Mmk, so here’s the thing.
Poached eggs on spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce issss basically the best thing ever. And I’ve been eating it all week. Just try to stop that dinner train, I dare you. Either move outta the way or jump on this one because here it comes.
I’ll just call it out like I usually do with these kinds of recipes: eggs on spaghetti might be a little Dr. Seuss or something. It seems a little weird. Is it weird? I think so. Outside of the box. Eyebrows raised. But what would be really weird would be if you tried a bit of this yummy without falling head over heels in soft-egg love.
Seeeriously.
The whole wheat spaghetti with zingy marinara sauce is perfectly-quick-but-still-made-from-scratch *hooray* but the kicker is that soft egg on top. Poached and perfectly cooked means you get a little bit of soft, runny yolk to cream-ify the noodles as they twirl around the fork in all their seductive noodly ways. Ohhhh my spaghetti. Why do I not have a plate of this in my face right this second?
The night that I made this, I fought long and hard against the Pizza Battle. My brain: CHEESE PIZZA – I’ll make a salad – PEPPERONI PIZZA – I think we have some quinoa – VEGGIE PIZZA – grilled chicken? – CHICKEN BBQ PIZZA – questionable leftovers – MARGHERITA PIZZA. It’s an all too real story of total mind domination that takes place more than I’d like to admit as a food blogger, but I just admitted it anyways. Here you are thinking we’re really good at making perfect dinners for our families and then doing Pinterest crafts before homemade dessert. Uh, for the food bloggers in this house, it’s more like PIZZA.
When Bjork gives me even one half of ounce of interest in ordering a pizza for dinner, I am mentally locked in. I don’t know if he does it on purpose, but he has to know that once the seed is planted, this girl is ready for her za and ain’t nobody gonna change her mind. Pizza is a) delicious, b) cheeeeeeeese, and c) easy. Making a full meal at this point? Good luck.
But this time was different. On this night I was either extra awesomely domestic about home cooking, or extra stubborn about not spending money on more food when we have a pantry aka small, old, catch-all cabinet functioning as a pantry full of food. “Just because you don’t have a plan for the food in your pantry doesn’t mean that you can’t make some magic with it for dinner.” <— says rational, good person brain. I don’t even know how I got enough mojo going to really even activate rational, good person brain, but there she was, staring me down, expecting some really good food that would not leave us looking ashamed upon the empty cardbox pizza box. So I just started cooking. No plan whatsoever other than let’s get this done ASAP because I’m starving. And mid-stir of the tomato sauce, the soft egg vision was born.
Twenty minutes later, the first bite of gorgeously poached egg atop a bed of chewy, wheaty spaghetti soaked in tomato sauce made its way into my mouth. A little fresh basil, salt and black pepper, and a spinach side salad. I fell completely in love with this combination of textures and flavors, and the likelihood that I’ll eat the whole pan in the next two days is, um, what do you call that? For surely certain.
Rational good person brain WIN! Spaghetti marinara. Fresh comfort food, bright red and green colors, 20 minutes, pantry ingredients, leftovers to look forward to. Like, hurry up lunch. ❤
Spaghetti Marinara with Poached Eggs
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
Description
This Spaghetti Marinara with Poached Eggs uses simple ingredients to make a deliciously comforting meal from scratch that comes together in just 20 minutes.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 (14 ounce) cans fire roasted diced tomatoes, undrained
- 2 cups chicken broth*
- 1/2 cup red wine
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 8 ounces uncooked whole wheat spaghetti
- 4 eggs
- fresh basil for topping
- cracked pepper to taste
Instructions
- Make the sauce: Heat the olive oil in a deep pot over medium heat. Add the garlic and stir frequently for a minute – don’t let it burn or brown because it tastes bitter. Add the tomatoes, broth, wine, salt, basil, and oregano. Simmer while you prep the spaghetti.
- Make the spaghetti: Bring a large pot of water to boil and cook the spaghetti according to package directions. Drain and toss with a little olive oil; set aside. When the noodles are done, transfer the simmered sauce to a blender and puree you achieve your desired smoothness. Return the sauce to the pot and add the spaghetti. Toss and cover to keep warm.
- Poach the eggs: Bring a pot of water to boil and place a few metal rims from mason jars in the bottom of the pot – these will act as handy little egg holders. When the water starts boiling, turn the heat off. Quickly (before the water cools off too much) crack individual eggs into a small bowl and pour directly into the metal rim in the boiling water. Repeat for all the eggs. Cover and let the eggs cook on the hot water for 4-5 minutes (4 = very soft, 5 = soft). Carefully remove the eggs from the water with a spatula. Tilt the eggs over the pot to let excess water run off before plating the eggs on your spaghetti.
Notes
You could use less broth (more like 1 1/2 cup) for a thicker sauce. I like more sauce, so I used a little more broth to carry the sauce a bit farther. 🙂 Also, here’s a great tutorial on poaching eggs. It can be a little tricky but the metal rims from the mason jars helped me a ton.
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 20 mins
- Category: Dinner
- Cuisine: Italian-Inspired
Keywords: spaghetti with eggs, spaghetti with poached eggs, spaghetti marinara
It’s May, we’re past the middle of the week, and I’m one happy teacher. Go forth and be spaghetti happy!
