This easy guide to making Fried Eggs Without Oil or Water includes a couple of tricks and tips so you end up with perfectly fried eggs every time. With fully cooked egg whites and totally runny yolks, all you need to fry eggs ‘over easy’ with no oil is a decent non-stick pan and a couple of minutes.
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I eat a lot of eggs and always have. And I suspect I always will. I love to make poached eggs and when I’ve feeling luxurious I’ll choose my super creamy scrambled eggs. But frying eggs is so quick and easy that this tends to be my go-to cooking method. And I do mean that I cook eggs like this most days.
There are many ways to fry eggs and many different preferences for how the eggs should be cooked. Many people like crispy bottoms and frilly edges to their eggs and for that you need to cook in and baste them with a good amount of oil.
Others like their yolks broken in the pan and fully cooked through. Incidentally you can absolutely use this cooking method to do this. Some people like to use no oil but add water and a lid to the cooking pan. To me these are really steamed eggs rather than fried.
But the one thing almost everyone agrees on is that ‘snotty’ undercooked egg whites are a definite no. And those of us that like our yolks runny, want them to be fully runny. So my method of frying eggs is the perfect combination of those two things.
How to Serve Fried Eggs
There are a million ways! From including them with a full cooked breakfast to topping leftover rice before dousing with sweet soy sauce, sesame seeds and sliced spring onions.
Try adding to cheese on toast, making an easy dinner of pork chops, fried eggs and leftover chips or serving like I have with air fried gammon steaks, pineapple rings, chips and peas.
Make a nice easy brunch with mashed avocado on toast. Add the eggs and sprinkle with some everything seasoning or chilli oil for a bit of a kick.
However you choose to serve these fried eggs, I cannot stress enough how much they should be cooked last, plated last and served straight away. They cool very fast and aren’t nearly as delicious eaten cold.
Which Eggs Are Best To Fry?
Fresh is best. As eggs age the whites become looser and they spread more in the pan. I have shown in the recipe how to bring runaway white back in towards the yolk but still, fresher is better.
Otherwise basically any size egg or type egg can be easily fried. You can even use this method for tiny quails eggs or richer duck eggs.
Equipment Notes for Eggs Fried Without Oil
A non-stick pan is your best friend here. I’ve linked to these Tefal frying pans which are totally fine. I’m not a fan of spending huge amounts of money on pans. It doesn’t seem to matter how amazing they promise to me, they never seem to last. So I tend to buy cheaper ones and replace them when needed.
Don’t think I’m wasteful however, just because a pan gets relegated from being my top non-stick pan doesn’t mean that they don’t then get used for a long time more for other things.
My current favourite pans are from Asda with their cream speckled inners. I just paid a total of £18 for 3 pans – 28cm/11″, 24cm/9.5″ and 20cm/8cm in diameter (June 2024). I used the smallest to cook the eggs shown in this recipe.
You will of course want to choose the size pan that best fits however many eggs you are frying. It is better to go bigger and have excess room than try to use a pan that is too small.
The other item which I could not be without is a silicone fish slice. Silicone is almost always my preferred material for any cooking utensils, especially those that are going to be used on non-stick surfaces. Nothing gives me more rage than seeing metal utensils being used in pans – especially on the TV by people who are purporting to be educators and who quite frankly should know better,
If you don’t have silicone, use another kind of plastic/nylon turning spatula. You do want something around the width of the fried egg so you can get well underneath and give them a good flip.
A comprehensive list of the equipment used to make this recipe is included in the main recipe card below. Click on any item to see an example. There are no hard and fast rules so many items can be sensibly substituted to achieve the same results.
Get Ahead
This is not a time to get ahead. It is in fact a time to be very last minute. So last minute in fact, I don’t usually even crack the eggs into the pan until everything else is on the plate!
Fried Eggs Tips
- Do not crack eggs on the edge of the pan – or any sharp edge for that matter. Give each egg a short sharp tap on a flat surface. This prevents shell being pushed into the egg which can pierce the egg yolk by accident. Naturally not breaking the yolk is the primary aim here.
- Try to keep the heat on the pan up fairly high. One of the tricks to cooking the white thoroughly without overcooking the yolk is to get them cooked quickly. Leaving the eggs to sit on a low heat will just start cooking through the yolks.
- For more cooked “over hard” eggs, simply cook for longer on each side until the yolk is cooked through too. You can break the yolk if you wish to – before you flip it the first time is best.
- I’ve included notes at the end of the recipe for how to deal with cooking a greater quantity of eggs making sure that they are all cooked the same. I wouldn’t generally attempt more than 8 eggs at a time in one pan, and even then you will have to work quickly and efficiently. 4 is enough for most people, especially if you are left confident and still learning.
Don’t forget to let me know in the comments if you try making this recipe – I want to know what you think and if you made any substitutions, how did it turn out?
Still Have Questions?
Simple! Just contact me and I will do my best to help as quickly as I am able. Head over to my Contact Me page, any of my social media channels or post a comment at the bottom of this page and I’ll see what I can do.
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More Eggy Recipes
The Recipe
Fried Eggs Without Oil or Water (Over Easy Recipe)
Equipment
- Frying Pan – Medium non-stick
Ingredients
- 2 Eggs - as fresh as possible
Instructions
- Place a medium frying pan over a medium high heat. Have your 2 Eggs ready to go near the pan and stove.
- Once the pan is hot (you can't hold the palm of you hand close to the surface for more than a second or so), turn the heat down slightly and crack the eggs into the pan.
- Don't touch the eggs until the white start to cook and turn white at the bottom – only about 10 or 20 seconds.
- Use your spatula to push any rogue pieces of egg white in towards the yolk or fold them in.
- The idea is to make the egg white a vaguely even thickness all the way around the yolk so it all cooks evenly.
- By this time the egg white will have cooked though more. At this point, wiggle your spatula underneath an egg and lift it clear of the bottom of the pan.
- Quickly flip the egg over so the top is now facing down. Repeat with the second/other eggs.
- Us the edge of the spatula to gently press the egg white down all around the yolk. Don't press on the yolk or you will burst it!
- This will help the egg white cook quickly without the yolk having time to set.
- As soon as the egg whites are completely set, take the pan off the heat and serve up the eggs straight away.
- You can flip the eggs back over in the pan, wiggle the spatula under and then move each egg to the plate. Or go straight in with the spatula and flip the eggs onto your plate so they are right side up again. (Don't break the yolks in the pan – sometimes I have to do silly things in the name of making photographs not totally boring!)
Notes
- Use a suitable sized pan
- Crack the eggs into the pan in a circle – start at the top of the pan and then work clockwise.
- As you flip and serve the eggs, start at the top and work clockwise each time. This will prevent you from overcooking the first eggs into the pan.
Cat says
Made these for breakfast this morning & they turned out perfectly!
Sisley says
This worked perfectly. Thank you!
Janice says
Well this was a revelation! It works perfectly and the eggs are delicious without using oil.
Lesley says
I like my eggs over easy so gave your oil free method a try and they turned out perfect.