Fry Up Your Eggs In Chili Oil For A More Robust Breakfast

TikTok gets plenty of flack, but it's one of the quickest ways to catch up on emerging food trends. Cloud bread? Feta pasta? The iconic Emily Mariko salmon rice bowl? All recipes that went viral on TikTok. And if you've frequented the app in the past few years, you've undoubtedly heard of pesto eggs.

The idea behind this breakfast dish is to fry your eggs in pesto instead of olive oil. The spread should cook the eggs in a similar way since we all know pesto contains plenty of oil. But you get the added benefits of all the other delicious ingredients in pesto — namely basil, pine nuts, lemon, and garlic — which beautifully complement eggs and turn them into a delightfully springy toast topping.

But TikTok is nothing if not an idea-generating machine and app users were quick to point out other oils that could produce similarly delicious results. The hashtag using the term "chilioileggs" currently has 17.9 million views on the app and was inspired by pesto eggs, but are now a trending food in their own right. Here's how to make them and why spicy food lovers are going to want to give them a try.

If you've ever made fried eggs, you already know how to make chili oil eggs. The essential ingredient you'll need on hand, of course, is chili oil. In a video with over 200,000 likes, TikTok creator @snackqween uses the brand Lao Gan Ma Spicy Chili Crisp, but use whichever one meets your taste and spice level preferences. Place a few teaspoons in a frying pan, crack in a few eggs, and let them snap and sizzle as they cook and soak up the spicy flavors. Just like with pesto eggs, you can also drizzle a little oil on top of the eggs while they cook. You may not need it, but you can also add a pinch of salt and pepper.

Crunchy and spicy on the outside, but soft and runny on the inside, chili oil eggs are arguably more versatile than pesto eggs. You can serve them more traditionally over toast, but you can also use them to top rice, ramen, or other noodle dishes. For more flavor, finish off with a little soy sauce, green onion, or lemon juice, and your breakfast will be anything but boring.