Recipe: Cheesy Mini Frittata Muffins with Pickled Jalapeños

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The base for this easy mini frittata muffin recipe is super simple—just eggs and a boxed pancake mix and a little cheese is all you need to achieve these cute, bouncy, and conveniently portable breakfast bites.

There are so many great combinations of fillings that you can add to the base batter to customize them. For these, I decided to go for a jalapeño popper vibe. I don’t think I’m ever not craving jalapeño poppers which is why I also have recipes for Jalapeño Popper Crostini (here) and Jalapeño Popper Stuffed Soft Pretzels (here). For this recipe, I mixed in pepper jack cheese and pickled jalapeños into the batter but you can change this to whatever you normally like to add to a frittata, quiche, or omelette. And the approach would be the same as for a frittata, quiche, or omelette—pre-cook the ingredients that need extra cooking time or release a lot of water and drain any super wet ingredients before mixing them in.

I have been using this easy egg + boxed pancake mix hack to make these since I was in college and they might be the oldest recipe that I still make today with relatively few alterations to when I would make them 20 years ago. One improvement that I have learned for it more recently, though, is to use a good quality pancake mix. This is NOT sponsored but I really like Bob’s Red Mill’s homestyle buttermilk pancake (and waffle) mix. I noticed that when using this nicer pancake mix, my frittata muffins turned out airier and more pillowy than when using the same (cheaper) pancake mix brand that I used in college. They’ll still be good either way! But if you are put off by denser egg things, go for a pancake mix that you also find produces light fluffy pancakes.

I thought of this recipe concept again earlier this year when it was pretty challenging to find eggs in stock at the grocery store and even when they were available they were super pricey. This caused me to by more mindful about using my eggs sparingly and I am still carrying that mindset with me even though the issue is not as bad as it was a few months ago. This recipe uses fewer eggs than you would need to make a frittata but really satisfies the same cravings, and much like an elaborate frittata, these are perfect for a brunch party!

Now, for my usual disclaimers about decorating with edible flowers. The flowers you see in the photos are safe to eat and I grew the myself in my own backyard. I used pansies and sweet alyssum and the leaves are parsley and dill. The flowers have very minimal impact on taste but I think adding some herbs on top gives them a nice look and adds a smidge of an extra depth of flavor. In this case, I think the dill pairs very well with the pickled jalapeños so if I were making these for myself and not for the ‘gram, I would have just gone big with the dill on top. If you do wish to decorate with edible flowers, this is a great recipe to do so because you are placing the flowers on a very wet batter. The moisture from the batter helps the flowers keep their color and shape in the heat of the oven. For best results, use very thin flowers and make sure they are fully in contact with the surface of the batter, as anything that is not touching the batter will easily shrivel up while the muffins are baking.

I recently learned that Starbucks has these things called “egg bites” that I guess are pretty popular; I haven’t stepped into a Starbucks in over a decade so I wouldn’t really know but based on looking at photos I’d say those look more eggy-textured whereas these are much more fluffy and have a slight hint of a Southern biscuit vibe that comes from combining the egg and the pancake mix. That’s why I call them frittata muffins—they are definitely like the texture and flavor of a frittata but in adorable muffin form.

How to Make Cheesy Mini Frittata Muffins with Pickled Jalapeños

(Makes 6 muffins)

Ingredients for muffins

3 eggs
2/3 cup American style dry buttermilk pancake mix
~2 cups grated pepper jack cheese
1/4 cup pickled jalapeños, thoroughly drained and roughly chopped
2 scallions, chopped

Special Supplies

6 muffin liners

Ingredients for Decorating (optional)

parsley or cilantro leaves
dill
edible flowers, such as pansies, violas, and sweet alyssum
1 tbsp butter, melted

Procedure

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line muffin tins with paper muffin liners.

Beat eggs thoroughly in a mixing bowl. Pat pickled jalapeños dry of any excess moisture and mix in with the eggs. Stir in pancake mix. Then fold in scallions and pepper jack cheese.

Divide batter evenly among lined muffin tins.

