Gashouse Eggs

For old-time comfort food, there's no beating an egg and a slice of bread fried together in one delicious, breakfast-perfect package. The names are many but in my family, an egg fried in a hole in the center of a slice of bread is called "Gashouse Eggs" – well, except when they’re called Kellogg Eggs.

Gashouse Eggs ♥ KitchenParade.com, the old-time favorite with so many different names, just bread and an egg fried together. Medicinal properties, I swear.

Homestyle Eggs 'n' Toast, Together, No Toaster Required. The Old-Fashioned Breakfast with So Many Funny Names. Real Food, Fresh & Family-Approved. A Long-Time Family Favorite. Fast & Flexible. Mere Minutes to the Table. Substantial Enough for a Quick Supper, a Kitchen Parade Specialty. Hearty & Filling. Year-Round Kitchen Staple. Budget Friendly. Weeknight Easy, Weekend Special. Perfect When Cooking for One or Two. Weight Watchers Friendly. Vegetarian. So Good!!

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COMPLIMENTS!
  • "Perfection! Runny yolk and perfectly browned bread." ~ Sally
  • "SO delicious!" ~ Anonymous
  • "So delicious." ~ Cate
  • What're you waiting for?!

The Year My Dad Took Charge of Breakfast.

When my sister started kindergarten, our mother went back to work and our dad went back to the kitchen. Dad cooked breakfast every single day – without resorting to pop-tarts, cornflakes or even peanut butter toast.

Instead he followed his dad-designed Breakfast Plan, a two-week rotation listed on yellow-lined paper Scotch-taped inside the cupboard beside the stove. Oatmeal. Fried eggs and scrambled eggs. Every other Friday, hamburger patties with tomato soup – yes, this pair for breakfast!

My favorite breakfast was Gashouse Eggs Day, when Dad dropped an egg into a slice of bread with a hole in the center and fried 'em up til crisp. Fried eggs ‘n’ toast – now that’s breakfast!

Others call an egg fried inside a slice of bread an "egg in a hole" or a "toad in a hole" or "hobo eggs". See the long list of funny names for Gashouse Eggs!

But in my family, eggs fried with bread are ever and always called Gashouse Eggs – well, except when they’re called Kellogg Eggs, the name assigned by my dad’s friend of 70-some years.

That friend wrote to me:

"I think the first time your dad introduced me to that particular culinary specialty was in the late fall of 1946 in an 8ft x 12ft pulpwood cutter's shack in northern Minnesota. We were cutting popple (what other places call quaking aspen) and of course doing our own cooking. As I recall, his method of making the hole in the bread was merely to fold the slice in half and take a bite out of the middle. This technique was more in keeping with our crude surroundings and saved on use of utensils. I'm sure he used the more refined approach as described in your article when cooking back home in a civilized kitchen."

Dad Cooked Breakfast For Many Years

Dad cooking Gashouse Eggs, an easy family breakfast tradition ♥ KitchenParade.com, just bread, an egg and a little butter. Weekday Easy, Weekend Special. Weight Watchers Friendly.

When I was down with a cold after Christmas, Dad cooked Gashouse Eggs for our breakfast one morning. He waved away the bacon grease, explaining, "I use butter for Gashouse Eggs because that's what Mom did" – meaning not my mother, mind you, but his mother, my grandmother.

Talk about generations of comfort: I felt immediately on the mend.


PERSONAL NOTES The pictures in this collage were taken in 2009 when my dad was 81 and had been making Gashouse Eggs for at least sixty years. As I update this post in early 2020, he's 93-3/4 and lives down the road in a senior center where I can visit nearly every day. And as I update this recipe again in 2024, my dad passed away at 95, see Rest In Peace. So these pictures are ever so poignant for me, a memory of another time when Dad was still cooking breakfast ...

About This Recipe: Gashouse Eggs

  • Gashouse Eggs are a thrifty, one-skillet method to cook eggs and toast at the same time. My family may call eggs cooked in a hole cut in the center of a slice of bread "Kellogg Eggs" but there are dozens of other clever names, including Gashouse Eggs. Whatever the multitude of names, the egg 'n' toast cooked-at-once combination has been around a long, long while, at least many decades.
  • Distinctive Ingredients = bread slice + egg
  • Short Ingredient List = both the above + a little fat + a little salt & pepper
  • For Garnish = none!
  • Kitchen Tools = a non-stick skillet (including a well-seasoned cast iron skillet or griddle) + a spatula
  • Timing = It takes about 15 minutes, start to finish, to get a Gashouse Egg or Two on the table.
  • Maybe I'm partial because I grew up with Gashouse Eggs, but I love the look of them, that sunny yellow egg right in the middle of a slice of toasted bread.
  • No special cooking technique is needed, you're just frying an egg and toast at the same time.
  • This is pantry-friendly recipe, just eggs, bread, a little fat and a little salt and pepper.
  • This is a budget-friendly, no specialty ingredients to seek out or invest in.
  • This recipe works especially well for those Cooking for One or Two. In fact, it's not well-suited for cooking for a gang because a slice or two of bread can quickly fill up a skillet or even a griddle.
  • So good! I hope you love these!

