Huevos Rancheros

I worked for 4 years at a restaurant in Blacksburg, VA where they serve the best breakfast in town.  Gillie's offers a multitude of tasty dishes and we try to recreate some of them here at home.  Today I am going to tell you how I make their version of Huevos Rancheros.  It's super easy and we usually have all the ingredients on hand.

Huevos Rancheros

Ingredients:  The amount of each ingredient varies from person to person, are you a cheese fiend or do you like dousing things with salsa?  Just use your own judgment, we're all adults here  with decision making skills.

1. Tortilla Chips

2. Eggs - I sometimes use as few as 1 or as many as 3 depending on how hungry I am

3. Shredded Cheese - any cheese you like, we use pepperjack most times but I also enjoy a good sharp white cheddar 

4. Salsa

Step 1: Start with a layer of tortilla chips and add your shredded cheese on top.  Sometimes I'll put a layer of chips, layer of cheese, more chips and finally more cheese so that the cheese is distributed evenly (I'm part of the cheese fiend category).  

Step 2:  If you're using the microwave just pop it in for 15-30 seconds or until the cheese is melted.  Every microwave is different so just keep an eye on it and don't over do it or else the cheese and chips will get weird, you know what I mean.

I don't own a microwave so I just pop it in the toaster oven in the oven safe dish shown in the pictures.  You can even use a conventional oven and if you're making multiple servings you could use a cookie sheet and divvy the chips and cheese onto separate plates afterwards.

Step 3:  While the cheese is melting start cooking your eggs.  I prefer them over easy because then the yolk oozes all over everything and is AMAZING but people used to order them every which way, sunny, over hard, even scrambled.

Step 4:  When the eggs are done put them on top of the chips and cheese.

Step 5:  Top with salsa and you're done!  Sometimes I warm up the salsa and sometimes I just put it on straight from the shelf, it usually depends on how hungry I am.

Spice it up a bit:
At gillies they would offer the addition of spicy breakfast beans.  I've found chili to be an easy and delicious substitution.  My personal favorite is to spruce it up with pressed garlic, fresh spinach, and sauteed mushrooms. Yummo!

I hope it's as good for you as it was for me!