Decorate if desired. Try to use only the softest parts of the herbs and flowers and press them against the surface of the batter, ensuring as much contact as possible to preserve their color and shape. Brush decorations with melted butter, again to help preserve their color while baking.

Bake for 15–17 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Allow them to cool and set slightly before removing and enjoying.

Recipe: Cheesy Curry Burger Buns (Small Batch)

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This small batch burger bun recipe is for small households that don’t typically plan on eating burgers for more than half of the week. It makes four buns, so it is great for a small(?) family of four having a burger night together, but is really perfect for a household of just two, like mine, and I will explain why in a moment.

One of the things that I find very odd/annoying/puzzling is that it is impossible to buy a small package of hamburger buns from the grocery store. They almost always come in packages of 8, or at the very minimum, if I’m lucky, a fancy package of 6 brioche buns. Were hamburgers exclusively a party food at some point? I think it’s been quite a long time since families of 2 parents + 6 children were a common household size, so why so many? Is it possible that typical American families are eating burgers for dinner every day (something my Chinese-American brain can’t even imagine)? I’m not here to judge if you do, but I am saying that personally, there have been so many times I have been put off from planning a fun Friday burger night at home with just me and Spouse because I don’t want to buy an 8-pack of burgers and be stuck not knowing what to do with the remaining 6.

I am very adverse to food waste, so somehow it makes more sense to me to go through the time and effort of making my own small batch of burger buns from scratch than it does to get forced into buying too many from the store.

If you are like me, then this recipe is for you. And if you are like me, then you probably are also aware that that extra time and effort of making your own dough and baking your own buns comes with a much bigger payoff than just avoiding food waste—it in fact comes with the added pure joy of your home smelling amazing as the dough bakes and the satisfaction that eating delicious homemade bread can bring.

This recipe is perfect for households of two like mine because it means you have a pair of buns to eat when they are soft and fluffy and still warm from the oven, and then a pair to use for burgers. These buns have cheddar cheese and Japanese curry powder baked right in to them so they are plenty flavorful on their own and absolutely wonderful as snacking buns. Then you have the remaining pair of buns to use for burgers the next day, at which point they have had time to firm up slightly and develop the ability to function as perfect burger buns. Another thing that really annoys me is so many hamburger buns, from stores or at restaurants, just completely disintegrate when put to the task of actually being used to hold a burger patty and fillings. Other than just being delicious homemade buns, I am super proud of this recipe because of how successful these next-day buns were at actually keeping together the half-pound burgers I made with them.

Some Notes about ingredients for these cheesy curry flavored buns

• Active dry yeast: Active dry yeast needs to be activated in some sugar and warm water before use, as opposed to “instant” yeast which you can typically dump into your bowl with other dry ingredients. I always activated my instant yeast anyway as a good practice to make sure my yeast was still alive before using; I’ve accidentally used older yeast in the past without testing and my dough took 4x the estimated time to rise, even on a warm day. Since I am going through the process anyway, I started to use active dry yeast to be a little more old-school and I have been really happy with my bakes after making the switch. But you can definitely sub instant yeast if that’s what you have.

• Cheddar cheese: I wanted these buns to be flavorful and not just plain vessels for my burgers. Cheddar cheese, grated with the smallest holes of your grater (or one you’d typically use for parmesan on pasta) adds real depth to the buns and I think it helps with the structure too. Parmesan, romano, or asiago would also be good options here.

• Curry powder: I decided to amp up the flavor even more by adding some Japanese curry powder to my buns. There are a lot of other hamburger bun recipes out there and I wanted mine to be really unique, and I just love baking curry flavored things. Plus I think the flavor of the curry powder goes really well with the cheddar. Japanese curry is very mild, so these buns aren’t spicy. If you do not have Japanese curry powder or are not as interested in your buns packing such a punch of flavor, please feel free to omit this ingredient (but don’t skip the cheese!)

• Half an egg?: This small batch dough recipe only requires half of an egg, and the other half gets used for the eggwash, to give the buns a nice golden brown shine as they bake. First you just need to beat the egg to a homogenous consistency. Then you can eyeball dividing that egg mixture in half! Contrary to what more traditional baking cookbooks and pastry chefs might tell you, baking does not always have to be crazy precise. Making a dough like this is definitely about feeling; if the dough feels too wet and sticky because you added a touch too much egg, you can always add a pinch or two of flour to balance it out and your buns will be just fine.

