After eating a vegan fried egg at Plant Power in San Diego, I was determined to replicate it at home! Now, this isn't anything like the vegan fried egg I ate. But it's also completely delicious and it fools the mouth and taste buds, conquering exactly what you're looking for in a runny egg yolk!
First off, you'll need to make the flaky buttermilk biscuits from the hot for food cookbook, Vegan Comfort Classics. You'll also want to make some tempeh bacon or you can use a store-bought veggie bacon of your choice, but I think the meaty tempeh works best in this recipe!
If you already made a batch of biscuits for something else, then all you need is 4 for this recipe! The tempeh bacon is the same marinade from the cookbook and already on the blog here. To keep things simpler, it's a good idea to make the biscuits and bacon in advance and make the egg components and sauteéd veg before serving.
If you're wondering what kind of dishes I used, these were rentals from a prop house and I knew they were perfect, but here's something similar you can look for!
Everything was perfectly eggy and saucey, and it looked just like the real thing in my opinion! Every bite had a little bit of everything. You could also try using toast or english muffins instead of biscuits. And of course, you could just make this into a breakfast sandwich and skip the layered trifle thing. But it is a nice way to serve this individually! I wouldn't particularly advise making one large trifle because I think it'll just get too messy to serve.
Let me know what you think of this recipe by leaving a comment below. You can also share a photo of your creation on social and tag @hotforfood so I can see it!
vegan biscuit, bacon & egg breakfast trifle
Ingredients
vegan egg yolk
- 4 tablespoon melted vegan butter + 2 tablespoon of solid vegan butter that will be added to the hot mixture once thickened
- 2 campari/cocktail tomatoes, seeds removed
- ½ C water
- ¼ C unsweetened nondairy milk
- 4 tablespoon nutritional yeast
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- ½ teaspoon turmeric
- ½ teaspoon kala namak/black salt
vegan egg patty
- 1 brick medium firm or firm tofu (should be a 4-inch wide side)
- 1 to 2 tablespoon vegetable oil, for frying
- sea salt and ground black pepper, to taste
additional layers
- 4 flakey buttermilk biscuits
- 4 tablespoon vegan butter
- 8 slices tempeh bacon or store-bought vegan bacon
- 8 oz cremini mushrooms, sliced
- 2 onions, sliced (about 2 cups)
- 2 cups baby spinach
Instructions
- To make the egg yolk sauce, add the tomatoes, melted vegan butter, water, nondairy milk, nutritional yeast, cornstarch, and turmeric to a blender and blend on high until very smooth.
- Add this mixture to a saucepan and whisk over medium heat until thicker, approximately 6 to 9 minutes. Once it's bubbling and thicker, remove the sauce pan from the heat and set aside.
- For the egg patty, make sure you gently squeeze excess water from the brick of tofu with some paper towel or a tea towel. Cut 3 thin slices approximately ¼-inch thick from the widest side, then cut out circles approximately 3 ½-inches wide with a cookie cutter or with a knife from the thin slice. Then slice each circle in half lengthwise to make them thinner about ⅛-inch thick. This will require careful cutting and levelling the sharp knife with all your fingers placed on top of the circle of tofu as you slice across. You should have 6 thin discs.
- Heat a non-stick pan or cast iron pan over medium-high heat with a coating of vegetable oil.
- Add tofu circles once hot and fry for about 3 minutes on the first side. Season with sea salt and ground black pepper just before flipping. Then flip the circles of tofu and fry for another 2 to 3 minutes until golden brown and crispy. Remove the circles onto some paper towel and set aside.
- Keep the pan over medium-high heat and add 2 tablespoons of vegan butter as well as the sliced onions and mushrooms. Sauté only stirring occasionally to allow the onions and mushrooms to caramelize for about 10 minutes.
- Meanwhile, cut the biscuits in half and butter them. Once the onions and mushrooms are looking good and pretty much cooked and caramelized, place the biscuits butter side down on top of the onions and mushrooms and place a lid on the pan for 1 to 2 minutes to allow the biscuits to heat through and get soft. Remove them from the pan. Then toss spinach into the onions and mushrooms, stir to combine, and turn off the heat. Place the lid on the pan and the spinach will wilt in a few minutes.
- For serving, you will warm up the egg yolk mixture again on low and whisk in the additional 2 tablespoons of vegan butter. Once heated through, remove from the heat and stir in the kala namak just before serving.
- Cut the biscuit halves into chunks and layer in the bottom of your dish. Not every inch of the bottom of the dish needs to be covered by biscuits. I used about 3 to 4 chunks/pieces. Then layer some of the sautéed veg mixture. Pour on a couple spoonfuls of the egg yolk, then add 2 of the fried tofu circles, add some more egg yolk. Then layer some tempeh bacon, add more biscuit pieces, the sautéed veg, more egg yolk and then top with 1 tofu circle and a good portion of the egg yolk mixture on top to resemble a runny fried egg. The layering doesn't have to be done in this exact manner, but it worked out well for me!
Bev
Oh my, oh my goodness! This is so delicious! I made this for our Sunday brunch today, and we are still savoring all the yummy flavors left on our palates.
You are such a talented chef, Lauren! Thank you for sharing your talents and genius with the world!
Eline Derakhshan
I just made the egg part for a brunch for me and my boyfriend. The taste was amazing. I couldn't find the campari tomatoes in the Netherlands, so I bought the ones available. Still turned out delicious!
But, now I have a question: I have so much egg yolk left, what else can I do with it? Maybe on salads? Other sandwiches? I need inspiration!
Hilary
Um... WHAT??? I have been wanting to use the yolk recipe to make vegan Loco Moco..... and wowowowow. It absolutely blew me away. I put a little mushroom broth powder in the yolk for extra savory/umami. This recipe is hot fire flames.
jaime
Hi! I only made the yolk from this recipe but it was out of this world! Yum! I am wondering if you have used it for other things? I make a quiche fairly often, how would this do added to the tofu/chickpea flour mix to make it more eggy? Is it good baked?
Thanks for all your recipes.
Lauren Toyota
ya you can def add it to lots of things. Mixed into the quiche would be great! ALSO this recipe will be included in the new cookbook with more USES and recipes too 😀