Egg Soufflés (Ready in 30 Minutes)

These Egg Soufflés are fluffy eggs baked in single-serve ramekins with a fancy look perfect as a brunch recipe. Plus, these egg soufflés are ready in less than 30 minutes and are a great way to feed a breakfast crowd on the weekend with a fancy egg breakfast recipe.

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When you’re French, having egg cheese soufflé for dinner is an almost weekly thing. Cheese soufflés or egg soufflés are very popular in France. Soufflé recipes are house staple dinners, more than breakfast, often served with salad as a light comforting dinner.

Egg soufflés are fluffy baked eggs made from a cheese bechamel in which egg yolk and fluffy egg whites are added. The mixture is then baked until the eggs puff above the ramekin, creating a crispy outer layer and keeping the center cheesy, moist, and soft.

Ingredients and Substitutions

All you need to start this recipe is:

• Unsalted Butter – Prefer grass-fed butter.
• All-Purpose Flour – Whole wheat flour or spelt flour should work fine. I haven’t tried gluten-free flour.
• Large Eggs – I use local free-range eggs.
• Milk of Choice – Preferably whole milk for a creamy egg texture.
• Grated Cheese – I like a combination of Emmental cheese and Parmesan cheese.
• Kosher Salt – I barely salt soufflés, because Parmesan is very salty already.
• Nutmeg – The French touch that all mums always add to a Soufflé recipe. If you don’t like nutmeg, add garlic powder instead to flavor this easy egg casserole.

If you like, you can replace a part of the cheese with 1/4 cup of:

• Diced ham
• Bacon bites
• Ground sausage – cooked before adding.

How To Make Egg Soufflés

It’s not hard to make a tasty egg soufflé . All you need is a little bit of patience and precision. Let me share my tips to make the best soufflé recipe.

1. Prepare Ingredients: Get all your ingredients ready.
2. Splitting Eggs: First, split the eggs into two large bowls. One bowl for the egg yolk and one bowl for the egg whites. Set aside at room temperature while you make the cheese bechamel.
3. Start Bechamel: The soufflé base starts with a sort of cheese bechamel. I say a sort of because egg yolks are added into it, which is not the case for bechamel. Warm the unsalted butter in a medium non-stick saucepan and melt it over medium heat. Meanwhile, microwave the milk for 30 seconds.
4. Reduce Heat: Reduce to low-medium heat, add the flour, and use a wooden spoon to stir into the melted butter until it forms a golden paste.
5. Add Milk: Start adding lukewarm milk gradually while stirring to incorporate the flour-butter mixture evenly into the milk.
6. Simmer: When all the milk has been added to the saucepan, increase heat to medium-high and bring to a light simmer, stirring occasionally. You want small bubbles to form on the sides of the saucepan and the sauce to thicken slightly like a custard.

7. Add Cheese: Remove from heat and stir in grated cheese. It will be stringy, and that’s normal. Set it aside for 10 minutes before adding egg yolk. This prevents from cooking the eggs and creating egg yolk lumps in the sauce. Preheat the oven to a temperature of 420°F (220°C). Set the greased ramekin aside on a baking dish.
8. Whipping Egg Whites: Use a hand mixer or the whisk attachment of a stand mixer to whip the egg whites to a stiff peak.
9. Adding Egg Yolk: Bring back the saucepan with the cooled sauce and stir the egg yolk quickly to prevent small pieces of eggs from cooking in the sauce and forming lumps. Stir the nutmeg, salt, and pepper into the egg yolk mixture.
10. Adding Whipped Egg Whites: Now, add the stiffed egg whites in three additions.
11. Use a rubber spatula or a wooden spoon to gently stir the egg whites into the sauce. You want to break the egg whites in the sauce gently to keep the mixture airy and fluffy. Meanwhile, grease 8 small oven-safe ramekins. Mine have a 5-ounce volume. You can grease them with butter or cooking spray.
12. Filling Soufflé Ramekins: Now divide the mixture into the 8 prepared oven-safe ramekins. Don’t fill them up to the top. The egg soufflés raise in the oven, and to prevent the souffle from overflowing, stop 0.6 inches (1.5cm) from the top.
13. Baking: The trick to making super fluffy soufflé is to bake them all at once, at the same level. That’s why I place the ramekins on a baking sheet. Place the baking sheet with the filled ramekin in the center rack of the oven and bake them on regular mode – not the fan mode – at 420°F (220°C) for 30 to 35 minutes or until the top is golden brown and has risen above the ramekins.

Baker Tips

There are three things that make soufflés fail and not raise.

• Egg Whites Make Soft Peaks – If you didn’t reach stiff peaks, you can fix it by adding 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder to the egg whites. This will ensure the souffle rises well, even if the egg whites are not as stiff as they should be.
• Fan-Forced Oven – Using the fan-forced mode of your oven makes the souffle deflate or can even keep them from inflating.
• Opening The Oven – You must bake souffles for at least 20 minutes before opening the oven door. This is the rule. To ensure the souffle is set enough not to deflate when colder air comes in.
• Cooking Time – An egg soufflé must be baked for at least 20 minutes before you check its texture. This is a must to avoid the soufflé failing, deflating, and never puffing again. After 20 minutes, look carefully at how they raise. They are ready when they puff way above the ramekin, forming cracks that are whiter, but dry and a crusty golden brown crust. If you insert a toothpick inside, the egg mixture should be set but moist, not dry.

Picking The Dishes

Cheese soufflé recipes are not hard to make but are tricky to serve. Since egg souffles are made from fluffy egg white baked in the oven, they puff nicely and rise above the ramekins when the oven is warm, but as soon as they reach a colder temperature, they deflate quickly, even more, when sliced and served.

That’s why I am now making egg souffle in an individual ramekin. This is, so far, the best method to nail egg souffle recipes and serve them beautifully every time.

• Small Souffle – Use 5-ounce ramekins and fill up to half their level.
• One Batch Souffle – Use a round tall casserole dish like a French ceramic dish.

Serving Suggestions

Egg soufflés always deflate as soon as you take them out of the oven. There’s nothing you can do about that. Serve the egg soufflés with extra salt and pepper and a green salad on the side.

Storage Instructions

The egg soufflé recipe doesn’t store very well. However, you can store the leftover soufflé in the fridge, cover the ramekins with foil, and they will keep fresh for two days. But as soon as you rewarm them, the egg cooks again, and they dry in the middle while the crust on top softens.

Allergy Swaps

Below are some options to make this recipe if you have some food allergies.

• Dairy-Free – Use margarin or dairy-free butter instead of butter and use dairy-free milk like soy milk for the best result. Skip the cheese.
• Gluten-Free – You can use all-purpose gluten-free flour in the same quantity as all-purpose, with similar results.

Frequently Asked Questions

Below are my answers to your common questions about this recipe.

More Egg Recipes For Breakfast

Here are some more egg recipes for you to try in the morning.