Gashouse Eggs

For old-time comfort food, there's no beating an egg and a slice of bread fried together in one delicious, breakfast-perfect package. The names are many but in my family, an egg fried in a hole in the center of a slice of bread is called "Gashouse Eggs" – well, except when they’re called Kellogg Eggs.

Homestyle Eggs 'n' Toast, Together, No Toaster Required. The Old-Fashioned Breakfast with So Many Funny Names. Real Food, Fresh & Family-Approved. A Long-Time Family Favorite. Fast & Flexible. Mere Minutes to the Table. Substantial Enough for a Quick Supper, a Kitchen Parade Specialty. Hearty & Filling. Year-Round Kitchen Staple. Budget Friendly. Weeknight Easy, Weekend Special. Perfect When Cooking for One or Two. Weight Watchers Friendly. Vegetarian. So Good!!

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COMPLIMENTS!

• "Perfection! Runny yolk and perfectly browned bread." ~ Sally
• "SO delicious!" ~ Anonymous
• "So delicious." ~ Cate
• What're you waiting for?!

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The Year My Dad Took Charge of Breakfast.

When my sister started kindergarten, our mother went back to work and our dad went back to the kitchen. Dad cooked breakfast every single day – without resorting to pop-tarts, cornflakes or even peanut butter toast.

Instead he followed his dad-designed Breakfast Plan, a two-week rotation listed on yellow-lined paper Scotch-taped inside the cupboard beside the stove. Oatmeal. Fried eggs and scrambled eggs. Every other Friday, hamburger patties with tomato soup – yes, this pair for breakfast!

My favorite breakfast was Gashouse Eggs Day, when Dad dropped an egg into a slice of bread with a hole in the center and fried 'em up til crisp. Fried eggs ‘n’ toast – now that’s breakfast!

Others call an egg fried inside a slice of bread an "egg in a hole" or a "toad in a hole" or "hobo eggs". See the long list of funny names for Gashouse Eggs!

But in my family, eggs fried with bread are ever and always called Gashouse Eggs – well, except when they’re called Kellogg Eggs, the name assigned by my dad’s friend of 70-some years.

That friend wrote to me:

"I think the first time your dad introduced me to that particular culinary specialty was in the late fall of 1946 in an 8ft x 12ft pulpwood cutter's shack in northern Minnesota. We were cutting popple (what other places call quaking aspen) and of course doing our own cooking. As I recall, his method of making the hole in the bread was merely to fold the slice in half and take a bite out of the middle. This technique was more in keeping with our crude surroundings and saved on use of utensils. I'm sure he used the more refined approach as described in your article when cooking back home in a civilized kitchen."

Dad Cooked Breakfast For Many Years

When I was down with a cold after Christmas, Dad cooked Gashouse Eggs for our breakfast one morning. He waved away the bacon grease, explaining, "I use butter for Gashouse Eggs because that's what Mom did" – meaning not my mother, mind you, but his mother, my grandmother.

Talk about generations of comfort: I felt immediately on the mend.

PERSONAL NOTES The pictures in this collage were taken in 2009 when my dad was 81 and had been making Gashouse Eggs for at least sixty years. As I update this post in early 2020, he's 93-3/4 and lives down the road in a senior center where I can visit nearly every day. And as I update this recipe again in 2024, my dad passed away at 95, see Rest In Peace. So these pictures are ever so poignant for me, a memory of another time when Dad was still cooking breakfast ...

About This Recipe: Gashouse Eggs

• Gashouse Eggs are a thrifty, one-skillet method to cook eggs and toast at the same time. My family may call eggs cooked in a hole cut in the center of a slice of bread "Kellogg Eggs" but there are dozens of other clever names, including Gashouse Eggs. Whatever the multitude of names, the egg 'n' toast cooked-at-once combination has been around a long, long while, at least many decades.
• Distinctive Ingredients = bread slice + egg
• Short Ingredient List = both the above + a little fat + a little salt & pepper
• For Garnish = none!
• Kitchen Tools = a non-stick skillet (including a well-seasoned cast iron skillet or griddle) + a spatula
• Timing = It takes about 15 minutes, start to finish, to get a Gashouse Egg or Two on the table.
• Maybe I'm partial because I grew up with Gashouse Eggs, but I love the look of them, that sunny yellow egg right in the middle of a slice of toasted bread.
• No special cooking technique is needed, you're just frying an egg and toast at the same time.
• This is pantry-friendly recipe, just eggs, bread, a little fat and a little salt and pepper.
• This is a budget-friendly, no specialty ingredients to seek out or invest in.
• This recipe works especially well for those Cooking for One or Two. In fact, it's not well-suited for cooking for a gang because a slice or two of bread can quickly fill up a skillet or even a griddle.
• So good! I hope you love these!