This is what the disks of dough looked like right after shaping, before the second proof

This is what they looked like right before I began decorating.

Decorating the buns

You definitely don’t have to decorate the buns like I did. I needed to do that to catch your attention so you would click into this recipe. I did not do that to make them taste better. (The flowers I used don’t taste bad either, but they don’t really add anything to the taste of the buns.) I provided details in the recipe both for if you do or don’t want to decorate the buns with edible flowers before baking.

If you do choose to decorate with edible flowers, make sure they are soft, thin flowers that can really adhere to the surface of the buns. This contact, and a brushing of melted butter on top, are what ensure that the flowers keep their form and color while the buns are baking.

The buns will continue to proof as you are decorating. Keep this in mind; if you are a slow decorator, you should start your decorating earlier in the second proof phase. You will want the buns to proof for about 30 minutes in between smashing them flat to shape them and putting them in the oven. If you are not decorating your buns, simply cover them and let them proof for 30 minutes before putting them in the oven.

An important note about using these buns: please read!

For enjoying these buns plain, they are best consumed on the same day they are baked, especially right after they’ve come out of the oven and cooled just slightly to a comfortable temperature to hold. Just because I wrote this recipe with the intent to make hamburger buns does not mean you can’t enjoy them as a snack or a large dinner roll—they are so tasty and soft and pillowy on their own when freshly baked!

If you plan to use these as burger buns, I strongly recommend that you make them a day ahead!

Allow them to cool completely and then store them in an airtight container (I used a large plastic zip-top bag) at room temp. This allows the buns to firm up and dry out a little, which in turn makes them more structurally sound for your burger. You can definitely have them same-day for your burgers but they may not do as well supporting the weight of your patty or the wetness of your condiments. If you are a household of two, I hope you will enjoy the best of both worlds by eating two of the buns when they are fresh and enjoying the other two the next day as amazing vessels for your burgers.

How to Make Cheesy Curry Burger Buns

(Makes 4 buns)

Ingredients

3/4 cup warm milk
1 tsp active dry yeast
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 cup all purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
1 1/4 tsp Japanese curry powder
1 tsp kosher salt
2 tbsp butter, melted
1 egg, divided
1/3 cup finely grated sharp cheddar
edible flowers for decorating (optional)
1 tbsp butter, melted (optional)

Procedure

Make the dough: Place milk, yeast, and brown sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer and stir gently to dissolve the yeast. Let stand until the yeast starts to bloom (about 5 minutes).

Fit stand mixer with a dough hook. Turn the stand mixer on to the lowest setting (speed 1) and gradually add flour. Add salt, curry powder, and butter. Beat egg and add half to the mixer; set the rest aside for the eggwash. Then add cheddar.

Once everything looks slightly incorporated together, scrape everything to the bottom of the bowl and turn the stand mixer up to the medium setting (speed 5). Knead for about 5 minutes so a soft dough forms, pausing as needed to pull the dough off the hook and back into the bowl. The dough should feel very soft but not at all sticky; if the dough still feels sticky, add an additional 1/2 teaspoon of flour at a time, kneading in each time, until the dough feels soft and smooth.

Roll the dough into a taut ball and return to the bowl (you shouldn’t need to grease it). Cover dough with a damp tea towel or plastic wrap and place in a warm spot. Allow to rise until doubled in size, about 1–2 hours.

Lightly dust your worksurface and turn out dough. Deflate dough and form a flat disk, then cut into 4 equal portions. Roll each portion into a taut ball. Press each ball to flatten into a disk about 3/8–1/2 inch thick. Cover with a damp tea towel or plastic wrap.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

If not decorating: Allow the dough to rest for 30 minutes or until a low dome forms and transfer to a parchment-lined tray, making sure there is at least 2 inches of space in between each bun. Brush buns with remaining beaten egg.

