and place top side down on a foil-covered baking sheet.
4. Bake for 5 minutes.
5. While the mushroom caps cook, saute the spinach, onions, and garlic in a bit of olive oil until the spinach has wilted.
6. Remove the mushroom caps from the oven and dump out the liquid. (You could reserve this for a soup broth if you like.)
7. Return the mushroom caps to the baking sheet and layer in spinach, mozzarella, and herbs, leaving a bit of a “bowl” in the center for the egg.
8. Gently crack an egg into the center of each mushroom cap, on top of the spinach and cheese, and then sprinkle with salt and pepper.
9. Bake for about 8-10 minutes, or until the egg whites have begun to firm up and the yolks are cooked to your liking.

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Notes

• Gluten-free: This is gluten-free.
• Vegetarian: This is vegetarian.

  
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