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A brown butter omelet packed with a blend of King Oscar sardines, fresh veggies, and melted cheese. The perfect way to kickstart your day!
This post is sponsored by King Oscar | Thank you for supporting the brands I trust.
There Are Serious Holiday Brunch Vibes With This One.
Deep, nutty brown butter creates one heck of an indulgent omelette. Add to that some gooey mozzarella, fresh veggies, and tender brisling sardines, and you’ve got yourself the perfect blend for a lazy yet rewarding Sunday brunch.
You can pair it with a mimosa, bloody mary, or your morning cup of coffee. You can serve it with a fresh salad or hash browns.
However you decide to do it, I think you’ll be quite pleased. So much, in fact, that you’ll be treating yourself to this omelet again and again.
It’s a fantastic way to kickstart the day!
King Oscar’s Sardines Make All the Difference.
In my mind, sardine brands aren’t interchangeable; King Oscar or bust!
In this recipe I’ve used King Oscar’s Royal Selection Brisling Sardines in Extra Virgin Olive Oil with Basil, Oregano & Garlic. They bring a garlicky and herbaceous hint to the omelet while also offering vitamins, nutrients, and protein.
The fillets are wood-smoked and come in a round can with a transparent easy-peel lid, so you can see the quality of the ingredients right from the get-go.
If you’re a sardine lover, this omelette will speak to you. If you have yet to dip into the world of sardines, now’s a good time.
Ingredients List.
- Eggs
- Butter
- King Oscar’s Royal Selection Brisling Sardines in Extra Virgin Olive Oil with Basil, Oregano & Garlic
- Sea salt and cracked black pepper
- Grape or cherry tomatoes
- Mozzarella cheese
- Spinach
- Red onion
Here’s How to Make This Luscious Omelet.
- Prep all of your ingredients in advance; chop your veggies, shred your cheese, etc.
- Whisk the eggs in a small bowl with a fork.
- Heat a small nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the butter and reduce the heat to medium. The butter will melt into a foam and sizzle. At this point, stir the butter and keep stirring it for a minute or two. It won’t take long for it to brown since it’s such a small amount, so you want to babysit the pan.
- Add the beaten eggs to the pan and whirl them around once to ensure the eggs cover the entire bottom of the pan. Hit the eggs with some salt and pepper.
- Once you notice the edges of the egg folding up, cooked, gently glide a silicone spatula around the edges to lift them ever so slightly.
- Place your cheese, spinach, tomatoes, onions, parsley, and sardine fillets on one side of the omelette.
- Then, using the spatula, carefully fold the other side of the omelette over, and slowly slide it onto a plate. Top it with some extra cracked black pepper and some chopped fresh parsley.
Useful Tools for This Recipe:
Recipe Tips + Tricks.
- If you can’t find this variety of King Oscar’s sardines at your local grocer, they are available on Amazon. You could also use another variety instead, like the Mediterranean-Style sardines, or sardines in zesty tomato sauce. Get creative!
- When browning the butter, after a few minutes of stirring it over medium heat, it will turn golden brown in color and will smell warm and nutty. You’ll notice some toasted brown bits in your pan—that’s all flavor, so leave them!
- Once the eggs hit the pan and you whirl them around to coat the bottom, let them cook for a good minute or so. You don’t want to touch them until you see the edges cook and slightly curl upward. Then, once the middle is set, carefully flip the omelet in half.
Check out these 25 sardine recipes for more ideas on ways to get creative!
Have You Made This Recipe?
If you enjoyed this recipe, please consider leaving a STAR rating & commenting below with feedback!
