Lately (as in, like, the past several months) I’ve found none of my go-to dinners particularly exciting. My favorite pantry pasta riffs? Fine. Roasted vegetables and grains? Okay, whatever. I’ve heated up a frozen veggie burger and called it a night more often in the past few weeks than I have in my entire adult life. And it’s fine! But I miss looking forward to dinner. So I started eating breakfast at night.
I love breakfast. Whole-grain pancakes, lacy-edged fried eggs, oatmeal with a scoop of almond butter melting in the center, crispy potatoes, buttered toast with jam—I want it all…but not at 8 a.m. Here’s a tip: Breakfast is better for dinner. The flavors are exciting (sweet! savory! both on the same plate—you’re allowed!); and, with a bit of consideration, I’ve found it’s significantly cheaper than the typical protein-vegetable-starch dinner formula. Here, I’ve still followed that outline, but it has the glow that only comes from breakfast foods: smashed potatoes with bacon and eggs. For dinner! Or breakfast! Or lunch or brunch. I’m not your mom; eat whatever, whenever.
When I hear “smashed potatoes” these days, I think small waxy potatoes, parboiled, smashed, roasted, and topped with something salty and creamy—and that was certainly the inspiration here, mixed up with a classic baked potato bar (sour cream, bacon bits, you know the drill). Fat, starchy russet potatoes (about $3 for 4) are baked whole until tender, then smashed and crisped in olive oil. Meanwhile, you’ll slowly render all the fat you possibly can from a few slices of bacon (about $1), because that is free-with-purchase cooking fat, my friends; and just like that, you have bacon-fat-fried eggs (about $3 for 8). Divide lettuce or tender greens ($1 to $3, depending on the green) between plates, top with a smashed-baked potato and two eggs, then shower the plate with sliced scallions, spicy sour cream sauce (about 50 cents respectively for the called-for amounts), and crumbled bacon.
If you’re parsing out this meal for fewer than four servings at once, bake the potatoes fully, but don’t smash them; render the fat from and crumble the bacon; make the sour cream sauce. Store everything in the fridge. When you’re ready to eat, recrisp the bacon bits in a skillet, then toss in more reserved fat and fry the eggs; smash the potatoes and do the second bake—you can even save on olive oil and re-crisp in the bacon fat as well, if you’d like.
Savings don’t stop with the meal, by the way. You’ll likely have extra rendered bacon fat. Store it in an airtight container in the fridge for months and use it for any sautéing needs. And we can’t forget my favorite tip: Save the bottom inch from the root ends of the scallions (and lettuce if it came from a head with a root as well), position them upright in jars of water like you would a vase of flowers, and watch them regenerate. (Yes, I am still doing this: Check out the video below.) —Rebecca Firkser
Nickel & Dine is a budget column by Rebecca Firkser, assigning editor at Food52, and breakfast-for-dinner eater. Each month, Rebecca will share an easy, flavor-packed recipe that feeds four (or just you, four times)—all for $10 or less. —The Editors
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