  • If you'd rather keep your eggs and toast separate, just fry up some eggs and serve with Fried Bread (Skillet Toast).
  • Not quite what you're looking for? Check out my other breakfast or main dish egg recipes.



So Many Funny Names!

Just check out all the funny names for Gashouse Eggs!

Egg in the Basket. Egg in a Window. Egg in the Hole. Pirate's Eye. Toad in the Hole. Adam and Eve on a Raft. Bird's Nest. Bull's Eye. Cave Entrance. Camel's Eye. Eagle Eye. Egg-Holey-O. Egg Castorini. Danish Eggs. Egg in a Blanket. Egg in a Frame. Egg in a Hat and Coat. Egg in Bed. Egg in a Nest. Eggy Toast. Eye of the Beholder. Gaslight Eggs. Hobo Toast. Hobo Eggs. Hoppy Eggs. Nest Eggs. O'Johnnies. Submarine Egg. Victory Egg. Rocky Mountain Toast. Yolky Pokey. Hole in One. Hole in the Head Bread. Man in a Boat. Spits in the Ocean. One-Eyed Jacks. One-Eyed Monsters. One-Eyed Sandwich. Mexican One-Eyes. Baby in a Hole. Gasthaus Eggs. Eggs in a Bonnet. Bird's Nest Eggs. Knothole Eggs. Moon Over Miami, from the Betty Grable movie. Moonstruck Eggs, also from the movie. Ox Eye Eggs. Chicky in a Nest. Navy Eggs. Unidentified Frying Objects. Breakfast Bulls Eyes. Egg in the Middle. Holes in the Middles. Sunlets. Sunshine Toast. Boy Scout Eggs. Bunny in the Hole. Gästehaus Eggs, from a guesthouse in Germany. God-Eye Eggs.

And now – one more name won’t hurt, surely – Kellogg Eggs.


PS Have another? Keep 'em coming! I'll add yours to the list!

No Bread? Try a Tortilla. Or a Leftover Pancake. Or ...

No bread required! We love Gashouse Eggs so much, we're constantly re-inventing them. This Mexican version adds salsa and cheese, see Mexican Gas House Eggs. So good!

Mexican Gashouse Eggs ♥ KitchenParade.com, a takeoff on the classic Gashouse Eggs, just an egg fried in the center of a tortilla, with salsa and cheese.

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Gashouse Eggs ♥ KitchenParade.com, the old-time favorite with so many different names, just bread and an egg fried together. Medicinal properties, I swear.

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GASHOUSE EGGS

Hands-on time: 15 minutes
Time to table: 15 minutes
Serves 1
  • Soft butter
  • 1 slice bread
  • 1 large egg
  • Salt & pepper to taste

Heat a skillet on medium heat. Lightly butter both sides of the bread. With a small knife, cut a circle about two inches wide from the center of the slice. Drop the bread slice into the skillet. (Do fry the little cutout too, some people like it best!) Put a little butter in the hole, then crack an egg right into the hole. Season the top of the egg with salt and pepper, then fry until the bottom side of the bread is golden and crispy. With a spatula, gently flip over and cook until done. Transfer to a serving plate with the cutout served alongside for dipping into the yolk.



FOR MORE INFO If you "skipped straight to the recipe," please scroll back to the top of this page for ingredient information, ingredient substitutions, tips and more. If you print this recipe, you'll want to check the recipe online for even more tips and extra information about ingredient substitutions, best results and more. See https://www.kitchenparade.com/2009/02/gashouse-eggs.php .
NUTRITION INFORMATION Per Serving: 196 Calories; 10g Tot Fat; 5g Sat Fat; 226mg Cholesterol; 256mg Sodium; 14g Carb; 1g Fiber; 2g Sugar; 9g Protein. WEIGHT WATCHERS Old Points 5 & PointsPlus 5 & SmartPoints 7 & Freestyle 5 & myWW green 7 & blue 5 & purple 5 & future WW points
FUN VARIATIONS
  • Mexican Gashouse Eggs Substitute a tortilla for the bread, add salsa and cheese.
  • Gashouse Eggs for Lovers Cut a heart-shaped piece of bread from the center.
  • Piggly Wiggly Gashouse Eggs Substitute bacon grease for butter.
  • Grilled Cheese Gashouse Eggs Use two slices of bread, slipping thin slices of cheese between the slices before cutting out the center.
  • Pancake Gashouse Eggs Use a leftover pancake instead of bread.