You can also show off your creations on Instagram by tagging @killing__thyme
More Sardine Recipes to Try:
- Brunch Bagel with Sardines
- Green Goddess Pita with Sardines
- Spicy Tostadas with Sardines
- Instant Pot Pesto Pasta with Sardines
Brown Butter Omelet with King Oscar Sardines
Ingredients
- 2 large pasture-raised eggs
- 1/2 TBSP butter
- 4 sardine fillets from a tin of King Oscar's Royal Selection Brisling Sardines in Extra Virgin Olive Oil with Basil, Oregano & Garlic, *See notes
- Sea salt and cracked black pepper
- 2-4 cherry or grape tomatoes, sliced
- 2 TBSP shredded mozzarella cheese
- 2 TBSP ribboned baby spinach
- 2 TBSP thinly sliced red onion, I like using a mandolin to have thinly shaved slices
Instructions
- Get all of your ingredients ready: chop your veggies, shred your cheese, etc.
- In a small bowl, whisk the eggs with a fork.
- Heat a small nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. When the pan is hot, add the butter and reduce the heat to medium. The butter will melt, sizzle, and get foamy. At this point, stir the butter for a minute or two, until it's browned. It won't take long since it's a small amount of butter, so keep a close eye on the pan to prevent burning. When the butter has browned, it will give off a bold and nutty aroma. You'll also notice some little brown bits in the pan—that's flavor! So keep them.
- Add the eggs to the pan and whirl them around once to cover the entire bottom of the pan. Sprinkle with some salt and pepper.
- Once the edges of the egg start folding up and look cooked, carefully glide a silicone spatula around the edges.
- Sprinkle the cheese on one side of the omelette, then add the spinach, tomatoes, onions, parsley, and sardine fillets on top of the cheese.
- Using the spatula, carefully fold the other side of the omelette over, and carefully slide it onto a plate. Hit it with some extra cracked black pepper and some chopped fresh parsley.
A sardine omelet: it sounds like an advertising joke from a cat food company. However, I recently discovered King Oscar sardines and they are utterly different from the throat-clinch-disgusting canned fish I remember my father eating in the 1960s. My partner also asked if they were really sardines or if they were a different kind of white-fish. They are >that< different from what he also remembered from his childhood.
So, I make a pretty good omelet and somehow, the A.I. gods showed me this recipe. It raised an eyebrow at first, but I figured why not? After all fish for breakfast isn't uncommon throughout much of the world. For Americans (outside New England) though, it's so rare as to border on the bizarre. Having traveled to most of the 50 states, I personally have never seen any sort of fish on any breakfast menu anywhere.
This to say, a sardine omelet was not on my radar, but –
Holy finnan haddie from heaven Batman! This is fantastic. 5 stars. 100%. A++! The fish flavor melds with the egg and cheese for a rich umami that is so often missing from omelets. This is hearty and absolutely delicious.
And yes, I wouldn't try it with any other sardines than King Oscar.
Like I said, I do make a good omelet and here are a couple of tweaks to any omelet recipe.
(1) Start with lots of oil in the pan. I use a mixture of sunflower oil, olive oil and butter. Yes it's there to keep the eggs from sticking, but it also adds flavor. I put enough oil in so that it moves freely across the bottom of the pan. The oil gets absorbed into the eggs while also helping to prevent sticking.
(2) The key to really lift the flavor of any omelet is to add a teaspoon of prepared brown mustard (Grey Poupon is always in my fridge.) to the eggs while you're whisking them. And hand whisk? Oh please, put the eggs in the stand mixer set it on high. You can't over mix the eggs.
(3) Increase the amounts of all the ingredients. 2 tbsp of cheese? Lord have mercy, that's not enough cheese to cover a cracker. Put some cheese in there! Add more spinach and onion too. In this case, less is not more.
This fantastic recipe is one which I will return to FREQUENTLY.
P.S. I am not an employee or representative of King Oscar, but I am absolutely an enthusiastic customer.
Hi William! Thanks so much for the outstanding review. I was fortunate to work on recipe development with King Oscar for 5 whole years and in that time we came up with some interesting recipes—all of which worked out wonderfully, much to many people’s surprise as like you said, sardines don’t exactly sound appealing. But you nailed it. King Oscar just does it better. I will never touch another company’s sards! Hope you get a chance to check out some of my other sardine recipes :) Pleasure to have you here as a reader and thanks again for the awesome review, haha. It gave me chuckle and made my day.