Chilaquiles Verdes With Fried Eggs Recipe (2024)

Mexican
Fried Eggs
Eggs
Quick Breakfast

The ultimate comforting breakfast food.

J. Kenji López-Alt

Culinary Consultant

Kenji is the former culinary director for Serious Eats and a current culinary consultant for the site. He is also a New York Times food columnist and the author of The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science.

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Updated November 08, 2022

Why It Works

Freshly-fried tortilla chips provide the heft and crunch required to stand up to being simmered in salsa.
Cut wedges of soft corn tortillas are deep-fried until puffy and crisp, yet still pale golden.
Frying the chips just before adding them to the salsa yields the best results.

There are some words you don't normally associate with good food. Wet. Limp. Soggy. These are not descriptors you generally want to be putting in your mouth. But there are exceptions to every rule, and it just happens that one of the most delicious dishes of all time fits all three of those definitions.Chilaquilesjust happen to sound a whole lot better than "wet, limp, soggy nachos."

Chilaquiles Verdes With Fried Eggs Recipe (2)

Ok, I'm being a little bit unfair here. The best chilaquiles (the kind we're after) aren't so much wet as moist, and aren't so much limp as "gently softened until the chips retain just a bit of crunch but dissolve in your mouth into a mix of comforting starch and hot salsa." But still, when it comes down to it,chilaquiles are essentially soggy nachos—an excuse to eat chips and salsa for breakfast.

It's a super-simple dish to make once you have the basic ingredients ready. All you've got to do is heat up some salsa in a pan, thin it out with a little water or chicken stock, fold in some chips, and top it all with a few garnishes: Mexicancrema, crumbled cheese, sliced onions, chopped cilantro, and fried or scrambled eggs are my go-to. But there's some finesse in perfecting them.

First and foremost, youmustuse freshly-fried tortilla chips. I've yet to find a brand of store-bought chips that have the heft and crunch required to stand up to being simmered in salsa. I make my chips by cutting whole soft corn tortillas into wedges, then deep frying them in a wok until they're puffy and crisp but not yet deeply browned. Frying the chips just before adding them to the salsa will give you the best possible results.

Chilaquiles Verdes With Fried Eggs Recipe (3)

As for the salsa, you can use a doctored-up store-bought salsa verde or even a couple of cans of enchilada sauce with some fresh cilantro and lime juice if you'd like. But if you go through the troubleof making your own, you'll be rewarded with a breakfast fit for ajefe. Especially when it's topped with a runny egg.

September 2013

Recipe Details