This TikTok Trick for Frying Eggs Is an Easy Way to Upgrade Your Breakfast

Eggs are magical and I’m grateful for them every day. They are incredibly versatile and can go a long way if you know what to do with them. My song of praise, however, is a new-ish tune. I used to consider myself “not really an egg person.”

In the video, Catalano first slices garlic cloves on a mandoline with the palm of her hand — a technique I was honestly a little hesitant about and therefore skipped. Garlic cloves are small and fumble around easily, so I prefer to steady them on a cutting board, and whip out a good ol’ fashioned chef’s knife for this one. 

The trick with this dish is timing. You want the garlic cloves to be crispy, but not burnt, and there’s about a 0.001 second window before perfect turns into perfectly bad. I sliced the garlic very thinly and added them to a cold, nonstick skillet with some neutral oil, and turned on the heat. While the cloves were still mostly pale but just starting to become golden around the edges, I nudged them into a little circle, added my cold egg, and encouraged my crispy garlic slices onto the egg white raft. 

I seasoned my egg with salt and pepper and, just as in the video, I covered the pan for a bit with a lid, so the steam would cook the egg white. As I expected, after a few minutes, the egg was cooked, but the garlic had become soft from the steam. I probably could have continued cooking it a few seconds longer, uncovered, just to re-crisp the slices, but I didn’t want to risk burning them or overcooking the yolk. Next time, I’ll remove a few crispy garlic slices and drain them on a paper towel before I add the egg and cover, so I have extra crispy garlic to sprinkle on top.

Overall, it’s a straightforward dish, but deceptively requires good intuition and all of your attention. It comes together quickly, so it’s not the dish for impulsive multitaskers. I never doubted that it’d be delicious, and sure enough, it was! So if you can concentrate for 6 minutes while you focus on nothing but garlic and eggs, I’d definitely give this one a try.