If decorating: Prep your decorations by trimming away excess stems, etc. so that the flowers can lie flat against the surface of the dough. Allow the dough to rest for 15–20 minutes. (Note that dough will continue to proof while you are decorating, so if you are slow at decorating, start decorating sooner. This second proof should be a total of about 30 minutes including decorating time.) Whisk together remaining egg plus 1 teaspoon water to make an eggwash. Working on one bun at a time, place the dough on a parchment-lined baking tray, brush with eggwash, then gently press the flowers onto the surface of the dough; ensuring contact with the dough will help the flowers keep their shape and color while baking, so be generous with the eggwash and use it to really adhere the flowers. Repeat with each bun, making sure they are spaced by at least 2 inches on the tray. Brush melted butter over everything, making sure to really coat the flower decorations.

Bake for 25–30 minutes, or until the bottoms are golden brown. Buns will be very soft and fluffy if eaten on the same day. For best burger results, cool buns completely, store in an airtight container at room temperature, and use the following day.

10 Ways to Make an Edible Flower Bouquet (Without a Garden)

I love flowers just as much as the next girlie girl but what I love to receive more than anything is the gift of good food. And if your Valentine this year is like me, you might want to consider skipping that generic bouquet of roses for something homemade and edible instead!

One of the most frequent questions I get about making pretty food is asking where I buy the flowers I incorporate into my food styling. The answer is that most of them come right from my own backyard—growing your own edible flowers is the best way ensure the freshest and safest blooms that you can eat. I totally understand, though, that not everyone has their own outdoor space to grow in, which is why I also love creating flowers that are made directly out of actual food. The truth about edible flowers like pansies, violas, and zinnias is that while they make your food look beautiful, they don’t actually add that much, taste-wise. That’s why making your own flowers out of food is an even better option!

You won’t need a garden or access to a farmer’s market to make these pretty and impressive edible bouquets below! Whether you are looking to make a thoughtful dish to wow someone on Valentine’s Day or just wanting to treat yourself or your dinner guests with something special for the eyes as well as the palate, here are 10 ideas for how to make your own edible flower bouquet.

Sashimi Rose Rice Bowls

I love making these with salmon sashimi but you could use any kind of sashimi you wish. Use the thinnest piece and roll it into a tight spiral for the center, then continue to wrap pieces of sashimi around until you have formed your desired size for your “rose”. Serve these over a bowl of sushi rice, which will help to hold the rose formation in place. I usually like to style these with leaves cut from cucumbers. Here is where I learned how to do the cucumber leaves. You could also roll Japanese pickled ginger into roses and serve that as part of your edible sushi bouquet as well.

Charcuterie Board Pizza with Charcuterie Roses

My Valentine’s Day tradition with Spouse is to have a chill pizza night at home. You could make your at-home pizza date even more epic and romantic by turning your pizza into an edible bouquet! For this pizza, I was inspired by my love for charcuterie boards and I other than the melty cheese, I actually added most of the ingredients on top of the pizza after it was baked. Rolling slices of charcuterie like salami and pepperoni into roses is an easy way to make one of the most delicious edible bouquets.

I developed the recipe for this Charcuterie Board Pizza for 3 Little Pigs. You can find the full recipe here on their website.

Radish Violas on Toast

Dress up a simple toast with your favorite spread by adding these cute violas made out of purple daikon. Or make a whole bunch of crostini to snack on while having a romantic movie night at home.

Here are step-by-step photos that show how I made these. I used mini toasts for the base and pâté for the spread in the tutorial but you could use whatever spread as you want. You just need something that will hold the cut radish pieces in place.

For an alternative color option, soak the purple daikon slices in something acidic like lemon juice and they will turn hot pink! You could also use white daikon and soak them in some beet juice to make pink flowers if you can’t find purple daikon.

Sweet Potato Roses on Cheddar-Stuffed Focaccia

Unlike actual flowers, baking can often improve the appearance of flowers that are made out of veggies, curling their “petals’ and making them look more natural. I think that is very true when making roses out of sweet potato and baking them into the surface of an easy from-scratch focaccia. You can find the full recipe for this mushroom, sweet potato, and cheddar stuffed focaccia here on my blog.

