This Cheesy Elotes Scramble Will Be Your New Breakfast Obsession

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Elotes, also known as Mexican street corn, have taken the world by storm. What was once a humble snack purchased from a street food stand is now the toast of the town, showing up on menus and in dishes all across the culinary scene. And it's for good reason, as that combination of sweet, crisp corn, creamy, tangy sauce, and hefty sprinkle of salty cheese ticks is just plain delicious. So, naturally, bringing those flavors to the breakfast plate is the next logical step.

This elotes-style breakfast scramble recipe takes everything you love about a skillet of scrambled eggs, or a breakfast hash, and tops it with layers of Mexican flavor. Fluffy, savory scrambled eggs are studded with sauteed onions and tomatoes as well as crisp kernels of sweetcorn, providing lots of flavor and texture. (The ancient Romans knew that eggs love a sweet secret ingredient.) But no elote is complete without its sauce and cheese. To finish the plate with that signature flair, we smother the scramble with a tangy sour cream sauce, a hefty dusting of salty cotija cheese, and a sprinkle of minced cilantro. The result? A new take on breakfast, and a skillet scramble you'd be happy to eat every day of the week.

For the sauce in this recipe you will need sour cream, garlic powder, chili powder, cumin, and lime juice. For the scramble you will need oil or butter, shelled corn, finely diced onion, diced tomatoes, eggs, cotija cheese, and cilantro. Once you have those ingredients gathered together, breakfast is only a few minutes away.

Combine all of the sauce ingredients in a small bowl and mix well. Pour sauce into a squeeze bottle if you have one, or simply set it aside in the bowl.

Make the scramble: Bring a large skillet to medium-high heat and add about half of the oil or butter followed by the corn, onions, and tomatoes. Cook, stirring regularly, for 5 minutes.

Scrape the vegetables to the outside of the pan, making an empty space in the center. Add the remaining oil or butter.

Pour in the eggs and cook, stirring occasionally to form large curds, for 3 to 4 minutes, or until just done but still moist.

Stir the eggs and vegetables together and divide evenly between 2 plates. Salt to taste and garnish with sour cream sauce, cilantro, and cotija. Serve immediately.

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Scrambled eggs are one of the first dishes that many of us learn to cook. It makes sense, they are incredibly simple to make adequately. But when it comes to making a batch of really good scrambled eggs, perhaps due to their inherent simplicity, or due to the fact that it is where many now-chefs first cut their culinary teeth, there are many opinions on how to do it right.

Barring the myriad scrambled egg mistakes that one can make in the kitchen, doing it the "right" way is largely a matter of opinion. But when it comes to making a scramble with vegetables and other ingredients in it, a bit of separation is best. In this recipe, we suggest pushing the vegetables to the edge of the skillet before adding the beaten eggs. This allows you to cook the eggs in the center of the pan, with minimal contact to the outside veggies. Once the eggs are cooked, you mix it all together. What this does is allow you to form the nice curds you expect of scrambled eggs, and then mix in the vegetables evenly. 

If you simply pour the eggs over the vegetables, the final product may taste similar, but the vegetables become encased in egg, disrupting the texture of the curds and giving a less polished appearance. While it may not qualify for the list of scrambled egg hacks in its own right, and is not strictly necessary, if you want to serve up a good looking scramble, cook the eggs apart from the veg.

Cotija cheese is just one of the many varieties of Mexican cheeses available at supermarkets across the country. If you've never had the pleasure of enjoying it yourself, cotija is a cow's milk cheese that is dry, crumbly, and salty, with a subtle tang. Should you not have cotija on hand when you make this scramble, however, there are other options to help mimic that cheesy goodness.

The first choice for replacing cotija is queso fresco. Queso fresco is another Latin American cheese also typically made from cow's milk. It is mild in flavor with pronounced saltiness, but it is creamier than cotija. Queso fresco, as the name implies, is a fresh cheese (that's the literal translation). Cotija, on the other hand, is typically aged for anywhere from two months to a year. This aging process dries the cotija and intensifies the flavor, but crumbled queso fresco still makes a good alternative.

Other than cotija and queso fresco, feta is another viable option. It is salty and crumbly but a bit creamier than cotija. Alternatively, Parmesan works great in a pinch, closely mimicking both cotija's texture and flavor.

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