So good! I added mushrooms to the sauce because they needed to be used up, and fried instead of poaching the eggs.
Saw this on Pinterest and thought it looked amazing, and happened to already have all the ingredients to make it! Dinner was on the table within 30 minutes and it was SO good. Next time I’ll probably use a little less chicken broth because I found the sauce to be a little thin, but regardless it was still so good. I’m also doing the myWW program right now, and the sauce is only 3 points!
Thank you xx
So glad you enjoyed this, Kate!
you mention 1/2 cup of red wine – but I don’t see in your steps when to include it. :/
I pretty much eat eggs with anything, top a burger, rice, black beans, Indian lentil, Egyptian fava beans, pintos with ham. My wife made spaghetti marinara tonight, but I had already eaten, so I mentioned that I would eat it for breakfast with an over-easy egg on top. She was incredulous, but I said somebody has done it before and here we are. Can’t wait for breakfast!
no!!!!!
“Just try to stop that dinner train, I dare you. Either move outta the way or jump on this one because here it comes.”
I think this is the coolest thing I’ve ever read 🙂
Hi! What can I do if the sauce gets too sour because of the tomatoes? Is there anything I can add to make it not so sour?
I love your blog 🙂
have you tried a poach pod? they are little silicone cups designed for poaching eggs. super easy and they make the eggs look pretty.
lightly grease the “pod” with a little butter. crack egg inside.
place in boiling water and cook the way you normally would poach an egg.
the egg slides right out (and it’s not soggy)
or…if you’re having the egg for breakfast – just eat out of the pod and you have one less dish to wash.
Ladies my fiancé is turning his nose up to the idea as we speak..hilarious! Totally attempting it tonight tho, I’ve had this similar poached egg Italian dish at a restaurant years ago and was obsessssed! Hopefully my hunny will enjoy!
I tried this out of the blue tonight since I had sauce leftover from eating it with poached eggs on toast. I wanted to use up the sauce, and I decided I didn’t want toast, so I thought why not spaghetti? Even though I did not use your sauce recipe, I will next time!!!
My when in doubt cooking motto has always been “put an egg on it!” (Sometimes I sing this to the tune of “put a ring on it” while cooking my eggs cuz I’m super cool like that.) There’s just something wonderful about runny yoke all over pretty much any food that can really take a dish to the next level. Thanks for this yummy reminder!
Exactly! Put an egg on it.
Made this last night. So delish. Thanks for sharing!
Glad you liked it Preston!
I tried this and the sauce came out as a liquid! Bummer.
I’m a terrible cook though, and I suppose I liquified it in the blender.
Regardless, I never knew how easy it is to whip up your own pasta sauce (if you can get it right 🙂 ).
My poached eggs were also under-done, but I know those aren’t the easiest thing to get right first try.
Try and try again!
That pizza battle goes on in my head almost every day! Well, unless I think of french fries first… Then it’s kind of a toss up. And it doesn’t help that my guy adores junk food and hates cooking, so there’s nobody rational to motivate me to get cooking. So I’m definitely in awe of you that you stuck it out and made this incredibly awesome dinner! And Dr. Seuss is kind of underrated. I mean, green eggs might’ve been a stretch, but egg on spaghetti? Brilliant! 🙂
What a fantastic idea! I love the tomato/runny egg yolk combo in huevos rancheros but have never tried it on spaghetti. Must make this soon. 🙂
Oh Lindsey! This is heavenly! I’m so making this tomorrow night! And about the pizza thing… Totally acceptable, I even keep a frozen pizza in my freezer just in case! (We don’t have delivery pizza in our small town.)
Well, if you can put an egg on top of a pizza then why not on tomato pasta? Love the idea!
I want a huge bowl of this pasta! Love the egg on top!
Looks great! In Italy we use can tomatoes and skip the chicken broth but I’m curious to try the sauce out with broth (vegetarian for me). The egg on top is very cool 🙂 🙂
With you on the pizza! If my fiance even briefly mentions pizza, I am so on board and that plan is set in stone…even though he usually forgets that plan before dinner time. Sigh.
This looks like an unholy combination of spaghetti and carbonara! YUM. Thanks for sharing!
I thought the same thing about the spaghetti and carbonara combo!
I love it ! I’m going to try it this week-end.. thanks from France !
I love poached eggs on almost anything! I taught myself recently–it’s a learned skill (learned as in 5 failures before the first success), but the freshest possible eggs REALLLLYYY helped, too. I’m also a fan of the water swirling technique so the eggs form nice little balls. Will have to try your jar lid technique!
I definitely don’t know the water swirling technique! I’ll have to look that up!
i’ve had a poached egg on carbonara pasta (which is to die for) – and this sounds great too!
This looks amazing!
Question for you… what brand of whole wheat spaghetti noodles do you use?
For some reason, the brands I’ve tried have a slight “cinnamon-y” smell/flavor to them. I’ve used other whole wheat noodles (fusilli, pene, lasagna, etc.) in many other dishes, but only seem to get that strange smell/flavor with whole wheat spaghetti noodles…
DeLallo! they are yum-o!
Looks great. A poached egg on top adds elegance and flavor.