• If you'd rather keep your eggs and toast separate, just fry up some eggs and serve with Fried Bread (Skillet Toast).
• Not quite what you're looking for? Check out my other breakfast or main dish egg recipes.

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So Many Funny Names!

Just check out all the funny names for Gashouse Eggs!

Egg in the Basket. Egg in a Window. Egg in the Hole. Pirate's Eye. Toad in the Hole. Adam and Eve on a Raft. Bird's Nest. Bull's Eye. Cave Entrance. Camel's Eye. Eagle Eye. Egg-Holey-O. Egg Castorini. Danish Eggs. Egg in a Blanket. Egg in a Frame. Egg in a Hat and Coat. Egg in Bed. Egg in a Nest. Eggy Toast. Eye of the Beholder. Gaslight Eggs. Hobo Toast. Hobo Eggs. Hoppy Eggs. Nest Eggs. O'Johnnies. Submarine Egg. Victory Egg. Rocky Mountain Toast. Yolky Pokey. Hole in One. Hole in the Head Bread. Man in a Boat. Spits in the Ocean. One-Eyed Jacks. One-Eyed Monsters. One-Eyed Sandwich. Mexican One-Eyes. Baby in a Hole. Gasthaus Eggs. Eggs in a Bonnet. Bird's Nest Eggs. Knothole Eggs. Moon Over Miami, from the Betty Grable movie. Moonstruck Eggs, also from the movie. Ox Eye Eggs. Chicky in a Nest. Navy Eggs. Unidentified Frying Objects. Breakfast Bulls Eyes. Egg in the Middle. Holes in the Middles. Sunlets. Sunshine Toast. Boy Scout Eggs. Bunny in the Hole. Gästehaus Eggs, from a guesthouse in Germany. God-Eye Eggs.

And now – one more name won’t hurt, surely – Kellogg Eggs.

PS Have another? Keep 'em coming! I'll add yours to the list!

No Bread? Try a Tortilla. Or a Leftover Pancake. Or ...

No bread required! We love Gashouse Eggs so much, we're constantly re-inventing them. This Mexican version adds salsa and cheese, see Mexican Gas House Eggs. So good!

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GASHOUSE EGGS

Hands-on time: 15 minutes
Time to table: 15 minutes
Serves 1

• Soft butter
• 1 slice bread
• 1 large egg
• Salt & pepper to taste

Heat a skillet on medium heat. Lightly butter both sides of the bread. With a small knife, cut a circle about two inches wide from the center of the slice. Drop the bread slice into the skillet. (Do fry the little cutout too, some people like it best!) Put a little butter in the hole, then crack an egg right into the hole. Season the top of the egg with salt and pepper, then fry until the bottom side of the bread is golden and crispy. With a spatula, gently flip over and cook until done. Transfer to a serving plate with the cutout served alongside for dipping into the yolk.

FOR MORE INFO If you "skipped straight to the recipe," please scroll back to the top of this page for ingredient information, ingredient substitutions, tips and more. If you print this recipe, you'll want to check the recipe online for even more tips and extra information about ingredient substitutions, best results and more. See https://www.kitchenparade.com/2009/02/gashouse-eggs.php .

NUTRITION INFORMATION Per Serving: 196 Calories; 10g Tot Fat; 5g Sat Fat; 226mg Cholesterol; 256mg Sodium; 14g Carb; 1g Fiber; 2g Sugar; 9g Protein. WEIGHT WATCHERS Old Points 5 & PointsPlus 5 & SmartPoints 7 & Freestyle 5 & myWW green 7 & blue 5 & purple 5 & future WW points

FUN VARIATIONS

• Mexican Gashouse Eggs Substitute a tortilla for the bread, add salsa and cheese.
• Gashouse Eggs for Lovers Cut a heart-shaped piece of bread from the center.
• Piggly Wiggly Gashouse Eggs Substitute bacon grease for butter.
• Grilled Cheese Gashouse Eggs Use two slices of bread, slipping thin slices of cheese between the slices before cutting out the center.
• Pancake Gashouse Eggs Use a leftover pancake instead of bread.

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Kitchen Parade is written by second-generation food columnist Alanna Kellogg and features fresh, seasonal dishes for every-day healthful eating and occasional indulgences. Quick Suppers are Kitchen Parade favorites and feature recipes easy on the budget, the clock, the waistline and the dishwasher. Do you have a favorite recipe that other Kitchen Parade readers might like? Just send me a quick e-mail, you'll find my current address in the FAQs. How to print a Kitchen Parade recipe. Never miss a recipe! If you like this recipe, sign up for a free e-mail subscription. If you like Kitchen Parade, for more scratch cooking recipes using whole, healthful ingredients, you're sure to like my food blog about vegetable recipes, too, A Veggie Venture. If you make this recipe, I'd love to know your results! Just leave a comment below.

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