Skinny Omelette

Eggs cooked crepe-thin and stuffed. A delicious and lighter alternative to heavy, cheese-stuffed omelette recipes - great for lunch and brunch.

Skinny Omelette

It has been four years since I started featuring recipes on this site. In all that time I've never featured an omelette recipe. Broadly speaking, I like the idea of omelettes, but they typically aren't very exciting. Not that they couldn't be! When I reflect on the past ten omelettes I've encountered, more times than not they have been bulging envelopes of egg oozing steady rivers of melted cheese. They are nearly always served with a side of greasy home-fries. All great for tempering a mild hangover, not so great for everyday eats. So instead of complaining, I offer you my omelette recipe makeover.
Favorite Omelette Recipe

The Skinny Omelette

In my mind an omelette is a beaten egg (or eggs) gently cooked in a pan and sometimes stuffed with good stuff. As I started rethinking the way I wanted to approach my omelette-making, I opted to keep the beating, cooking, and stuffing intact. I played with a few other variables instead. Deciding to cook the eggs extra thin - almost crepe thin - was key. I also opted for rolling instead of folding. This ended up being a great call because the omelette then lends itself to a lovely (and functional) diagonal cut, you can see a cross-section of the ingredients. One more pro-tip - try to avoid over-stuffing them. You're looking for a nice egg to filling ratio. Keeping it all relatively light.

So, what you see above is what I whipped up for breakfast this morning. I was in and out of the kitchen (with photo!) in less than twelve minutes, counters cleaned, dishes done. And for those of you who are gluten-intolerant or can't have gluten, it just dawned on me that these could be considered gluten-free crepes.

Creative Omelette Variations

For this omelette I used my favorite pesto, a small handful of herbs and greens, and crumbled goat cheese in addition to the omelette-egg base. But don't let that limit you. There are a million ways you can remix this omelette recipe. You can add spices, seasonings, tiny grains, herbs, curry pastes, and infusions to the eggs before cooking. You can play around with different spreads, cheeses, mashed beans, tangy yogurt, salsa and/or avocados as filling. If you like Thai flavors, use Thai ingredients. If you like Japanese flavors, integrate those ingredients. The potential combinations are fun, delicious, and endless.

There are some great egg and omelette suggestions in the comments. Check them out! Marichan says, “…my mother puts dashi, shoyu and a touch of sugar in her omelette. I think those three flavors and the texture of the eggs are what I love. Sometimes she rolls the omelette into a long rectangle using the square egg pan. That’s yummy but I really love the thin, crepe like omelette. Sometimes she will stuff them with chirashizushi (sushi rice with various vegetables mixed in) or put it over Japanese style fried rice.“

Carol also highlights this feisty combination: sun-dried tomatoes, spinach, little blocks of feta cheese and a dollop of homemade harissa.

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Skinny Omelette

4.17 from 6 votes

I didn't mention it up above, but ricotta spiked with lemon zest and some herbs would be a perfect, easily spreadable slather for this recipe as well.

Ingredients
  • 2 large eggs, beaten
  • a tiny pinch of fine grain sea salt
  • a few tablespoons of chopped chives or herbs
  • a dollop of pesto
  • a bit of goat cheese or feta
  • a small handful of mixed salad greens
Instructions
  1. In your largest non-stick skillet over medium heat (this is one of the few occasions I actually use non-stick) pour the egg mixture and give it a good swirl so that they spread out thinly across the entire pan. Alternately, you can use a crepe pan or crepe maker - this works beautifully as well. Sprinkle the eggs with some salt and some of the chives and let them set, this happens quickly depending on the heat of your pan - 15 seconds to one minute. Run a spatula underneath the omelette and slide it out of the pan (flat) onto a clean countertop, large cutting board or Silpat-lined cookie sheet. Do this with confidence (or practice). 

  2. Spread the pesto across the surface of the omelette (if you have a thick pesto, thin it a bit with water to make it easily spreadable), and then sprinkle with the cheese and salad greens. 

  3. Starting with one end, roll the omelette away from you. Cut in half on a deep diagonal. Season with a bit more salt if needed and serve garnished with a few chopped chives and/or other herbs. Serve immediately.

Notes

Serves 1.

Serves
1
Prep Time
5 mins
Cook Time
2 mins
Total Time
7 mins
 
 
If you make this recipe, I'd love to see it - tag it #101cookbooks on Instagram!

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Recipe Rating




Comments

Tried these tonight, much to the delight of my mother, and they were wonderful. I followed the recipe pretty faithfully, though I subbed a pinch of dried thyme for the chives, as I had no chives. It was a fantastically easy and light dinner on a hot evening. This is the first of your recipes I've tried but it certainly won't be the last! Thanks.

Maura

I love them! Omelettes are great because they are like a blank canvas - so many possibilities!

gilly

what a perfect idea.

Linda

what a beautiful, delicious and perfect idea! I am no fan of omelettes (too much egg-y-ness), but these were absolutely perfect! and they got rave reviews in our house! thanks for sharing a wonderful recipe!

