Eggs and beans make a great breakfast, lunch or brunch dish for the bariatric patient and in this cheat’s version of a shakshuka ( a Middle Eastern favourite) they offer a great meal with plenty of protein, veggies and fibre without all the faff of making something laboursome from absolute scratch.
The key ingredient is a humble can of beans (at their simplest I use low-sugar or reduced-sugar baked ones) but there are many variations in sauces as varied as chilli, Mediterranean, curried and all the rest.
There’s no need to serve with anything else, although my own non-WLS tribe love this dish with a chunk of wholemeal or sour dough bread.
CHEAT’S BEANY SHAKSHUKA
Ingredients
METRIC/US
low-fat cooking spray or mist
1 red onion, thinly sliced
1 red and 1 orange pepper/capsicum, seeded and sliced
1 clove garlic, crushed
½ tsp ground cumin
1 tsp smoked paprika
415 g/14 oz can low-sugar or reduced-sugar beans (I used Heinz)
400 g/14 oz chopped tomatoes
salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 medium eggs
chopped parsley to garnish
Method
- Liberally spritz a large lidded frying pan with low-fat cooking spray or mist. Heat, add the onion and peppers/capsicum and cook for 6-8 minutes or until tender.
- Add the garlic, cumin and smoked paprika and cook for a further 1 minute.
- Add the beans and tomatoes with salt and pepper to taste, mixing well then simmer for about 5 minutes until bubbly and slightly thickened.
- With the back of a spoon, make 4 wells in the beany sauce and crack an egg into each.
- Cover the whole pan with the lid and cook over a low heat for 5-8 minutes, until the egg whites are set.
- Serve straight from the pan, sprinkled with chopped parsley to garnish.
SERVES 4
WLS PORTION: ½-1
V suitable for Vegetarians
CALORIES PER PORTION: 218
PROTEIN: 14.5 g
CARBOHYDRATE: 23.4 g
FAT: 6.8 g
Image courtesy of asda.com