The Testosterone Blueprint
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Shakshuka with Spinach

The North African breakfast that solves the protein problem. Four eggs, a tin of tomatoes, and a pan you do not wash between steps.

Breakfast

35

Serves 2

Shakshuka with spinach in a pan

Ingredients

  • 1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 onion, sliced
  • 1 red pepper (bell pepper), sliced
  • 3 cloves garlic, sliced
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp smoked paprika
  • 400g/14oz tin (can) chopped tomatoes
  • 100g/3½oz spinach
  • 4 eggs
  • Salt and black pepper
  • Optional: 60g/2oz feta, a handful of parsley

Method

  1. Heat the oil in a wide frying pan with a lid (about 26cm/10in) over medium heat. Add the onion and pepper with a pinch of salt and cook for 8 to 10 minutes until soft and starting to colour. Do not rush this; it is where the flavour comes from.
  2. Add the garlic, cumin and paprika. Cook for one minute until fragrant.
  3. Pour in the tomatoes. Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until thickened enough that a spoon leaves a trail.
  4. Stir in the spinach a handful at a time until wilted. Season.
  5. Make four wells in the sauce with the back of a spoon. Crack an egg into each.
  6. Cover (a large baking tray or foil works if you have no lid) and cook for 5 to 8 minutes, until the whites are set and the yolks still soft. Check at five; they go from perfect to firm quickly.
  7. Scatter over feta and parsley if using. Serve from the pan.

Why it works

Most people eat almost no protein at breakfast. Toast, cereal and pastries deliver under ten grams, which is why hunger arrives at eleven and stays. Two eggs plus feta here gets you to about 25g, around the amount studies link to a strong muscle-building response from a single meal.

The eggs bring more than protein. Yolks carry cholesterol, which is the raw material testosterone is synthesised from, along with vitamin D and choline. Men on very low fat diets consistently show lower testosterone, and skipping yolks is how most people end up there.

Adding spinach does two things. It brings magnesium, one of only two minerals with reasonably consistent evidence linking status to testosterone, and iron, which matters more for women with heavy periods than almost any other nutrient.

Cooking the tomatoes in olive oil is not incidental either. Lycopene absorbs several times better from cooked tomatoes with fat present than from raw ones.

More on why breakfast matters: three breakfast mistakes killing your testosterone.