Jennifer

My 'special' omelette: Thin egg-whites-only, tuna and a dollop of cream cheese. Delicious!

neo

What a great remake of the traditional omelet! You set my mind thinking of the many ways I could use this omelette/crepe idea to make a light and healthy breakfast (lunch, dinner, appetizer!) This is a recipe that you can really play with!

Deborah Dowd

This was amazing and such a nice change from my usual Sunday omelette! I mixed in the chives and some red onion before cooking the eggs. Then I spread honey mustard on the egg, added greens, feta, sun dried tomatoes, and a little leftover chicken. It was amazing! Almost like a carb free sandwich! Thanks Heidi!

Jenna

Looks great. A perfect light meal!Beautiful photo as always.

Stephen

Looks wonderful and it's healthy, what more would you want?

Sarah Bell

wow, these look savory and delicious...when i first saw the picture i thought they were breakfast wraps, so imagine my surprise when i read you'd made the eggs that thin, and then used them to wrap the other ingredients! clever. thanks for this!

rochelle

These seem to be more of a 'flourless crêpe' than an omelette, and they do look perfectly delicious. I never order omelettes at restaurants for a few reasons, but this has challenged one of them. For me, the point of an omelet is to contain and emphasize some of the runny goodness of beaten eggs. Unlike plain scrambled eggs, the runniness is magically soaked up by the cooked part. Usually I just use a bit of whatever cheese I have around, and maybe a snip of chives or chinese/garlic chives. Arugula is my favorite green ever, but I'd rather have it on the side with just a squeeze of lemon, a drizzle of oil, and fleur de sel all around. Aside from being overcooked, most restaurant omelets overemphasize all the junk they can think of to throw inside. Asparagus! Avocado! Broccoli! Cabbage! Daikon! etc. Yours would showcase some lovely greens, which I hadn't thought of and haven't seen before. I remain awfully covetous of fresh eggs – I almost always have to make one or two of them soft-cooked as soon as I get home from the market – but my partner seems to think they should be more cooked than raw. I'll definitely try yours out. Thanks!

gay goy gourmet

I love it - one of your most clever recipes. I'm in the camp that thinks eggs from pasture-raised hens are a great health food, so I am always looking for new ways to eat eggs. I'm actually not so creative - boiled and in a salads, scrambled, omelettes, baked eggs, quiche etc. This looks like a lovely recipe and EASY! Thanks.

Ali

Heidi, I love your blog!

Maya

I simply love it! hope I'll be able to make omelettes that thin!

theCook

I've never thought omelets are boring - au contraire - I love using whatever is ripe in the garden and almost use sundried tomatoes. My current favorite omelette is what I call my "broken egg omelet" I put a little ghee(purified butter in the pan, lightly sautee some mushrooms, then add 2 eggs. I take a fork and break the yolk so that it flows around a little but stays bright yellow in places. Then I add the filling ingredients. For example, this morning I'm using: sundried tomatoes, spinach, little blocks of feta cheese and a dollop of homemade harissa(very spicy moroccan pepper paste) Spread it out a little. Fold the omelette in half. cook a few minutes then turn over and cook for another minute. Enjoy. If this doesn't wake you up it's because you died during the night.

Carol

I am not an omelete fan but I will eat my mother's omelete! Like you mother, Spica, my mother has been doing this for so long that the thought of a spatula never entered her mind. I rarely see her with anything other than chopsticks when she's cooking. I'm not quite as adept so I will cheat and use a spatula. My mother puts dashi, shoyu and a touch of sugar in her omelete. I think those three flavors and the texture of the eggs are what I love. Sometimes she rolls the omelete into a long rectangle using the square egg pan. That's yummy but I really love the thin, crepe like omelete. Sometimes she will stuff them with chirashizushi (sushi rice with various vegetables mixed in) or put it over Japanese style fried rice. I am soooo homesick now. I've been in Naples, Italy - Trash capitol of the free world - for two years and have one more to go before returning to the U.S. I am so tired of pasta, pizza and Neapoitain food in general. Tonight I am making the omelete on this page and stuffing it with some grilled zucchini and eggplant, arugula, gresh chopped garlic and Italian parsley, and a drizzle of beautiful dark green extra virgin olive oil. Heidi, Thank you for evoking the great food memories.

Marichan

fantastic! what a wonderful breakfast (or lunch... or dinner...) idea! thanks for sharing. i eat eggs for protein almost every morning, but am SO sick of the scrambled or fried options. this is a quite an inspired alternative.

chanelle

thank you for the recipe. i cant wait to make it. i love to make omlets , never heard of one like this though. thanks again

crystal

thank you for the recipe. i cant wait to make it. i love to make omlets , never heard of one like this though. thanks again

crystal

I have a friend from Taiwan who makes absolutely superb omelette's! The trick is to use a hell of a lot of cheese, even an over the top amount. Combine this with onion, carrot, and some other spices that I don't know the name of with very little egg and it makes it perfect. Both I and another friend of mine don't eat egg but we LOVE those omelette's!

