This Pan-fried Eggs and Tomatoes is made with simple ingredients, but you will be surprised at how good it tastes. Eggs are fried into an omelet with brown spots at the bottom to enhance the flavors. Then come the juicy tomatoes and sweet onions to make the whole dish tasty.
A super quick and easy meal
While Western-style omelet is often made for breakfast, this tomato and egg dish is more suitable as a savory side dish (or even a main dish). I like to call it pan-fried eggs with tomatoes and onions (or omelet with tomatoes and onions). The name in Vietnamese is trứng chiên cà chua.
There is a more traditional Vietnamese dish, called trứng chưng cà chua, in which eggs and tomatoes are stir-fried together. I think this omelet is more flavorful and delicious than the traditional one.
Everything is cooked in one pan, and it takes just 10-15 minutes from start to finish. We like to serve it with steamed rice and fish sauce on the side.
Recipe Video
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Ingredients
This recipe requires very few ingredients: eggs, tomatoes, onions, and scallions. Eggs and tomatoes go really well with each other (like in this Vietnamese tomato egg drop soup).
To season it, we use salt, pepper and fish sauce. If you want to make it vegetarian, you can omit the fish sauce and add more salt. Then serve it with some soy sauce on the side.
Cooking Steps
As you can see in the video, it is very easy and straightforward to pan-fry eggs with tomatoes. I will do a summary of the main steps here and explain the way we cook it.
First, sauté the onions briefly until fragrant and add the tomatoes. Cook them for another minute so that the onions are slightly browned, which will bring out their sweetness, and the outside of tomatoes just start to soften.
Next, add the scallion slices. Then pour the beaten eggs into the pan evenly. Make sure to cook until the bottom of the omelet has some brown spots, producing lots of flavors for the eggs. However, don’t brown it too much since we don’t want our omelet to be dry.
Then flip the omelet and cook the other side very briefly. We want one side to get browned and keep the other side more lightly cooked so that we can still enjoy the softness and richness of the eggs.
It’s best to use a non-stick pan with a coating that allows for browning. I use a 9.5-inch Scanpan skillet.
And that’s it. You can find detailed list of ingredients and step-by-step instructions to cook this Vietnamese-style omelet in the recipe card below.
More Vietnamese Recipes for Dinner
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Pan-fried Eggs and Tomatoes
Ingredients
- 3 large eggs
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon fish sauce
- 2-3 scallion stalks, cut into 2-inch long pieces
- 1 small onion, thinly sliced (or half a medium onion)
- 2 medium tomatoes, cut into wedges (or 3 large tomatoes)
- cooking oil
Instructions
- In a bowl, add eggs, salt, pepper and fish sauce. Beat well.
- Place a pan over medium heat and add oil. Once the oil is hot, add onions. Stir and cook until fragrant (about 40 seconds).
- Add tomato wedges, stir to distribute evenly in the pan and cook for a minute until onions start to brown lightly and tomatoes just start to soften.
- Add scallions and give everything in the pan a stir to distribute evenly. Then pour beaten eggs into the pan.
- Let the omelet cook for about 10-15 seconds and then push the edges slightly towards the center to let the uncooked eggs flow out. Drizzle a bit more oil around the edges if needed.
- Cook for about 2 minutes until the bottom of the omelet= has brown spots. Don't let it brown too much or the omelet= will be dry. Flip (you can divide into quarters so that it will be easy to flip) and cook the other side briefly (about 30 seconds or so). Remove from the heat.
- Transfer to a serving plate and serve hot with steamed rice and some fish sauce on the side.
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