Shakshuka: Try multiple variations of this rich and filling dish

By Evan Kleiman Jan. 17, 2024 Food & Drink

Shakshuka contains peppers, onion, tomatoes, and harissa. Credit: Shutterstock.

“Put an egg on it!” was the culinary exhortation of the 2000s. This tip lives on because there is no better way of taking a simple dish and making it richer and more filling thanks to the fat and protein in the egg. It’s one reason why I particularly appreciate shakshuka, the North African dish in which eggs are cooked in a spice-inflected tomato-pepper sauce.

Eggs aside, who doesn’t want to slurp a highly-flavored tomato sauce? The dish is also a perfect excuse to have your favorite bread in the house. Swiping an airy crumb, toasted or soft, or a piece of flatbread through the tomato and egg yolk is fundamental when eating shakshuka.

Because many food cultures embrace this dish, to call a version “traditional” is a no-win assertion. There are probably as many variations as there are cooks. But I’m going to go with the North African version as my base.

Ingredients are peppers, onion, tomatoes, and harissa, the characteristic spice mixture that can be found as a blend of dry spices or as a paste. To my taste, onion is a core component of the dish. Some versions are pepper-heavy. The peppers themselves can be sweet, spicy, or a combination of the two. Other recipes leave the peppers out completely, which strikes me as too bland. More “traditional” recipes add tomato paste to the fresh or canned tomatoes used in the sauce. Some cooks like to chop the ingredients into a relatively small dice so they cook down into a smoothish mixture, while others prefer a more chunky sauce. There are advocates, both eater and cook, for every version.

Once your sauce is finished, create little bowls by pushing the sauce aside, and crack the eggs into them. You can either bake the dish uncovered, which results in a firmer yolk and more intense sauce because of evaporation. Or you can baste the eggs by putting a lid on the pan and cooking the dish on the stovetop. You can more easily keep your yolks more liquid with this method. It will take a shorter time to make the dish than it did for me to explain how to do it.

There is a major variation on shakshuka that I’ve come to appreciate. It’s the Turkish breakfast dish menemen, in which beaten eggs are added to the hot sauce and become scrambled within it. Some cooks make the dish more saucy, others more eggy.

Here are shakshuka recipes to try if you want something more structured than my meanderings. Kenji Lopez-Alt shares his version, explaining many variations along the way. If you love peppers, you might enjoy this pepper-heavy version from Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi. Here’s a video from the Tunisian cook Eya. I also really like this recipe from Russ Parsons back when he worked at the LA Times. It’s the only one that starts the peppers cooking in olive oil first, the way I make it.

Lodge Bread in LA offers this shakshuka. Photo by Jakob Layman.