Maria Glensworth

I can't have cheese on my diet, so when I decided to try this recipe, I opted for the chives, spinach instead of the mixed greens, red peppers and I added some wonderful black bean and corn salsa I came across....this will become a morning habit for me, I think, talk about yum!! Thanks for the idea!

Christi

Am on again/off again about having eggs in my diet (most recently on again and in a serious way, perhaps like a mad craving) and was recently inspired by your post regarding baked eggs in the little pita cups. A very pretty and delicious approach to a healthy egg breakfast. I have always loved a good omelet; however, as you say most are oozingly gooey, greasy versions which I find rather inedible and disappointing. My own vision, which seems to agree with yours, is that a great omelet is a beautiful thin ‘pancake’ (crepe), rolled or folded... and is filled and/or surrounded by other complimentary veggie foods such as spinach and other wonderfully fresh greens, cilantro, scallions, avocadoes, tomatoes, red onions and so forth. Art in the morning. The filling can also contain lovely cheeses (feta is quite nice and we also enjoy a few crumbles of a good stilton in certain combinations) in a mix of fresh greens. So thank you for your ‘egg ideas’. While this latest craving lasts, I hope to make each serving as healthful and delicious as possible... and your suggestions certainly add to the creative efforts at breakfast time.

jzb

This looks lovely, a little like chakin-zushi (the thin egg omelet wrapped around rice in Japanese cuisine).

Mary

The thin omelettes looks gorgeous. Similar to the rice paper rolls. This is a perfect recipe to use up stuff from the small kitchen garden.

Gini

Heidi - Thank you for this gorgeous, delicious site! I just wanted to mention that rolling crepe-thin eggs has multiple applications in Japanese cuisine. Square pans are used most often for this. My mother is such an old hand at it that she uses chopsticks (doesn't bother with a spatula) to swiftly roll it right in the pan.

spica

Heidi, what a great way of having omelets - thank you for sharing! I'm tagging this recipe right now - looks too good to be missed! :)

Patricia Scarpin

so yummy~ and so heathful food~

YOYO's Food

Wowsa, what a beautiful omelette! I love eggs, but don't do omelette's often for exactly the reasons you stated...too greasy. I think I'll have to run out and buy myself a non-stick frying pan!

mari

Now this makes me want to make omelettes again! Thanks for the inspiration!

rebecca

Wonderful idea. Thanks for the inspiration... When I'm feeling virtuous I like to do an omelette with Asian greens and ginger.

Stephanie

I am diabetic and sick to death of standard eggs, but these? Fabulous.

flutter

I can't wait to try this- normally, I can't stand omelettes, but this looks right up my alley. I wonder if you could mix the pesto in with egg at the beginning, though it might be a green skinny omelette?

Mercedes

    Yes, absolutely!

    Heidi Swanson

Nice. Paper thin egg technology :) I love omelettes ...every Sunday my hubby makes me this version [earlier my dad's] wherein he chops an onion and some green chillies into itty bitty pieces, adds a healthy handful of freshly chopped coriander leaves, a dashy of ground black pepper and salt .. beats it together with 4-6 eggs and omlettizes it .. golden cooked egg with a burst of sweet onion flavour and the bite of green chillies!!

Snehal

I love how thin the egg is. I like to use my crepe pan for eggs to get them extra thin!

rachel

These are beautiful and look like the perfect alternative to something like a frittata for a brunch gathering. Would these keep on display and be okay at room temp (like a frittata) or would this dish at a party have you manning the stove all morning (like a traditional omelette)? Thanks for any insight you can provide ...

Allison

    Hi Allison - yeah - you'd be better off doing a frittata for a brunch. These are more like having a crepe station.

    Heidi Swanson

Those look great. I'd dispute, though, the idea that the average omelet is unexciting. I think the best results I've had were 2-egg omelets made in an 8" crepe pan, filled with spinach sauteed in a bit of butter with shallot and garlic with a few dollops of fresh cowgirl chevre. I topped them with snipped-up smoked red onions from the chili lady and some of her delicious sweet rojo jam. I particularly like the fluffy, firm texture of a good omelet made with a splash of cream in the eggs and a continuous use of the spatula, pushing the cooking egg towards the center of the pan as you swirl the pan to fill the empty spots with uncooked egg. If the pan is just the right heat, it makes an omelet with nice volume, something more like a quiche than scrambled egg.

Brian

What a clever idea. Love it! And you're right, the possibilities are endless.

Joyce

Feta is really, really excellent in omelets, especially with sweet or fresh vegetables to cut the saltiness. (Guess what I had for breakfast today?)

threemilechild

Heidi! Thanks for the mention. But thanks even more for the recipe. The Chef and I? We just love eating eggs. But we haven't made this. I'm pretty sure you just gave us breakfast for tomorrow!

shauna

Beautiful! My kind of omelette--I will try with the ricotta.

JEP

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