What You Should Know Before Making Brown Butter Scrambled Eggs

Upgrading the taste of scrambled eggs usually relies on adding extra ingredients. Whether it be spices, cheese, or in Gordon Ramsay's case, crème fraîche and chives, eggs pair well with many different flavors. But the truth is, butter alone can enhance scrambled eggs. Most recipes recommend using cold butter in scrambled eggs because it ultimately lends itself to a creamier consistency, but according to Cookist, browned butter is a more flavorful choice.

Browned butter is the result of heating butter until the water evaporates out and the milk solids separate from the fat. The more you heat it, the more toasted the milk solids get, and in the process, they develop a rich nutty flavor that makes scrambled eggs extra savory. This may seem like a simple way to make your egg breakfast taste better, however, browned butter can go from perfectly toasted to burned and unusable pretty quickly. That means you'll have to take a different cooking approach than what you're probably used to when scrambling eggs.

Cooking eggs slowly over low heat is generally the best way to go about scrambling eggs, Bon Appétit says, but when there's brown butter involved, you'll want to do the opposite instead. Per Food52, start with the heat on medium-high and add the butter first rather than at the same time as the eggs. Wait until the butter has browned completely, then add in the eggs. Push them around the pan, and within a minute, they should be perfectly scrambled.

If you're worried you might end up burning the butter in the process, The Kitchn recommends a slightly different, albeit still time-sensitive approach. When the butter finishes browning, briefly take the pan off the stovetop, then adjust the heat to medium-low before pouring in the eggs. Cook the eggs until they have firmed up slightly but are still runny, then remove the pan from the heat for a second time. Let the eggs cook the rest of the way from the hot butter and residual heat of the pan, and you'll end up with the same browned butter scrambled eggs.