Healthy Egg, Ham & Cheese? Yes!

A friend recently gave me a recipe for low-calorie "egg muffins", and they're my new favorite thing to have for breakfast.  They're easy to make, and much tastier than the chewy, chemical-filled frozen breakfast options at the grocery store.  You can bake a bunch of them ahead of time and refrigerate (or even freeze) them for a quick, healthy breakfast.

Use whatever vegetables you enjoy; I used zucchini and onions this time because that's what I had on hand, but mushrooms, asparagus, and shredded carrots would work well, too. I'm going to list the specific, name-brand ingredients that I used, so that you can duplicate this recipe exactly. The calorie counts and other nutritional info given at the end are for the recipe as written. So keep in mind, if you make product substitutes (like real eggs or full-fat cheese), the nutritional info will vary from what is listed below. Switching up the veggies won't make much difference on the calorie count, so feel free to get creative with that.

Egg, Ham & Cheese Breakfast Muffins

Pam non-stick cooking spray
Metal muffin tin pans (6 muffins each)
1/2 cup Sargento Reduced Fat 4 Cheese Mexican Shredded Cheese
6 oz (3 slices with rind cut off) Smithfield Sliced Honey Cured Boneless Ham, diced small
1/2 of a small zucchini, diced
1/2 small onion, diced
1 1/2 cups Egg Beaters Original


Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit. Spray the muffin tin with Pam and set aside (don't use paper cupcake liners!). In a small bowl, combine the shredded cheese, ham, zucchini & onion. Spoon the mixture directly into the six muffin cups, dividing evenly (about 2 heaping TBS per muffin). Add 2 TBS of Egg Beaters to each muffin cup, which is just enough to cover the veggie/cheese mixture and bind it all together.  Bake for 30 minutes.  Allow to cool slightly, then run a butter knife along the edges to loosen the muffins and pop them out onto a wire rack.  You can eat them immediately or let them cool completely and refrigerate for later. Makes 12 muffins.

Nutritional info per muffin: 50 calories, 1.4 g fat, 1.3g carb, 7g protein, 0.8g sugar.

Even if you eat 6 of these, you're still looking at a 300 calorie breakfast. I like to switch things up: sometimes I'll have two of the egg muffins on a toasted English Muffin, for a hearty and satisfying 210 calorie breakfast. Or, on days when I want to stay more low-carb, I'll eat 4 of them and call it a day.  These keep for about a week in the fridge, so you can enjoy them over the course of several days. Enjoy!