At my house, I have what I dub a Condiment Drawer. Mixed in with plastic measuring cups, clean dish towels, a cheese grater and other random kitchen knick-knacks is an entire collection of condiment packets gathered from store-bought sushi packs, Popeye’s and Vietnamese take out (where else would you get Sriracha To Go packets, a.k.a. the best thing ever invented!?). The Condiment Drawer can be a maddening reminder of the nights you ate terribly, but also deliciously. And, of course, there is hot sauce. Hot sauce is basically a condiment staple for any Californian because Mexican food is our unofficial state cuisine. The only problem with amassing a hot sauce packet collection is that it only seems to get larger with every bag of tacos al carbon you bring home.
And this is how Breakfast Nachos became my Sunday morning go-to meal. Breakfast Nachos were basically born out of a half-hearted attempt at making chilaquiles from scratch until I realized I didn’t have exactly all of the right ingredients to do so. They’re a great way to use up hot sauce packets and tortilla chips, especially if you have stale ones or are nearing the dreaded bottom of the bag and mostly working with crumbles. And as we all know, crumbs are pretty much useless.
What you need:
3-4 egg whites or 2 eggs with yolk
Light Mexican blend cheese
Chopped red onion (to taste)
Chopped green onion (to taste)
Your personal hot sauce packet collection (to taste)
Scramble about 4 egg whites with light Mexican blend cheese. Spread desired number of tortilla chips or tortilla chip crumbles on a plate and take out all the packets of hot sauce you have sitting in your Condiment Drawer. Open packets and squeeze contents across the chips, coating them to your preference. Sprinkle Mexican blend cheese across tortilla chip/hot sauce packet combo. Place scrambled egg whites on top of chips/hot sauce (they should already be cooked), top with more Mexican blend cheese, and chopped red and green onions to taste. Pop in microwave for about 1 minute 15 seconds. Serve hot with more hot sauce (!!), fresh cilantro, fresh avocado, sour cream, salsa… you get the idea.
Of course, you can turn this into a Breakfast Nachos lasagna-type thing, and continue to layer chips and scrambled eggs as you so desire. I find one layer to be pretty filling but do as you wish. Your Condiment Drawer will thank you. I know mine does.
