The Captivating Life: Baked Eggs in Avocado with Fresh Salsa

I'm usually not much of a breakfast person and most of the time I have something quick like cereal or Eggos. (Sometimes too many Eggos - blueberry ones - slathered in butter. It's a weakness of mine.) Every once in a while though, I find a recipe that inspires me to do something fancier for breakfast.

That's what happened when I saw baked eggs with bacon in avocado on SteakNPotatoesKindaGurl. I love avocados so I couldn't wait to try them. I wanted to add some freshness to the dish, though, so I thought I would make it with some homemade salsa and without the bacon.

These were pretty delicious. The eggs tasted great with the creamy avocado, and the fresh salsa added freshness and spice to the richness of the avocado and eggs. It's actually the first time I made salsa from scratch and I am kind of kicking myself for not doing it earlier. It was so tasty and fresh. It even smelled amazing because of the lime juice and cilantro. So much better than the jarred stuff!

I would definitely make these again. Maybe next time I'll go the bacon route. (It's not often that I don't go the bacon route.) They were pretty simple to put together, and definitely a nice change from my usual morning routine.

Ingredients for the baked eggs:

1 large ripe avocado
2 medium or large eggs
Lime juice
Salt and pepper

Ingredients for the salsa:

1/2 pint of ripe grape tomatoes, chopped
1/4 of a small white onion, finely diced
4 slices of pickled jalapeno pepper, chopped
1/4 cup of cilantro, chopped, plus more for garnishing, if desired
Juice of 1/2 a lime
Avocado scooped out of the avocado halves, if any, chopped

I would recommend using medium eggs for this dish, or large eggs at most. Mine were extra large and I had to scoop a bunch of avocado out and I still didn't have room for all of the egg white. If you scoop out avocado to make room for the eggs, set it aside and use it in the salsa. If you want to keep the avocados from browning while you work, brush them with some lemon juice and that will keep them from oxidizing as quickly.

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.

Halve the avocado and discard the pit. Season the avocado halves with salt, pepper and a spritz of lime juice. Crack one egg into each avocado half. Season the egg with salt and pepper.

Place the avocado halves onto a baking dish and bake until the eggs reach the desired doneness. (I like my eggs hard-cooked and baked them for about 20 minutes, but cooking times will vary so keep an eye on the eggs.) You may want to put the avocados in a small baking dish, if possible, to keep them from tipping.

While the eggs are baking, combine all of the ingredients for the salsa in a bowl and mix well. When the eggs are done baking, serve with salsa immediately.