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!
WHY HAVE I NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE? I eat eggs every single day of my life, rain or shine.
Whatever that means.
And with marinara and carbs? YES. Now to convince my husband to eat this instead of pizza on Friday.
Challenge accepted. Pinned!
Bjork was on board with it, so I don’t know, maybe it’s possible to convince your man? 🙂 Good luck. Food Blog husbands sure do put up with a lot of weirdness sometimes…
I second that! Used to be he would sit patiently waiting for me to take pics of the food before he was allowed to eat 🙂 Nowadays I do my photography much earlier in the day but it was funny seeing him sit there waiting…while I stuck a camera in our food.
Really well done Lindsay i really like your recipes each time i visit your website 🙂
I put a poached egg on my mashed potatoes!!
Okay I just died a little bit. SO GOOD!
A poached egg on top of spaghetti??! I am one of those people to say hmm, interesting… and then try it. I bet it is absolutely delicious!
I love how the sauce is thinner than regular spaghetti sauce, my favorite. Looks amazing as always, Lindsay. 🙂
I’m still staring at the picture saying to myself, spaghetti and there’s like, an egg on top. And I’m saying to myself, self….what does a rational person make of this?
I love eggs. I love spaghetti. And the fam loves eggs and spaghetti.
Together? I can’t wait to see how this actually turns out! And yet, people love ketchup on their eggs. And since we did the pizza thing like 2 times already this week and it’s only Wednesday (yikes) it might be time to branch out!
I know, a friend of mine told me straight up he thought it was really gross. haha! No hard feelings – I love it and that isn’t changing! I’m confident you’ll love if you’re brave enough to try. 🙂
My mouth instantly started watering when I read the title. I’ve had an egg on top of pasta before and it’s heavenly!! The rich creamy egg yolk over some fresh pasta with a little garlic and herbs. Doesn’t get much better than that!!! (well, maybe with a glass of wine…or two!)
Great post!
A.J.
Nailed it!
That is such an interesting concept to me that I just might have to try it. It look so good!
I made spaghetti last night and had a serious debate inside my head about putting a poached egg on top. In my head because I don’t want to scare Dustin too much 🙂
I ended up not doing it, and now I’m super sad cause this looks delicious!! And the leftovers are Dustin’s lunch today, so there will be no redemption this time.
Next time though! That egg is getting poached!
Abby
Next time girl! next time!
Loved this post, Lindsay! I’m trying to eat less pasta, but I love the “egg on top” mentality. Sometimes when I’m brainstorming breakfasts or quick dinners, my brain literally starts playing Beyoncé, except she’s saying, “if you like it, then you shoulda put an egg on it,”, and she’s always right.
hahaha! Beyonce Knowes! Stupid, bad, sorry. 😉
I’ve actually never had a poached egg, but always wanted to try it. It looks like it tastes very similar to an over-easy fried egg, but without the oil? Tasty!
Yep – exactly! Like over easy, but just very gently cooked so you don’t get the fried crispy exterior (still good, but for pasta this is my fave!)
Such gorgeous photos, as usual! Your photography inspires me on a daily basis. So awesome. And I don’t even eat eggs, but this recipe looks amazing and totally drool-worthy! Yum.
Thank you Ashley! Still learning the new lens and having lots of fun! 🙂
For some reason, the eggs came out hard after just 5 minutes. Ideas why?
(I did not take the pot off the burner once I turned it off; maybe that was the step I missed.)
I’m trying this again tomorrow because I have a serving of spaghetti with sauce and 1 serving of roasted Brussels crying out to be eaten.
I am a firm believer than putting a runny egg on top of anything makes it better. Spaghetti is no exception!
So I made this for dinner last night and it was amazing! I found the sauce to be a little runny with 2 cups of broth (I’ll take your suggestion and do 1 1/2 next time), so I added some tomato paste to thicken it up, but the flavor was spot on! This was by first time making marinara from scratch, and I will never go back to the jarred stuff! Oh yes, and the runny egg- gold!
