Load Baguettes With Your Favorite Ingredients For The Ultimate Egg Boats

If you're looking for a crusty, sturdy vessel to contrast a fluffy filling for your egg boats, baguettes are the perfect option. These long, crusty French staples are easy to find and will hold up under the weight of multiple fillings. In fact, layers of cheese and meat will melt into their crusts, endowing them with a flavorful and fortified foundation for a whipped egg filling.

You can use a standard baguette or a wider crusty batard loaf if you'd prefer a larger filling-to-crust ratio. To prep the baguette, cut V-shaped slits down the length of the loaf to create an oblong opening with a half-inch border to ensure that the egg filling won't spill out. The cut baguette will look similar to an opened baked potato. Remove the doughy crumb from the center of the baguette, and you're ready to layer your fillings. Place the baguettes onto baking trays before adding the filling to avoid a messy transfer from the cutting board to the tray.

You can layer slices of cheese and meat along the foundation of the hollowed-out baguette, followed by a prepared egg mixture. You can also make a quiche-like filling by combining scrambled eggs, cream, cheese, veggies, and seasonings in a mixing bowl before pouring the mixture into baguette boats. Slide the baguette boats into the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit until the egg mixture sets and puffs up. Thin baguettes take around 25 minutes and larger loaves up to 40 minutes.

Baguettes are essentially edible containers for egg bakes, so you can draw from the endless combinations of cheese, meat, and vegetables that you'd find in any frittata, quiche, or other breakfast casserole recipes. For extra flavor, you can brush the bottom of the bread boat with a garlic herb compound butter before layering raw or smoked proteins, cheese, and scrambled egg mixture.

For a twist on this eggs florentine recipe, you could blend eggs with cooked drained spinach, cream, nutmeg, shallots, and black pepper to pour over a baguette brushed with garlic herb butter and layered with thin shards of parmesan cheese. Blend eggs with ricotta, roasted red bell peppers, pesto, and mushrooms for a rich and savory Italian-inspired egg boat. You can also add a layer of Canadian bacon, mozzarella, and an egg, cream, and milk mixture for an eggs benedict boat to finish with a drizzle of this lemony Hollandaise sauce recipe.

If you're a fan of bagels and lox, spread chive cream cheese over the bottom of the baguette, followed by a layer of smoked salmon. Then pour a mixture of egg, tangy creme fraiche, dill, and onion powder, and finish with a sprinkle of capers or pickled onions. For an all-American favorite, layer maple-smoked bacon, shredded cheddar cheese, and an egg mixture spiked with Tabasco sauce, diced onions, and bell peppers. You can serve these egg boats as hearty main course breakfast or brunch dishes, or cut the stuffed loaves horizontally into appetizer-sized slices.