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This Week, Elsewhere

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A Veggie Venture

If you like Kitchen Parade's recipes, you'll love A Veggie Venture, my food blog about vegetables with more from-scratch recipes using whole, healthful ingredients, home to the famous Alphabet of Vegetables and vegetables in every course, seasonal to staples, savory to sweet, salads to sides, soups to supper, simple to special.


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Kitchen Parade is written by second-generation food columnist Alanna Kellogg and features fresh, seasonal dishes for every-day healthful eating and occasional indulgences. Quick Suppers are Kitchen Parade favorites and feature recipes easy on the budget, the clock, the waistline and the dishwasher. Do you have a favorite recipe that other Kitchen Parade readers might like? Just send me a quick e-mail, you'll find my current address in the FAQs. How to print a Kitchen Parade recipe. Never miss a recipe! If you like this recipe, sign up for a free e-mail subscription. If you like Kitchen Parade, for more scratch cooking recipes using whole, healthful ingredients, you're sure to like my food blog about vegetable recipes, too, A Veggie Venture. If you make this recipe, I'd love to know your results! Just leave a comment below.

© Copyright Kitchen Parade
2009, 2011, 2020 (repub) & 2024

Alanna Kellogg
Alanna Kellogg

A Veggie Venture is home of "veggie evangelist" Alanna Kellogg and the famous asparagus-to-zucchini Alphabet of Vegetables.

Comments

  1. Anonymous2/19/2009

    Great! My dad made them for us kids every Sunday morning; he called them One Eyed Sandwiches.

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a great post! A walk down memory lane--only we called them "eggs in a frame". Your dad is way cool. I like his method of having two weeks of breakfast menus.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous2/19/2009

    I'm 63 and have eaten these since I was a kid. I had never heard of any of these names except for "Toad in hole". Ours were always referred to as:
    "Mexican One Eyes"

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sally, RtA and Thomas ~ I do so love that in three comments, we have two new names for these things. Who could know? I wonder if there is any other food which carries so many identities.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Our family calls them "Pop-eye Eggs." A real kid favorite!

    ReplyDelete
  6. By reckoning, that's 50, Kalyn!

    Shall we go for 60?!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous2/19/2009

    Yes...go for 60..."egg in a basket" was my daughter's favorite favorite breakfast and I look back on those days of cooking them for her with great fondness...This was a few years ago...I can't tell you her age but I recently told her "I'm comfortable about my age but I've started lying about yours!" Needless to say this was not appreciated. My granddaughter Madi (5) is a huge fan of egg in a basket too...
    best, S

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous2/19/2009

    It's me again, although we called them eggs in a frame, I've also heard them called "unidentified frying objects". That's pretty cute.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous2/19/2009

    My father called them "spit in the ocean." Hmmmm.

    ReplyDelete
  10. They were "eggs in a nest" at our house - but whatever the names, they're always delicious! Lovely story and better comfort food.

    ReplyDelete
  11. My father called them egg in a basket - and I'll bet I haven't had one since I was a kid. Thanks for the reminder.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous2/20/2009

    Egg-in-the-hole was our name, which I'm sure was what my mom's parents called it, too. Whenever I'm hungry and want a bit of nostalgia, this is one of the things I turn to. I still eat it pretty regularly! :)

    I liked reading the other names people use - eggs in a basket, one eyed sandwiches...fun stuff!

    My parents also insisted on butter, as my dad did for making grilled cheese sandwiches. It just isn't the same otherwise...

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous2/20/2009

    Thanks much for sending the article. I really enjoyed being reminded of the famous "Kellogg Egg". I think the first time your dad introduced me to that particular culinary specialty was in the late fall of 1946 in an 8ftx12ft pulpwood cutter's shack in northern Minnesota. We were cutting popple and of course doing our own cooking. As I recall, his method of making the hole in the bread was merely to fold the slice in half and take a bite out of the middle. This technique was more in keeping with our crude surroundings and saved on use of utensils. I'm sure he used the more refined approach as described in your article when cooking back home in a civilized kitchen.

