Making Homemade Eggs Benedict

It's a lot of fun to recreate your favorite restaurant dishes at home. That way, you can customize them with your favorite toppings without having to ask the chef's permission. Today, we're looking at our favorite brunch dish, Eggs Benedict- a classic combination of Poached Eggs, Ham and Hollandaise perched atop an English Muffin. For the non-ham eaters out there, it's fine to omit it or replace it with anything from Smoked Salmon to Spinach to Lobster. We've also seen a great recipe for making Artichokes Benedict as an appetizer for parties.

Making Eggs Benedict involves creating only two components: perfectly poached eggs and Hollandaise sauce. The Ham or Canadian Bacon can be cooked in a frying pan and English Muffins need a couple minutes in the toaster. Of course, if you're feeling ambitious you can scratch-bake English Muffins using the recipe we provided below.

Poached Eggs: The key is to add a little vinegar to a pot of almost-boiling water. The vinegar helps hold the eggs together during the cooking. Also, to keep the eggs together in the water, we gently lower them into the water after first cracking them one-by-one into a small bowl or ceramic ramekin. If the entire process of poaching seems too daunting, there are plenty of cookware solutions, including this one for the microwave.

Hollandaise: making a great Hollandaise involves gently layering ingredients. First, boil lemon juice and vinegar in a small saucepan and then remove from the heat. While that's cooling, add butter to the saucepan and allow it to melt. In a bowl, whisk together egg yolks with salt and pepper. Then, add the cooled lemon juice and vinegar mixture and continue stirring. Once the butter starts to foam, remove it from the heat and whisk it into the bowl with the egg yolks, lemon juice and vinegar. Voilà!

To help you create the best Eggs Benedict dish ever, we fired up the FoodPair search engine and found a handful of great recipes from across the Web.

Classic Eggs Benedict
This classic eggs benedict brings it all together.
Ingredients: egg, butter, vinegar, English muffins, Hollandaise

Hollandaise Sauce
Making Holandaise is easier than you think- it only takes 10 minutes!
Ingredients: egg, butter, lemon juice, salt, black pepper, white wine vinegar

Easy Poached Eggs
With a little practice, you'll be poaching eggs like a pro!
Ingredients: egg, vinegar

English Muffins
Now you can bake English Muffins at home.
Ingredients: butter, salt, water, bread flour, instant yeast, semolina

Home Fries
Pair your Benedict with classic home fries.
Ingredients: onion, salt, black pepper, canola oil, Russet potato


Let's get cooking!

Any other favorite ingredients or dishes you'd like us to highlight? Post them in the comments section or on our Facebook page! And while you're at it, "Like" us on Facebook to get helpful updates in your news feed.