Shakshuka Style Eggs With Smoky Roasted Peppers

My husband ate three portions and didn’t apologize.

I put too much chilli in the first time — not dramatically, but enough that my youngest pushed the bowl away after two bites. The second time I dialed it back to a quarter teaspoon and it was exactly where I wanted it.

About those roasted peppers.

Char them over an open flame if you can.

I know that sounds like extra work on a Tuesday morning, but there’s a difference between a pepper that’s been charred until black and then sealed in a bag for ten minutes versus one that came out of a jar. The jarred ones taste fine. The charred ones taste like something actually happened to them.

After you peel them, they’re — honestly — a little ugly. Limp, almost translucent, slightly smoky-smelling. That’s exactly right.

The onion situation, which matters more than you’d think.

Eight to ten minutes for the onion, not five.

I used to rush this step, and the sauce always tasted a little raw and sharp underneath everything else. When you actually let the onion go until it’s soft and lightly golden — not browned, just caramelized at the edges — the base of the sauce becomes genuinely sweet. It holds up the spices instead of fighting them.

Quick tip: Don’t stir the onion constantly — let it sit for a minute or two between stirs so it can actually color a little on the bottom of the pan.

It looked wrong. It wasn’t.

The first time I added the feta — right when I took the pan off the heat — it kind of just sat there in white blobs on top of the sauce and looked like nothing had happened. I thought about stirring it in — actually no, I left it alone, and within about a minute it had softened just enough to melt slightly at the edges while staying crumbly in the middle.

That’s the move. Don’t touch it.

Do you cover it or leave it open?

Covered, always. Six minutes for yolks that are still runny, eight if you want them set — but pull the pan at six because the sauce keeps cooking even after the heat’s off. I left mine on for nine minutes once, distracted by something on my phone,

and the yolks were fully hard and I was annoyed about it for the rest of breakfast.

Has this happened to you, or is it just me?

Za’atar at the end, not before.

Fresh za’atar — or dried, if that’s what you have — goes on after the pan comes off the heat. Not before, not during.

I tried adding it to the sauce during the simmer once, just to see. The flavor disappeared entirely. Completely gone. It needs to land on top right at the end so it stays bright and a little herbal against all that deep, smoky sauce.

Also: the olive oil drizzle at the very end is not optional. It pulls everything together in a way that’s hard to explain until you skip it once and notice something feels flat.

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Shakshuka Style Eggs With Smoky Roasted Peppers — How to Make It

Step 1: Warm 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a wide, deep skillet over medium heat. Add the finely diced onion and cook for 8–10 minutes, stirring every minute or two, until soft and lightly caramelized at the edges. (Don’t rush this — an undercooked onion base is hard to fix later.)

Step 2: Stir in the 4 minced garlic cloves, 1 teaspoon cumin, 1 teaspoon smoked paprika, ½ teaspoon coriander, and ¼ teaspoon chilli flakes. Keep stirring for 1–2 minutes — you’ll know it’s ready when the smell shifts from raw spice to something warm and toasty. This is my favorite part of the whole recipe, honestly.

Step 3: Add the roasted peppers and toss them through the spiced base until everything is well coated. They’ll soak up the oil and spices quickly, so keep them moving for about 30 seconds.

Step 4: Pour in both tins of chopped tomatoes and sprinkle in 1 teaspoon of sugar. Season generously with salt and black pepper, stir to combine, and bring the sauce up to a gentle simmer. (The sugar isn’t about sweetness — it just cuts the acidity from the tinned tomatoes. Don’t skip it.)

Step 5: Drop the heat to medium-low and cook uncovered for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. The sauce should thicken noticeably — if yours is still very liquid at 15 minutes, give it another 3 or 4.

Step 6: Taste the sauce and adjust the salt. Use the back of a spoon to press six shallow wells across the surface, spaced as evenly as you can manage.

Step 7: Crack one egg into each well carefully. Cover with a lid and cook for 6 minutes for runny yolks or 8 for set. Pull the pan off the heat as soon as you hit your time — residual heat in the sauce will continue cooking the eggs for another minute or two even off the burner.

Step 8: Immediately scatter 100g of crumbled feta across the top. Then finish with za’atar, a handful of roughly chopped flat-leaf parsley, and a good drizzle of olive oil. Bring the pan straight to the table with warm flatbreads or toasted sourdough alongside.

What’s your go-to timing for the eggs — runny or fully set? Share below!

Ways to Change It Up

Try this: Swap the feta for goat’s cheese if feta feels too salty with your particular tinned tomatoes — the creaminess is different but it works well with the smoky pepper base.