    My wife and I had a breakfast this morning of a plain old fried egg and toast sandwich. If we had read your article before eating, it would surely have been a Kellogg Egg!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  14. When my husband and I were newly married, he kept asking me to make him a fried egg sandwich. A fried egg or two between two pieces of buttered toast with mayonnaise and catsup.
    I made them, but went 'ewwww' as I served them.
    Until I made one for myself. Instant LOVE!. Instant gratification. Better than the 'eggs in a frame' my Dad used to make for us. (It's gotta be a 'guy thing', making fried eggs that way. Yes? He was a cook in the army, by the way.)
    We have since evolved into using salsa instead of catsup, and/or adding a splash of Tabasco if we use just plain catsup, mmmm.
    Thanks for the walk down memory lane. Think I am going to head for the kitchen and making myself one, maybe even one for hubby......he's been a good boy. Got me a new fridge two days ago to replace the non-cooling 22-year old fridge that the freezer died a week earlier. Lost over a thousand in meat. Ya, I know, ouch. But the new fridge is smaller, and that is just fine with me.
    The door 'beeps' when you have had it open too long. Love it, love it, love it.

    ReplyDelete
  15. OK - here's another one. DH calls them "hole in the head bread". And, of course, that's what the grandson calls them now. I never knew there were so many names for such a simple meal.

    BTW, I laughed out loud when I read Russ' memory of your dad folding the bread in half and taking a bite out of it to make the hole. So funny!!

    Oh, and I use different shaped cookie cutters to make the hole. Keeps it interesting. LOL

    ReplyDelete
  16. Like Lydia, I grew up eating these as "spits in the ocean". Not sure where the colorful name comes from, but I still use it from time to time. I got tired of explaining it to my roommates, though, and now I mostly just refer to it as egg-in-toast.

    ReplyDelete
  17. My parents never made these; they're something I learned about as an adult. Name: Toad in a Hole or Egg in a Frame. I often get the yolk cooked too hard, which I don't like. This morning? Perfection! Runny yolk and perfectly browned bread.

    Sally

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anonymous2/23/2009

    I had these for breakfast today! SO delicious!

    Way better than the oatmeal you convinced me to start eating every morning for the last month! (Mock sulk)

    ReplyDelete
  19. Anonymous2/24/2009

    My English Mum called these "Hoppy Eggs" I loved the way the bread was buttery crisp. Yum, haven't had one for years!

    ReplyDelete
  20. Anonymous3/13/2009

    We call it Sunshine Toast, and it's always a hit for breakfast.

    ReplyDelete
  21. I have two more names for Gashouse Eggs for you …

    My mom called them “Danish Eggs” (no idea why) and my sister’s kids call them “One-Eyed Monsters”…

    ReplyDelete
  22. Caroline11/05/2009

    I grew up with this dish. My dad always called it a one-eyed jack as do my kids who have also grown up on the gashouse egg!

    ReplyDelete
  23. I just discovered this a few days ago and started making my eggs this way. So delicious. Have tried with 2 different types of bread so far. The name variations are hysterical!

    ReplyDelete
  24. Anonymous1/14/2011

    Just had to add my mom's name for these - "Moonstruck eggs" (from the movie).

    ReplyDelete
  25. Anonymous2/26/2017

    Alanna~You were asking for suggestions for the backsplash on your new stove.....my friend Judy makes AMAZINGLY beautiful tiles in any color/style. Her phone # is 360-265-6278 (:

    ReplyDelete
  26. Anonymous7/06/2017

    My aunt made these for me. She called them "Hole in the middles".

    ReplyDelete
  27. We call them "Bunny in the hole" and have for all of our 55 married years. It was what my family called it when I was growing up. Kay

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Kay ~ Bunny in the Hole is darling! And ... perfect for Easter! Thanks for adding your name, there are soooo many!

      Delete
  28. Anonymous10/05/2022

    My dad took me to movies something about "Rio" with Don Ameche, my favorite, and in the movie he made "gashouse eggs". I read lately the name is based on German language for a guest house or B and B. Only they spell it gasthouse. I am talking the 1930s or early 40s. We could not wait to get home to make them. Still make them and I'm 94!

    ReplyDelete
  29. Anonymous10/14/2022

    Anonymous ~ That's a new one! Thanks so much for making the time to share it! ~Alanna

    ReplyDelete
  30. Anonymous8/25/2023

    My mom always called them “God Eye Eggs” and we added a slice of cheese on top.

    ReplyDelete

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Thank you for taking a moment to write! I read each and every comment, for each and every recipe. If you have a specific question, it's nearly always answered quick-quick. But I also love hearing your reactions, your curiosity, even your concerns! When you've made a recipe, I especially love to know how it turned out, what variations you made, what you'll do differently the next time. ~ Alanna