Cooking for One: The Single-Egg Omelet
Cooking for One: The Single-Egg Omelet
Four minutes, start to finish (truly), and so good you’ll make it every day
Most omelets that you order in a diner, or any restaurant, for that matter, are basically the same: They’re enormous, they’re bloated, and they contain so much egg that the fillings tend to get lost. I’m always poking around inside the egg in hopes of getting to some cheese, and I always feel like there’s not enough cheese, but I’m sure that’s not the case—it’s just that it’s been consumed by the mountains of egg.
It’s not just in diners that I’m frustrated by the standard omelet. I’ve also tried for years to perfect them at home, and you know what? I can’t. All that egg is too difficult for me to flip and I’m not trying to go on YouTube or Tiktok to learn the latest hack. I’m too impatient. Plus, again, I don’t want all that egg; I want a perfect egg to cheese ratio: 1 to 1. Yes, I said it: 1 to 1. And you know what gives you that? A one-egg omelet, which is my current obsession.
It’s absolutely delicious—it’s honestly like a new food. That’s how little it resembles the omelets we’re all used to. I visited my sister last month and made her one and in the past few weeks she’s insisted that it’s a revelation and it’s changed her life, and that I had to write about it. So: Here we are.
The only downside to the one-egg omelet—and I don’t really see it as a downside, but I can understand how some people might—is that any fillings other than cheese will be tricky. It’s a thinner omelet, and can’t accommodate as much as the diner behemoths. You can add smaller things like chopped bacon or spinach, but you’re going to have a hard time with, say, broccoli. You don’t want to tear your solo egg.
So! To the omelet: Take an egg. Crack it into a bowl. Add salt and pepper (I like to add a little chile oil or chile crisp or whatever you have along those lines). Stir vigorously. Here’s the thing, though: You should use a small pan—six inches is ideal. This six inch Made In pan is the perfect pan for a one egg omelet. (Or a grilled cheese. Or a small quesadilla. I’m surprised by how much we use our six inch pan; we’ve had it forever.)
