Rocket Shakshuka

This sunshiney breakfast dish of Rocket Shakshuka was inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi's recipe for Baked Eggs, which uses cooked rocket as a tasty base for rich runny eggs. Shakshuka is probably not a new recipe to you, but I've tweaked the recipe to add more fresh ingredients and a wider variety of speed vegetables and minimised the use of oil to cut down on the calorific value. 

The recipe is entirely free from syns - but could be have further richness added through a sprinkle of

grated hard cheese. Alternatively, if you wished to make this a more substantial dish you could add half a tin of butter beans or brown lentils to heat through with the vegetables before adding the eggs. I've served this on a bed of steamed kale here, but it could also work well on a slice of wholemeal toast, using one of your HEB allowances or with some roast butternut squash chunks.


As with all recipes and meal plans on the blog I have highlighted the protein sources (P foods) in red, the speed (S) foods in green, healthy extra allowances in blue and syns, with syn values in brackets in orange.


Rocket Shakshuka

Serves 2 (or one greedy person - like me!) - syn-free

1 courgette
1 red onion
1/2 red pepper
3 orange sweet mini peppers (or half an orange pepper)
40g (half a normal bag) of wild rocket
100g passata 
1/2 green chilli
Small chunk of peeled ginger
Handful fresh parsley 
2 eggs
Spray oil
Black pepper

Boil a kettle of water.

Cut the courgette in half and then slice each half lengthwise into fine batons.

Cut the red onion in half length-ways and then slice the onion across the width of the bulb into fine half-moon slices. 

Slice the red pepper into fine lengths and then slice the yellow peppers in half lengthways and de-seed. 

Finely chop the chilli very finely and put to one side. 

In a heavy-based pan that has a tight-fitting lid, spray with oil and bring to a high heat.

Add the onions, peppers and courgette to the pan and stir in the hot oil and cook for 3 minutes. 

Meanwhile, using a fine grater, grate the ginger over the pan and add the chilli. 

Add a splash of boiling water to stop the ingredients catching and continue to cook until the onions are translucent. 

Add the rocket and cook until it has wilted before stirring in the passata. 

Cook for another 5 minutes whilst the mixture thickens.

Take off the heat and form two wells in the mixture with the back of a tablespoon.

Crack an egg into each of the wells and clamp on a tight-fitting lid to the pan. 

Put back on the lowest heat possible and leave for 5 minutes.

Take off the lid at this point and shake the pan - you need the white to be set fully so give it a further 3 minutes if this hasn't happened and keep doing this until you have set whites but wobbly yolks. 

Finely chop the parsley whilst the eggs cook and sprinkle over the finished dish once the eggs are ready.