Cooking for one: Broccoli, Cheese and Egg Bake

This is a delicious, filling, healthy and cheap vegetarian recipe for anyone who is cooking for one. The broccoli, cheese and egg dish is easy to prepare and is delicious hot or cold.

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Cheap and Healthy Vegetarian Egg Dish: Low Fat Recipe

If you like cheap and healthy, this tasty broccoli, cheese and egg bake is one for you. It is really easy to make, tastes delicious and is very filling. It is great served hot with crusty bread and a salad or cold with salad. It is a bit like quiche without the flan. You can cook it in advance if necessary - just cover the top with foil so it doesn't burn. This will freeze very well so you can cook several at at time and freeze them to provide tasty and healthy ready meals right from your freezer.

This version is a low-fat one but you can use full fat cheeses if you prefer. I've included some nutrition facts for you too. This might be of most interest to those of us who are watching our weight and watching our health.

When you are cooking for one it only takes a little effort to cook cheap and healthy dishes. You might need to do a little more advance planning but that is actually a good thing - it stops you making impulse buys that are costly and, as often as not, unhealthy. I like to know what is going into my food so cooking for scratch rather than buying expensive ready-made meals wins for me every time.

What you need for a broccoli cheese bake

Broccoli Cheese Bake

Broccoli Cheese Bake

Source: photography by annmackiemiller

Approximate Preparation and Cooking Time

Prep time: 10 min

Cook time: 40 min

Ready in: 50 min

Yields: serves one

Ingredients

• 125g Broccoli florets
• 2 spring onions, cleaned and diced finely
• 1 egg
• 1-2 tablespoon soft cheese, Philadelphia light is ideal
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 or 3 cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 oz grated cheese, use low fat cheese for topping

How to make Broccoli Bake

1. Clean and separate the broccoli spears. Steam lightly for around 10 minutes until the stems start to soften. If you steam the florets stem down will cook first. Drain and set to one side.
2. Pre-heat your oven to 220/gas mark 7
3. Place your broccoli with the spring onions and tomatoes in an oven-proof dish.
4. Whisk eggs together with garlic and soft cheese.
5. Pour over the broccoli.
6. Top with grated cheese.
7. Cook for 30 minutes until the egg is set.

Nutritional Values

	calories	Fat	Protein
broccoli cheese and egg bake	300	15.6g	21g
broccoli	54	0	3.8
1 egg	75	5g	6.3g
Philly light cheese per 30g	46	3.3g	2.2g
spring onions x 3	14	0	1g
cherry tomatoes x 3	15	0	0.5g
1 oz low-fat grated cheese	90	7g	7g

For me the three most important facts are calories, fat and protein. For other values check any good calorie counter.

A word about calorie counting

I've included a table with the three most important factors for me when I am watching my health, calories, fat content and protein. You'll see the highest calorie count is actually in the grated cheese you put on top of this dish. To further reduce the calories use breadcrumbs with a tiny sprinkle of parmesan. Parmesan also has 90 calories per 1 oz but you need much less of it for taste. Personally I don't think 300 calories is excessive for a meal and the fat and protein content are important for maintaining optimum health.

Mini casserole dish

single serving earthenware dish

Source: amazon.co.uk

Cooking with earthenware

I prefer cooking with earthenware or stoneware rather than anything else. I just feel it spreads the heat much more evenly than china or porcelain. For baking an egg dish like this, it is excellent as it ensures the egg bakes evenly and all the way through.

It is easy enough to find single-serving sizes that are great when you are cooking for one and the joy is you can freeze them and then reheat straight from freezer to oven.

Low Cost
The total cost of this dish was £1.88. I always look for the bargains in supermarket and I was lucky enough to get two gorgeous heads of broccoli for 39p in Aldi - that made this dish, a dish of penne with broccoli and mushroom and broccoli soup - not bad eh? You can see some of my ideas for frugal shopping on an article I published elsewhere - How to Cook For One on a Budget.