Quick Microwave Hash Brown & Poached Egg

A single quick microwave hash brown and poached egg is a satisfying breakfast using a frozen hash brown direct from the freezer and cooking the hash brown and the poached egg in the microwave oven makes this a superfast start to the day.

A cooked or hot breakfast doesn’t have to be a full plate of food, sometimes it’s nice just to have a taster – and this single hash brown with a single poached egg is a great start to the day.  Cooking times in the microwave for these two breakfast food items is under 3 minutes.

Frozen hash browns are already cooked and all you’re doing is re-heating them; they’re cheap to buy and tasty to eat, especially the Lidl Hash Browns, which are my favourite at the moment.  Once I’ve bought a bag of hash browns though, I do need to eat them, so will then eat hash browns every couple of days for 2-3 weeks until the bag’s finished.  I’ve a small freezer, so repeat-eating items tends to be the way things happen!  It’s nice to have hash browns in the freezer, but equally welcome when they’re all eaten and I can use the space for other food the following month.

Hash browns are definitely almost always in the freezer though, with few gaps between bags!

Ingredients:

• 1 large frozen hash brown (or two small ones!)
• 1 large egg
• oil for greasing, optional

Method:

1. Place the frozen hash brown on a microwave safe plate and microwave on full power for 1 minute (800 watts), uncovered. Remove the hash brown from the microwave oven.
2. Boil the kettle, grease a poaching pod with a tiny amount of oil, break your egg into the poach pod and float it in a covered microwave safe bowl.  I use my Sistema click/lock noodle bowls for this, but you can adapt what you’ve got!  Microwave the poached egg for 1 minute. Remove the egg from the microwave and put the dish to one side
3. Turn the hash brown over and microwave it for a further minute.
4. Have a peek at the egg, it should be done by now – simply tip it onto the hash brown and eat!  If it’s not cooked, if you can still see a little uncooked white, simply microwave it for a further 15-30 seconds.

Clearly you could add a splash of brown sauce to this, sometimes I will, sometimes not!

My current favourite hash browns are the frozen hash browns from Lidl, which are large, so you only need one hash brown as a portion.

I don’t really “name meals” as such, so will quite often eat this as a lunch, or a snack, or supper!  I just eat what I fancy, when I fancy it – without labelling food to comply with traditional naming standards.

Menu Cost – 17p:

With eggs costing about 9p each and a large hash brown about the same, this fast microwave breakfast comes in at about 17p.  That’s a nice frugal start to the day!  If you want something a little more substantial, why not toast a large bread roll or oven bottom muffin and slide this meal combo inside the two halves!