Recipe: Chrissy Teigen’s Crispy Parmesan Waffle Breakfast
Breakfast for dinner is a weekly staple in our house. It’s easy on the cook (and the wallet!) and the kids love it, too. Chrissy Teigen’s Crispy Parmesan Waffles are going to be your new favorite breakfast-for-dinner recipe and here why: They’re more than 50 percent cheese by volume but they cook up light as a soufflé and crispy like Parmesan frico.
Teigen serves her waffles alongside bacon, eggs, and a spicy maple butter, but these waffles can be the base for sausage gravy or used in place of bread for breakfast sandwiches. Come dinnertime, make them a savory bed for chicken nuggets — making them the newest dinner hero in your breakfast-for-dinner rotation.
Finely Grate Your Cheese, Please
This waffle recipe is as simple as folding wet into dry with Parmesan cheese mixed in, but to ensure that the exterior is tender and crisp, use a Microplane to grate the cheese. It’s a lot — 1 1/2 cups by volume — but don’t skimp by trying to use pre-grated Parm like I did the first attempt. You’ll end up with spotty, uneven waffles instead of shatteringly crisp ones.
Note on timing: Chrissy suggests cooking the bacon in the oven, so do that first (and make the spicy, buttery syrup while it cooks) and then reduce the oven temperature to the lowest setting before mixing up the waffle batter. This way the oven will be warm — and not too hot — for holding the waffles while you cook a few eggs.
Chrissy Teigen's Crispy Parmesan Waffle Breakfast
Prep time 10 minutes
Cook time 30 minutes
Serves 4
Nutritional Info
Ingredients
For the waffles:
- 1 cup
all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon
baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon
baking soda
- 1 teaspoon
freshly ground black pepper, plus more for sprinkling
- 1 1/4 cups
buttermilk
- 3 tablespoons
butter, melted, plus more for brushing the waffle iron
- 1
large egg
- 1 1/2 cups
finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, plus more for sprinkling
For serving:
- 4
large eggs, cooked how you like them
- 8 slices
cooked bacon (optional; see Recipe Note)
Maple syrup or Spicy Buttery Maple Syrup (below), for serving
For the spicy buttery maple syrup:
- 8 tablespoons
(1 stick) unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup
maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon
red pepper flakes
- 1 teaspoon
kosher salt
Instructions
For the waffles:
Preheat the oven to warm, or as low as it will go.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, pepper, and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, melted butter, and egg until incorporated. Add the wet ingredients to the flour mixture and whisk until just incorporated (a few lumps are OK), then whisk in the Parmesan.
Heat a standard waffle iron (not Belgian). Brush with some melted butter, and make the waffles, using between 1/2 to 2/3 cup batter per waffle. Cook according to the waffle iron’s directions or until the top and bottom are crisp and deep brown, 5 to 6 minutes. Remove the waffle from the iron (you may have to pick at it from one of the ends with a fork, but, uh, don’t electrocute yourself). Put the waffle on a baking sheet in the oven to keep warm while you cook the remaining waffles.
Arrange a waffle on a plate and top with an egg and 2 slices of bacon, if using. Drizzle with syrup and sprinkle with a little more Parmesan and pepper.
For the spicy buttery maple syrup:
In a small saucepan, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Add the maple syrup, red pepper flakes, and salt. Bring to a simmer to meld the flavors, then remove from the heat. Serve warm immediately, or let come to room temperature to develop more flavor. Rewarm over low heat and stir to recombine if you need to before serving.
Recipe Notes
Cooking bacon: If you’re cooking more than just a few slices of bacon, this is the best way to do it: Preheat the oven to 375°F. Lay the bacon (say, 12 slices) out on a rimmed baking sheet so the slices don’t overlap. Roast until crisp, 12 to 15 minutes.
Storage: Leftover waffles and syrup can be refrigerated in airtight containers for up to 3 days.
Recipes and photographs reprinted from Cravings: Hungry for More. Copyright © 2018 by Chrissy Teigen. Photographs copyright © 2018 by Aubrie Pick. Published by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.