There's a TikTok-approved way to cook eggs for breakfast — and we're nuts about it.
Registered dietitian Amy Wilichowski (aka @amywilichowski), 24, shared her favorite way of cooking eggs on TikTok recently, promising it to be life-changing: pesto eggs, a dish actor Chris Evans is apparently a big fan of, too.
In the video, Wilichowski, who lives in Boston, Massachusetts, drops a few spoonfuls of basil pesto in a hot pan, then cracks eggs directly into the oily, pine-nutty goodness.
"All you do is use pesto instead of the normal cooking oil that you cook your eggs in," she explains in the video, which now has over 8.5 million views and 1 million likes. "You can do a fried egg, scrambled eggs, a sunny-side-up egg."
Once her eggs are cooked, Wilichowski creates a beautiful toast, topping bread with ricotta cheese, avocado, the pesto eggs, honey, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes.
Before attempting Wilichowski's technique myself, I reached out to her for some advice.
The TikToker says she often makes her own pesto and has a firm belief that pesto should go on everything.
"I actually started by putting pesto on top of my eggs after cooking them," she said. "Then I realized I could just use the pesto as a replacement for the cooking oil since it has olive oil in it already."
"It's important to keep the heat on low though," she added, "since extra virgin olive oil, the oil that is typically in pesto, has a low smoke point. That way, you don't burn the pesto."
Wilichowski, who runs a small business called Roothie where she sells thrifted clothes and handmade accessories in addition to working as a dietician, says her dream is to open up her own "all-day boozy brunch restaurant." In the meantime, she shares recipes and cooking tips on TikTok and Instagram, many of which are ways to eat her pesto eggs.
"I've eaten them plain, on toast, on breakfast sandwiches and in breakfast bowls that are basically a mashup of avocado, soft scrambled pesto eggs, bacon, toasted sourdough and arugula," she said. "I think the best thing about them is that you can cook them in various ways — they're so versatile."
Eager to try my own hand at making Wilichowski's eggs, I heated a pan, tossed in some pesto and went to work. My fried pesto egg went on top of toast, topped with avocado and cut up twisted bacon, another life-changing breakfast hack I learned from TikTok.
The final product was nutty, cheesy and herbaceous from the pesto, and taken up an additional level by the toppings. I'd definitely cook my eggs in pesto again, as the oil in the pesto kept it from sticking and the pesto itself turned the whole thing into a flavor bomb.
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Wilichowski says she's learned TikTokers love food trends, so she's not surprised users of the platform have embraced her eggs.
"It's fun trying out interesting food combinations I see on social media to see if they actually taste good," she said. "There's a pickled garlic trend going around right now that I've been wanting to try. And those tri-fold tortillas that were trending a couple months ago were genius. But also, who doesn't love pesto?"
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