Tomato Egg Is the Quick, Easy, and Comforting Dish You’ve Been Looking For

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been gravitating towards more comfort food as of late. After the warmth of the holidays has faded, I want all of my food to wrap around me like a blanket. However, after all of my end-of-year baking projects, I also don’t want to spend hours on a meal. So when I spotted Kristina Cho’s Tomato Egg recipe on Instagram, it was everything I was looking for: quick and comforting. Even the video made me feel warmer.

Tomato egg is a common Chinese dish, but the style can vary from region to region and cook to cook. Cho shares the full recipe on her blog, Eat Cho Food, and explains that her family likes to make their tomato egg more Cantonese-style. Rather than resembling a scramble, it’s luxurious and gravy-like — perfect for a cold day. In the video, Cho calls it “one of my absolute favorite meals” and adds that she could eat it every day.

To make tomato egg, you’ll need to sauté fresh ginger in oil just until it begins to brown. Add chopped Roma tomatoes, salt, white pepper, chile flakes, sesame oil, and oyster sauce. Cook until the tomatoes become jammy. Make a cornstarch slurry out of water and cornstarch and mix it into the tomatoes. Simmer a few minutes, then drizzle over two beaten eggs. You’l let them cook without stirring for a short time, before adding green onions, and then stir. As Cho says, this dish is “best served with a heaping island of jasmine rice.”

Personally, I love the simplicity and versatility of this recipe. It would be easy to tweak to suit your tastes, like adding more or less spice or adjusting the tomato sauce to egg ratio. It would also be easy to make this suitable for one by using a small skillet — or even doubling or tripling it to feed a family. Most tomato egg I’ve seen in the past has been more of a scramble, so I’m definitely drawn to the sauciness of this dish.

The only thing that stopped me from sprinting to the grocery store immediately, however was the tomatoes. Isn’t wintertime the worst time to buy tomatoes? But Cho has that covered, too. She notes that this recipe is “a wonderful dish to utilize lackluster winter tomatoes.” Since they cook down, even sad winter tomatoes will be transformed into something delicious.

It’s so simple it makes me wonder why I haven’t been making this for a quick, filling lunch for years. That’s about to be remedied though because I’ve officially added tomatoes to my grocery list. If you’re interested in scarfing this one down like I am, you can get the recipe for Tomato Egg here.