I know – the sauce is surprisingly good for how simple it is! 🙂 thanks for the comment about the broth!
I’ve never heard of using the metal rims from mason jar lids to help poach eggs! I am always afraid to try poaching – maybe I’ll give it a go with this method!
Isn’t it the best idea ever? Worked like a charm! I’ll never go back.
Yummmm! I think I’m ready to get on the train. I’ve recently started getting into the put-an-egg-on-everything trend, and I never even used to like poached eggs before. But ON stuff, they are great! Good lookin’ recipe!
Loooove the idea of poached eggs on pasta. I’m all about fried eggs served on top of a dinner entree — on top of a quinoa mixed with veggies is my favorite (or the classic bibimbap Korean rice dish) but I have yet to try poached eggs with pasta!
Must admit my poached eggs need a bit of practice — taste wise they’re fine, but they’re definitely not photography ready yet!
I did three for this shoot, and let’s just say I was pretty lucky that one was even remotely photo-ready. I am a total klutz with eggs.
Definitely not weird at all to put eggs on pasta. Cool recipe!
https://thatumamilife.wordpress.com/ – a clean eating bento blog. Japanese or Asian-inspired!
Oh my this looks so good!! I’ve never tried to poach eggs before… maybe I’ll have to try soon. 🙂
xo Andrea
Wonderful and Marvelous
I love eggs and red pasta sauce. I normally do baked eggs. The eggs get “poached” with the red sauce in the oven. I know I would love this dish. I will probably make it for dinner before the week ends.
I’ve seen lots of recipes like that but have never tried it myself – that needs to be next!
Aw, yisssss …. slip a poached egg on top of pretty much ANYTHING and I’m in 🙂
You and I both, gurl. Glad you’re on board!
I have never thought of putting an egg on top of pasta and am definitely going to try this. Runny eggs fo’ life!
Never in a million years would I have thought to be a poached egg on spaghetti. I love both. Plus I will eat leftover spaghetti for breakfast. So it’s a perfect match actually.
Paul just say, “Or we could get p……” and then I NEED pizza. (And this was way pre-pregnancy, so that’s not an excuse.) I’ve always LIKED pizza, but I think my love of pizza has really ramped up in the last couple of years. It’s just so good.
So funny! I thought of you as I was writing this! 🙂
This looks great – I love just plain old eggs fried up in some marinara sauce, so this has got to be even better.
I also have a quick question for you: how do you go about getting the shots where there are tongs grasping the pasta? I’ve seen you do a similar shot many times and I really like it, but I can’t imagine trying to take a photo with one hand while tongs were in the other. Do you just set up a tripod for those shots?
hahaha – nope, just take them myself while pouring. Not very glamorous and it’s really hard to do especially now with my new lens being an even closer angle, but those are always my favorite photos – the action shots! 🙂 I don’t use a tripod just because I find it limiting in terms of moving around and stuff, but a tripod would probably be a better way to do it, technically.
Hi Lindsay, have you ever tried poaching the eggs in your sauce? It isn’t as pretty, but it is one less pot to clean! Times are about the same as cooking in water, and the thickness of the sauce will naturally keep the eggs separate. It’s apparently a thing – called “Eggs in Purgatory”.
Great idea! I’ve never tried that – actually most of my poaching experiments in the past have been pretty bad, so I was just glad to come out with one whole intact egg!
My husband and I are exactly the same way with pizza…if either of us even says the word “pizza,” it is pretty much going to happen. And it totally takes over your brain just like you described…nice to have a pizza-ish alternative to try!
Exactly! I need a non-pizza plan for those moments! 🙂
Dang…SO EASY!! This looks great!
LINDSAY! Holy spaghetti goodness – this sounds absolutely amazing. Pinned! Can’t wait to try this ASAP. A perfect Meatless Monday idea. Or really any day of the week because I love me a runny egg.
Runny eggs for life. So darn good!