Try this: Add a handful of baby spinach directly into the sauce during the last 3 minutes of the simmer. It wilts down to almost nothing but adds some green and makes you feel better about eating this for lunch two days in a row.

Try this: Stir a tablespoon of harissa paste into the tomato sauce at step 4 for a deeper, smokier heat than the chilli flakes alone.

Which would you go for? Drop it in the comments.

How to Serve It

Warm flatbreads are the obvious call — you want something soft and slightly chewy for scooping. Toasted sourdough works just as well and holds up better if the sauce is very liquid.

A simple cucumber and tomato salad on the side cuts through the richness nicely if you’re serving this to more than two people and want it to feel like a proper spread.

I’ve also served it with a dollop of plain yogurt on the side — not stirred in, just there — and it was good. Cold yogurt against the hot sauce is a better contrast than it sounds.

What would you pair it with?

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Storing It Without Ruining It

The tomato base — without the eggs — freezes for up to three months with no real loss of quality. Portion it into freezer bags or containers, label them, and on a weeknight you’re 15 minutes away from dinner.

If you have leftover shakshuka with the eggs already in it, cover the pan and refrigerate it, but eat it within a day. The eggs get rubbery if you try to reheat them — I’ve done it, they’re fine to eat, but the yolks go chalky and sad.

Reheat the sauce on the stovetop over low heat rather than in the microwave. Microwave makes the tomatoes watery and separates the whole thing. Low and slow, covered, for about 5 minutes.

Have you ever saved leftovers like this? Tell me below!

Mistakes I Made So You Don’t Have To

I once tried to make this in a regular saucepan because my skillet was in the dishwasher. The sauce had no room to spread, the eggs sat stacked on top of each other at weird angles, and two of them slid together and cooked into one big joined mess. Use a wide pan. Non-negotiable.

I also added the garlic at the same time as the onion once, thinking it would save a step, and the garlic burned by the time the onion was properly soft. Burned garlic is bitter in a way that doesn’t cook out — I served it anyway, but the sauce tasted off and I knew exactly why.

The third thing: I cracked the eggs straight from the fridge into the hot sauce without tempering them first. The whites set unevenly — cooked solid on the outside edge while still totally raw near the yolk — and I had to cover them for an extra four minutes, which meant the yolks were completely hard. Room temperature eggs, or at least eggs that have been out for 20 minutes, cook much more evenly in the sauce.

Did something like this happen to you?

Questions I Actually Get About This Recipe

Can I use jarred roasted peppers instead of charring my own? You can, and the dish will still be good. But jarred peppers are softer and a little sweeter without much smokiness — you might want to add an extra pinch of smoked paprika to compensate. I tried this once and it was noticeably flatter. Fine for a weeknight. Not the same.

How long does the tomato base keep in the fridge? About 4 days in a sealed container. It actually tastes better on day two after the spices have had time to settle. But past day four I wouldn’t push it.

Can I make this for one person? It depends on how big your pan is — halving the recipe works fine if you have a smaller skillet, maybe 20cm. Two eggs instead of six, one tin of tomatoes, one pepper. Cook time stays roughly the same.

What if I don’t have za’atar? Skip it, or use a pinch of dried thyme and a squeeze of lemon instead. Not identical, but it fills the same role — something bright and slightly herbal to cut through the sauce. And honestly? It’s fine without it if you have good parsley.

Can the sauce be made ahead the night before? Yes, and I recommend it. Make the sauce through step 5, cool it, refrigerate it overnight, then reheat it the next morning, add your wells, and crack in the eggs. The sauce is genuinely deeper in flavor after a night in the fridge. Takes maybe 20 minutes start to finish in the morning.

Is this spicy? At ¼ teaspoon of chilli flakes, not really — warm rather than hot. It depends on your flakes though; some brands hit harder than others. I tried a new brand once and it was noticeably hotter at the same quantity. Taste the sauce before you add the eggs and adjust.

Which answer helped you most?

Go make it this weekend.

This is the kind of pan you put on the table and let people serve themselves from, and somehow that makes it feel more like a meal than anything plated individually.

It takes about 40 minutes start to finish if you’re charring the peppers yourself, closer to 30 if you prep the peppers ahead. Not fast, but not complicated either.

Will you make this soon?

My husband asks for it at least twice a month. I’ve made worse things with more effort.

Fun fact: Smoked paprika is made from peppers that are dried and smoked over oak wood for up to two weeks before being ground — which is why it has that deep, almost meaty flavor that regular paprika completely lacks.

Happy cooking! —Marina Caldwell