The Butter Mistake You're Probably Making When Scrambling Eggs

To make restaurant-quality scrambled eggs at home, you need plenty of butter. Not only does it add a divinely rich flavor to your eggs, but the dairy fat also controls the temperature of the entree and helps develop a creamy texture. To find out the best way to incorporate butter into scrambled eggs, we spoke with Maricel Gentile, Executive Chef and Owner of Maricel's Kitchen and author of Maricel's Simple Asian Cookbook.

Gentile points out that, when added to a hot pan, your butter may harm your eggs' presentation. "The butter will brown before the eggs cook fully," she shared. "That can make your eggs discolored and greasy." Unless you learned how to make ghee, or purchased it from the store, the milk solids in butter have a pretty low smoke point, causing the premature browning. Even if it don't burn, the flavors of these solids alter when exposed to heat, sabotaging the flavor of your scrambled eggs and contributing to unnecessary greasiness.

Fortunately, Gentile said the fix for this is quite easy. "Use a non-stick pan, start with cold butter in a cold pan, add your eggs then gently heat everything together," the expert told Food Republic. "Patience. That slow cooking will give you nice creamy eggs." This method creates tiny, protein-laden curds suspended in a velvety sauce which you can then cook to your desired level of doneness. With consistent stirring and low temperatures, you can adapt this preparation method for all kinds of scrambled eggs toppings, and still achieve a wonderfully creamy texture.

While delicious with just a bit of butter, plenty of people like to incorporate other forms of dairy into their scrambled eggs. Whether you grew up adding a splash of milk, a sprinkle of cheese, or even a bit of Greek yogurt, all of these methods have one factor in common that makes your breakfast so creamy: milk fat. Milk fat wraps around egg proteins, preventing them from binding together and sabotaging a creamy texture.

Many cheeses are the perfect addition to scrambled eggs. Sprinkling just a small handful into a bowl of raw, scrambled eggs provides plenty of the same fat found in butter, keeping their texture nice and velvety. However, you can also use cheese as a quick fix if your eggs start becoming too firm in the pan – just sprinkle some in while your eggs still have a bit of wet shine. The gooeyness of melted cheese isn't a perfect mimic of properly prepared scrambled eggs, but it's a close substitute that tastes wonderful.

If you've perfect Maricel Gentile's trick but still want to enjoy scrambled eggs like never before, try adding a tablespoon of Greek yogurt before you whisk them. The slight tang and inherent creaminess of this dairy ingredient make eggs to die for, especially if you use full fat varieties. This is a clever trick to use if you need to add your eggs to a hot pan after sautéing vegetables for your scrambled eggs, allowing egg proteins to just barely bind together enough to form a solid breakfast.