Cottage Cheese Scrambled Eggs on Rye with Cherry Tomatoes

Cottage cheese melts into scrambled eggs and makes them soft and creamy without any cream or butter. It also adds about 8g of protein a serving. The trick is a low heat and patience: take the pan off while the eggs still look slightly wet.

Breakfast

Serves 2

Creamy cottage cheese scrambled eggs on toasted rye bread with blistered cherry tomatoes, spinach and chives

Ingredients

4 large eggs
150g cottage cheese
1 tsp olive oil
200g cherry tomatoes
60g baby spinach
4 thin slices wholegrain rye bread (about 120g in total)
A small bunch of chives, snipped
10g pumpkin seeds, toasted
Black pepper and a pinch of chilli flakes (optional)

Method

Heat half the oil in a non-stick frying pan over a medium-high heat. Add the tomatoes and cook for 4 to 5 minutes, shaking the pan, until the skins blister and start to split. Add the spinach for the last minute to wilt, then tip onto a plate and keep warm.
Whisk the eggs with the cottage cheese and plenty of black pepper. For a smoother texture, blend them together for a few seconds. Do not add salt; the cottage cheese brings enough.
Toast the rye bread.
Wipe out the pan, add the rest of the oil and set it over a low heat. Pour in the eggs and leave for 20 seconds, then stir slowly with a spatula, pushing the set egg from the edges into the middle.
Keep stirring gently for 3 to 4 minutes. Take the pan off the heat while the eggs still look slightly wet; they will finish cooking in the pan. The eggs are ready when there is no runny liquid egg left.
Pile the eggs onto the toast, add the tomatoes and spinach, and scatter over the chives, pumpkin seeds and chilli flakes.

Why it works

A serving has about 31g of protein for around 450 calories. Most of it comes from the eggs and cottage cheese, which is why this is a good breakfast after a morning workout or before a long day.

Why cottage cheese works so well. Most of its protein is casein, which is digested slowly. Stirred into eggs, it replaces the cream or butter many recipes use, so you get extra protein and a creamy texture with less saturated fat.

Rye bread adds fibre. Wholegrain rye is one of the higher-fibre breads, and the fibre slows how quickly the meal is digested. The tomatoes and spinach add more than one of your 5 a day.

The honest part is the salt. Cottage cheese and bread both contain salt, which is why none is added here. The NHS advises adults to have no more than 6g a day.

Rye bread contains gluten. If you are pregnant, use British Lion eggs, which the FSA says are safe to eat soft or runny. Otherwise, cook the eggs until there is no runny egg left. For more ways to use cottage cheese, try the banana oat protein pancakes. To work out your daily protein target, use our protein intake calculator.

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