Quick Spanish Omelette – Perfect for breakfast!
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A classic recipe like a glorious Spanish omelette has to be treated with care. This is why we asked our friend Cristina Parés from Barcelona, Catalunya (still Spain) to help us out.
And much to our liking she provided us with a quick and tasty version – without sacrificing traditional feeling!
The innovations of our Spanish omelette
We use way less oil than the traditional version, making the recipe much less calorie dense.
Similar taste divided by less time = superior recipe, no arguments there. We halved the cooking time of the potatoes by grating them. It’s not traditional – but it’s very practical.
If you don’t have a suitable grater, you can also just cut the potatoes into thin slices instead (and fry them for fifteen minutes instead of seven), no worries.
With regards to peeling the potatoes, that’s totally up to you! We usually leave the peel off them. Check out our vegan potato soup recipe where we discuss the topic of peeling in more depth.
Tips and tricks when making a Spanish Omelette
Flipping the omelette: Check out this video by Spaniard Omar Allibhoy on how to flip Spanish omelettes properly. It is a bit tricky, but he handles it like a boss.
By the way, his version of the Spanish omelette is what you would call traditional. Why? Well, one reason is he doesn’t skimp on the olive oil – fuck me, the Spanish love their olive oil, people!
Also, Omar “Oliveoilbhoy” takes his time for each step. Our Spanish omelette is definitely more practical and less time-consuming than the one mentioned above.
Cooking the omelette: The egg-potato-onion mix needs 5 minutes in the pan on low heat to get it firm on the outside – making it possible to flip yet keeping the inside nice and moist.
Then it needs another 5 minutes until finished. Low heat is very important here otherwise the Spanish omelette will lose it’s moisture.
Keeping an eye on the time is easy and essential – you want this omelette soft and moist. Delicious.
Keep your zen: The classic Spanish omelette is made from very few, very simple ingredients, but it takes some skill and time to get it just “right”.
If you want to master it we recommend checking back to the video above by Omar Allibhoy and listen exactly to what he says – especially regarding the level of heat and cooking time.
And if you like, check out this humorous research on the Spanish omelette by Felicity Cloake from the Guardian to learn even more.
But don’t worry if your omelette doesn’t turn out exactly like it’s said in the Spanish playbook, our version will be absolutely delicious as well, promise!
Last note: For our recipe we used a 20 cm/ 7.8 inch frying pan. A bigger pan is also fine, though you won’t get the thickness the Spanish style omelettes are famous for.
Alright ladies and gentlemen, now it’s time to attempt your own. Good luck, and enjoy!
Ingredients
- 2 medium potato (white and sweet variety)
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 6 eggs
- 1 onion
- Salt to taste
Optional:
- 1 apple (swap for the onion to make it sweeter)
Instructions
- Grate the potato (peel the skin if it looks manky).
- Dice the onion.
- Heat the oil in the pan on medium heat and add the potato and onion with a pinch of salt.
- Stir every now and then, cooking for about 7 minutes until you have a nice golden brown edge to it.
- In the meantime, beat the eggs in a mixing bowl, again with a pinch of salt.
- When the potato-onion mix is golden brown, add it to the eggs in the mixing bowl. This starts to cook the egg.
- Put it all back into the pan and cook on a low heat with a lid on for 5 minutes.
- After this, take the lid off and get a plate that is wider than the pan. Place the plate face down onto the pan. With a firm grip on the handle and the plate, flip it. You can also use the pan’s lid for this.
- Now slide the omelette back into the pan the other way up. If you’re not sure how to do it we urge you to check out this video. It’ll make life easier.
- Cook for another 5 minutes on low heat.
- Awesome, your omelette is then ready. Serve with a sauce of your choice, and enjoy!
- Que aproveche!
I’ve just tried to make this. When I got to the omelette part it looked like it would turn out an unmitigated disaster, yet when I took the lid off and flipped it over it was actually pretty good. Just a little overdone but that’s my fault. Next time i’ll use a little more oil but thanks for the recipe Dave!
Woohoo! I’m glad it went well, Bobario. We love this recipe and still have it often. It gets easier each time too :). You’re very welcome, thanks for writing!
I spent 30 mins cooking this. The kitchen was a mess with spoons and chopping boards and a grater. the pan you recommended was far too small to cook in. I had to transfer the ingredients to a bigger pan to cook them. So I had two dirty frying pans. I used the dish i used to grate the spuds and onion into to mix my eggs so at least that was one less dish to wash. I then mixed the cooked veg with the eggs and poured all this back in the pan to cook. I put the pan lid on to cook it so i now have a pan lid to wash as well. When the top of the omelette was cooked, I had to use a large clean plate to tip the omelette out. I tipped the omelette back in the pan, but now had to wash that plate because it was now covered in raw egg. by this time I was so hungry, I just made myself a sandwich and ate it in the time it’s taken me to type this. I could have just cooked a normal omelette with a chopped salad and had it cooked and eaten in 10 mins. Your recipe and all the washing up is far from quick!
Hi Chris, oh dear, it sounds like you had a rough go of it! I’ll try and tackle each problem. Yes, there is some washing up involved with this recipe – including the plate. You can try and flip the omelette without the plate (and we did), but honestly, it’s just much easier and we find it a small price to pay. The pan we pictured should be just right – were the potatoes bigger than ours by any chance? This recipe is definitely more egg than potato-based. It does get much quicker each time you cook it as well – and although it’s not the fastest omelette recipe (compared to this one for example: https://hurrythefoodup.com/tomato-omelette/) it’s certainly quick for a Spanish omelette! I hope it was still tasty at the end 🙂
It is very Delicious, thank you very much for such a loving dish
Glad you enjoyed it, Sush!
This looks great! I don’t have any but my frozen shredded hash potatoes should be the same if I put them out to thaw, right?
Hi Mallory, I don’t see why not! It probably speeds up cooking time if they’re already cooked, too. Enjoy, please let us know how it went!
30 years ago in a hoste restuarant in the SFO airport they made spanish omilets and a red sauce over the top.
any recepes for the sauce?
Sriracha if you like it spicy! Sweet and sour, maybe, or a home-made salsa 🙂 https://hurrythefoodup.com/simple-sexy-salsa/
One of my favorite dishes in the world, love your version of this classic, much healthier
Haha, thanks Albert! Healthier and soooo tasty!
thanks a million for this amazing recipe.
Could I use sweet potatoes as well for this?
Thank you.
Oooh yes, why not?! I bet they’d be great. Of course it would a little less savoury, but you could also swap out the onion for apple too. I’m already sure it’ll be delicious 😀
K thanks. When you say it will be less savoury, how do you mean? I would’ve thought they’d be tastier cuz of the sweetness of sweet potatoes?
Hi Kiki, yes exactly – I mean the new version would be sweeter and less savoury than the old version because of sweet potato and apple vs potato and onion. But definitely tasty 🙂