The Easiest Migas Recipe
Migas are a fast meal of crisp, skillet fried tortillas with eggs, making a yummy version of a tortilla-hash.
Serves4
Prep8 minutes
Cook12 minutes
Migas are a fast meal created from only three things: eggs, corn tortillas, and salt. The tortillas crisp up in a hot skillet, and then eggs are stirred in at the end, making a sort of tortilla hash. My mom made them all the time for me when I was a kid, and my kids love them now.
The key to the best migas? Use good-quality, day-old tortillas — the older and tougher, the better — and cook them until they are very crisp. You’ll want to make sure the oil is hot when the tortillas hit the pan; otherwise they’ll get too soggy when you mix in the egg. A cast iron skillet does the best job, but if you don’t have one, any heavy skillet will work.
The Best Tortillas for Migas
Migas should be made with the highest-quality corn tortillas you can find. The thin, sour-smelling packaged ones are too floppy, and they’ll break up and leave crumbs that tend to burn. (Plus, they don’t taste as good.) Since this dish is essentially corn tortillas and not much more, it’s best to buy them from a local tortillería that makes them fresh from nixtamalized dough, meaning the corn was cooked and ground fairly recently. If you can’t find those, I like the packaged El Milagro brand.
Related: Not All Corn Tortillas Are Equal. Here’s How to Find the Best Ones
To serve four people, you might need around seven or eight of the good corn tortillas, which tend to be sturdier; if you can only find the less-appealing packaged variety, which are thinner, use 10.
You don’t really need any additional toppings here, but if you have to add something, I like grated Monterey Jack cheese and hot sauce.
Migas
Migas are a fast meal of crisp, skillet fried tortillas with eggs, making a yummy version of a tortilla-hash.
Prep time 8 minutes
Cook time 12 minutes
Serves 4
Nutritional Info
Ingredients
- 7 to 10
corn tortillas, depending on thickness
- 6
large eggs
- 1 1/4 teaspoons
kosher salt, divided
- 3 tablespoons
canola oil
Instructions
Tear 7 to 10 corn tortillas into 1-inch pieces. Whisk 6 large eggs with 3/4 teaspoon of the kosher salt in a medium bowl until lightly beaten.
Heat a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Add 3 tablespoons canola oil and wait a few minutes for oil to heat through — to test it, add a piece of tortilla. If it sizzles and turns golden-brown once flipped over after a few seconds, it’s ready.
Add the remaining tortillas to the pan and season with the remaining 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt. Cook, stirring often, until they crisp up and start to make scraping sounds against the pan, about 8 minutes.
Reduce the heat to medium and pour in the eggs. Cook, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan, until the tortillas are slightly more dry and no longer glossy, 2 to 3 minutes. Serve immediately, as this doesn't reheat well and should be eaten right away.
Recipe Notes
The tortillas: To serve four people, you'll need around seven or eight of the good corn tortillas (purchased from a local tortillería), which tend to be sturdier; if you can only find the packaged variety, which are thinner, use 10.
Lesley Téllez is a journalist, entrepreneur, and Mexican cookbook author living in New York City. She’s the author of Eat Mexico: Recipes from Mexico City’s Streets, Markets and Fondas and the co-founder of Eat Mexico. This story is part of a multi-story, multi-recipe package by Lesley sharing her personal, family-friendly approach to Weeknight Mexican.