Charred Kale Frittata

 

This recipe is true to what I made given my restrictions (I was camping–did you hear?) but there are additional things you could add that would make it— dare I say— even better (cheese). Whatever you decide to add to gussy it up/make it your own, the things that I feel like made it so fantastic was the char on the kale (stems and leaves!), keeping the onions a little chunkier than usual to maintain lots of good texture at the end, and letting the eggs brown on the bottom (like, really brown). I did flip mine to finish cooking the top (because that’s right— I was camping), but at home, you could simply pop into an oven if you were not wanting to flip/not confident in your flipping skills.

YIELD — 1 large frittata

 

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for drizzling

  • 1/2 medium onion, thinly sliced or chopped

  • Kosher salt

  • 1 large bunch kale, preferably Lacinato/Tuscan kale

  • Crushed red pepper flakes

  • 8–10 large eggs, whisked to blend

Directions

1. Strip the leaves from the stems of the kale. Thinly slice the stems and tear the leaves into bite-sized pieces. 

2. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet (9”–10”, preferably cast iron) over high heat. Add onion and season with salt. Stirring fairly regularly, cook the onions till they’re tender and cooked through but still have some texture (an al-dente onion, if you will), with some good color/charring/frizzling at the edges, 4–6 minutes.

3. With the heat as high as it can go, add the kale (stems and leaves) and season with salt and pepper. I like to use tongs, but using whatever you have, toss the kale in the skillet among the onions and olive oil. Without touching, let the kale cook at the bottom of the skillet –we are actively looking to almost burn the first layer of leaves here (aka char), so resist the urge to toss (this is where you tell yourself to relax!). 

4. Okay, now you can toss the leaves again, just to let the leaves on top get some of that same char (this will also encourage wilting). 

5. Season your eggs with salt. Once the kale is wilted, bright green with bits of almost crispy char, add a pinch of crushed red pepper flakes to the kale, toss once or twice. Add another drizzle of olive oil around the edge of the skillet and add your eggs, letting them fry slightly around the edges for 30 seconds or so. 

6. Using a spatula, give everything a stir to encourage the uncooked egg on top to cook/fry at the bottom for about 20–30 seconds. Do this once more, then reduce the heat to medium-high. 

7. Let the eggs officially fry/brown/sizzle on the bottom and at the edges until the egg is puffed and deeply golden brown at the edges and the bottom of the skillet— it will smell like fried eggs in the best way. The top will not quite be set, so here you have two options:

8. Either pop the whole skillet into a 450° oven (or under a broiler) for a minute or so to set the last of the eggs, OR, place a large plate on top of the frittata, flip the entire thing, and flip it back into the skillet to briefly cook the top for 30–60 seconds (this is what I did, but either method would work). I found the skillet option to be not that tricky (not trickier than flipping an upside-down cake) and it gets you some nicely browned egg flavor on the top (plus, it looks cool, like a golden brown omelet). 

9. If you wanted to add cheese, add it with the eggs (I would go for Parm or white cheddar), and if you wanted to add herbs, I’d leave them out of the frittata but toss them with lemon juice and scatter them over at the end, like a salad. Sprinkle the frittata with flaky sea salt before slicing/serving/wrapping it in tin foil to take with you on a travel adventure. 

vegetables, newsletterAlison RomanNewsletterComment