Tomato Rose Caprese

I love making these tomato roses in the summertime when I can get all sorts of fun varieties of cherry tomatoes from the farmers market. But you can still make them with regular ol’ store-bought cherry or grape tomatoes; I actually find that it is easier to work with tomatoes when they are firmer, and adding a little sprinkle of salt at the end can really help improve the flavor.

Here are photos that show how I made these.

Use these beautiful raw tomato roses to make caprese, serving them with mozzarella (or burrata) and basil or a drizzle of pesto. Or, make an easy caprese-inspired tart by baking up a store-bought puff pastry for the crust, topping with something mild and creamy for a spread, and filling your canvas with these tomato roses before finishing off with some fresh herbs.

Labneh Painted Toast

I always say that toast makes a wonderful edible canvas. And I have found that thick, creamy labneh works great as an edible paint when it is combined with any number of natural powers to make different colors. You can make your own powders by blending dried herbs and freeze-dried fruits in a spice blender until very fine, and then mix that in with the labneh to get your desired shade. Here are some colors I have successfully made:

• red: chili powder, paprika

• orange: paprika + curry powder

• yellow: ground turmeric, curry powder

• green: matcha, moringa powder, spirulina powder

• blue: butterfly pea flower

• purple: elderberry powder, beet powder + butterfly pea

• pink: beet powder

• peach: hibiscus powder

I like to use a mini offset spatula to spread my edible “paints” onto my toast. And I sometimes use bee pollen or sesame seeds as finishing touches.

Savory Custard Tart with Veggie Flowers

This savory cheesy tart is more custardy than a quiche or frittata, but any of these eggy tart options are a great vessel for holding together a veggie bouquet. Simply make your egg mixture as you normally would, arrange your vegetable pieces, and then bake according to your recipe. I made these roses out of orange bell peppers; I used a sharp knife to cut off the exterior, keeping it intact as one long strip. Then I rolled the strip into a spiral to form a rose. I cut leaves out of zucchini using the same method that I used for the cucumber in the sashimi bowls above.

Root Vegetable Rose Bouquet Tart

Pretty much any veggie ingredient that can be thinly-sliced and made soft can be turned into edible roses. I love making them with beets and fall squash because of the beautiful rich color that the beets bring to the edible bouquet.

My general formula that I have used for the many bouquet tarts I’ve made like this is to make a flavorful short crust and bake it all the way in the tart pan. Then, fill it with a cheesy spreadable filling that does not require baking. Then fill it up with a whole bunch of edible roses! For this specific version that I made a couple of autumns ago, you can find the full recipe here on my blog.

Pickled Pattypan Squash Toast

The cross-section of pattypan squash already looks like the shape of a flower to me so that’s how this idea came to be. Slicing the squash thin with a mandolin and then quick-pickling them allows the slices to become softer and more pliable for shaping them into flowers!

Bell Pepper Poppy Focaccia

I think I have saved the easiest idea for last! Inspired by the beautiful California poppies that grow in my neighborhood, I made this focaccia bouquet design using orange bell peppers to resemble poppies. I just cut the bottoms off of the bell peppers and did a tiny bit of shaping to define the petal shapes a little better. Any tender green stems and herbs would work great for leaves, including even the carrot fronds that I used here.

I hope this list will inspired to make your own edible bouquets at home! If you try one of these ideas and share it on Instagram, please tag me so I can admire how it turned out!

Charcuterie Board Pizza

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Charcuterie board pizza—all the essentials of a good charcuterie board, except you can also eat the board because it’s pillowy carby pizza crust. This one is topped with fig jam, fontina and manchego cheeses, prosciutto, soppressata, pepperoni, fresh herbs, and mini pickles.

After shaping my pizza dough “board”, I swapped in a sweet fig jam in place of pizza sauce and baked on a nice gooey layer of creamy fontina cheese. I added all the other toppings—the charcuterie, shavings of nutty manchego, and the pickled cornichons/gherkins—after the pizza came out of the oven, so it still has that snack board vibe.⁣

Click here to get the recipe on the Three Little Pigs site!

Thank you so much to Three Little Pigs for sponsoring this recipe!