Light fluffy eggs cooked into a delicious omelette. That was my plan when I started this recipe. And I was so happy with how it turned out, given that I had to make it up under unusual circumstances. I never thought I’d be researching how to cook eggs without a stove!

Since we live in a country which doesn’t have piped gas, we have to use bottled gas to make our cooker work. Last week, we ran out of gas. I turned on one of the hobs to cook my dinner and… nothing. Arrgh. Time to make do.

Since I already had eggs cracked in a jug, and a hungry toddler whose dinner time was very soon, I had only a few minutes to try and find out whether you can bake eggs to cook an omelette (my oven is electric). It turns out you can. And it’s VERY delicious! All the recipes I saw either needed ingredients I didn’t have or they needed milk, which I can’t eat, so I made this recipe up instead. This vegetarian baked omelette recipe is dairy free and requires simple ingredients that are easy to substitute.

To bake this recipe you will need a glass oven-safe dish, such as a Pyrex one. Normal glass will shatter in your oven, but around the world there are lots of different brands that are oven-safe. Just look for the stamp on the bottom of your dish; if it says “oven safe” then you’re good to go.

One thing I especially like about this baked omelette recipe is it turned out very light and cheesy. Since I’m dairy-free (not by choice), I find it’s difficult to find high-protein recipes involving lots of cheese. In case you are wondering, a standard block of dairy-free cheese contains only 1.5 grams of protein per 100g, compared to about 35g of protein per 100g for the average block of Cheddar. So when recipes substitute cheese for dairy free cheese, you are potentially missing out on a lot of your daily protein requirement.

Eggs, thankfully, are a reasonable source of protein (13g per 100g, or about 9g per egg), and so are vegetarian sausages (the Linda McCartney ones I used are 18.6g per 100g or 15.5g per 2 sausages), so one serving of this baked omelette will definitely give you a nice amount of your daily protein while still feeling quite cheesy.

Baked omelette recipe:

Ingredients:

Eggs x4

Sausage x2 (I choose vegetarian sausages from Linda McCartney but any sausage will do)

Bell Pepper x1 (any colour)

Grated cheese (or dairy free cheese)

A jug

A fork

A medium oven-safe glass dish (mine is a 1.2 litre Pyrex one)

Method:

Break eggs into a jug and mix with a fork to break the yolks. Pour this into the glass dish, leaving about 1 tbsp of egg in the jug.

Cut the sausage into thin slices and chop the pepper (discard the stalk and seeds). Add these to the glass dish.

Pour the last bit of egg over everything so it’s all covered (don’t worry if you skip this step).

Oven bake for about 30-35 mins.

Take out of the oven, add the grated cheese, and return to the oven for 10 minutes so the cheese melts and starts to turn golden brown (dairy cheese) or until the cheese melts and starts to harden (dairy free cheese).

Serves 4. Add some veg (such as steamed broccoli or carrots) on the side to make a complete main meal.