If you're cooking them in bacon grease (what can I say, I'm Southern), just sploosh the hot grease over the top with the spatula as they are cooking. Healthy? No. Tasty? Oh, yes. :)

At the very end, I flip mine upside down and slip them out of the pan at a second or five...I end up with a 'cloudy'-side up, and set yolks every time.

Start with room-temperature eggs. It's totally fine to leave them out of the fridge overnight.

In a restaurant that is called a basted egg - you can order it that way if you are worried about getting under-done egg whites.

I cook mine on a griddle over VERY LOW heat with butter. There's barely a flame. It takes a little longer but I get perfectly cooked eggs every time. I also flip them at the end to make sure the whites are thoroughly cooked.

My mother has been doing this for decades.

"Fry"? Try deep fry. Plop them into a tub of hot oil. Takes about 30 seconds, with runny yolk and crispy whites. Of course, it's very oily.

I found that technique in a small cooking pamphlet that came with a set of pots and pans my grandmother had, but they called it a "braised egg".

I have played with this technique in the past. You have to be sure that you don't have too much oil in the pan, and also that it's not too hot. Otherwise you get this disgusting oil-water mess spattering all over your pan, your egg and the white ends up all distorted because of the crazy spattering.
I am sure practice makes perfect :)

I second manjar's suggestion to start with room temperature eggs - I used to cook brunch for a crowd of hungry students every Sunday, and I'd always take all the eggs out of the fridge when I started prep ~45 min beforehand. The heat of the kitchen (thanks, industrial grill!) meant that the eggs were perfect by the time I started cooking - easy fried eggs with no basting/steaming required!

I always flip mine, and they turn out beautifully. Although, not sunny side up.

Crispy eggs gross me out, so I just cook them at a lower temperature. I want the yolks runny but the whites completely firm (no runny bits around the yolk!). Lowering the temperature makes that easy.

I flip, too. I do *not* want the little bit of white covering the top of the yolk to be raw and transparent or even translucent.

If you cover them immediately the whites will cook perfectly and you don't need to add any water to the pan.

I cook mine in an 8 inch lodge cast iron skillet and then slip the pan into my Breville toaster oven for a few seconds on broil--perfect.....as long as you don't step away........

Whoops, I think it's a 9 inch lodge.....cause it does fit two eggs

I'm with Azrhiaz, even though not a southerner! (well, southern Canada, but...) Anyway, my mum always cooked the eggs in bacon fat, and would just literally spoon up some over the tops of the eggs and that hot fat cooked them. Delicious! I suppose most folks would run screaming from my kitchen nowadays if I tried it -- but, as Azrhiaz said, "tasty," for sure!

Growing up that is how fried eggs were always made in our house ~ they were basted eggs. Now I cook them on lower heat and gently flip them over so they are over easy or over medium.

It's how I always make them. Btw the eggs in the top picture look undercooked.

Yep, I grew up eating them "basted" with bacon grease. Best fried egg in the entire world!

I have a better suggestion. Pierce the white's (NOT the yolk's) membrane with a sharp fork tine right after placing the egg in the hot pan. Tilt the pan so that the white escapes the membrane and spreads around the edge. This is much like how you would tilt the pan to spread butter or *ahem* bacon grease around the pan. Note: his cooks much faster and more evenly without the mess of basting or flipping, and without cooking the yellow too much as you would with a lid. TaDa!

I've always added a tiny bit of water and put a lid over it. Perfect every time :)

I'm in the minority, but I like my bottom with a smidge of crispy- as in, feathery edges with a bit of brown crunch. I cover the pan to encourage the tops to set. My husband loves his yolks runny (I like mine firm) so I usually do two batches.

One, that's how I always make them.

Two, that's how I already made them the last time the Kitchn "discovered" this technique and posted about it.

I use a Spanish technique for fried eggs. you need very good olive oil and a small fry pan. you heat the olive oil first (a goodly amount for 2 eggs.. 1/8 to 1/4 cup range), add 2 eggs, salt & pepper then continually baste the eggs with the very hot oil. it makes for crispy bubbly whites and perfect yolks. The oil becomes an integral part of the dish so it should be served on good bread. Beware that it splatters quite a bit!

Re: bacon fat
It's kind of a longstanding myth that bacon fat is unhealthy. It's being realized that there's no correlation between dietary fat (saturated fat/cholesterol included) and heart disease/blocked arteries.

...and there was much rejoicing!

Check out these posts about cholesterol and saturated fat from one of my favorite blogs (no affiliation):

http://www.foodrenegade.com/does-saturated-fat-cause-heart-disease/

http://www.foodrenegade.com/two-videos-bust-the-cholesterol-myth/

Oh yeah...I always cook sausage before my eggs, then fry the eggs in the sausage fat. Low heat and a longer time in the pan help the whites to set too.

I definitely want them slightly crisp underneath. And I hate it, if the yolks are hard or white on the top because they were flipped or covered with a lid! And fried with a generous piece of butter, please!

Ha ha, yes, I know, I'm very fussy with fried eggs ;-)

If the heat is not too high, this shouldn't be a problem.

Molly
www.katzentisch.com

I learned this from my mom, who learned it from hers. I love eggs this way!

This was my mom's secret tip, too! It also works with omelets--you don't need a lot, just a few drops!

I use vermouth instead of water, and I flip my egg for a few seconds as well.
A room temp egg has a higher probability of having the yolk run, so a lukewarm egg is ideal.

I learned this from a great short order cook:

Crack the egg and separate the whites from the yolk. Fry as usual. When the whites are just about cooked, carefully place the yolk in the middle. You'll have a perfectly cooked sunny side up egg.

Would you add water to a cast iron pan?

this trick works well for grilled cheese & dumplings too. in order to get the crispy bottom (like an egg) I'll usually do the water trick at the very beginning, then open the cover to let the water evaporate out of the pan and finish dry/just oil to crisp up the bread/dumpling skin/egg bottom.

set your oven to 400 while you grab everything else. melt some butter in a pan. add a few eggs. finish the eggs in the oven (maybe 3 minutes). crispy bottom, perfect top, and no lid to wash.

umm, ever heard of "over easy"

not everyone eats them "sunnyside up"

perhaps your article's title should be "how to cook sunnyside up eggs" not fried eggs.

more than one way to fry an egg my dear :)