Stretch Your Scrambled Eggs With One Ingredient To Make Breakfast More Affordable

If you're someone who buys eggs often, then you know that it can get expensive — especially when there's a bird flu outbreak limiting the supply and causing grocery stores to limit egg purchases. With this in mind, you may think that you need to stop making scrambled eggs for breakfast as often. But, instead of depriving yourself, you can actually use another ingredient to supplement the dish — or, in other words, use less eggs to make the same amount of scrambled "eggs." The special ingredient? Tofu.

Tofu is extremely versatile and can even be used as an egg substitute, such as for a vegan egg salad. And if you crumble up tofu, the texture begins to resemble that of scrambled eggs. By combining the two, you end up with a delicious breakfast that tastes similar to your usual scrambled eggs, but costs less to prepare.

At the beginning of this year, the national average price for a carton egg rose to $4.95 — which is up from $4.15 in December — which comes out to 41 cents per egg. Meanwhile, you can get a block of tofu for just a few bucks — for example, Nasoya's organic extra firm tofu costs $2.92 at Walmart. That comes out to 10 cents per tablespoon, so 20 cents to replace one egg — or, possibly, less with another, cheaper brand. So, one egg costs twice as much as 2 tablespoons of tofu. That can really add up over time, especially when you're cooking big batches of scrambled eggs for a family.

To add tofu to scrambled eggs, you first want to use a fork to crumble it up. After heating up the pan, add the tofu first to start warming it up. After about a minute or so, add the eggs, then continue as you would with a normal batch of scrambled eggs. Of course, don't forget to pre-salt your scrambled egg mixture for a fluffier result.

How many eggs you use will depend on how many people you're cooking for. If you only want one serving of scrambled eggs, then you can combine one egg with 2 tablespoons of crumbled tofu — this will yield a filling portion of scrambled eggs to start your morning. For every egg you add to the equation, add 2 tablespoons of crumbled tofu.

Of course, feel free to play around with this ratio. If you want a heartier breakfast — without using up more eggs — then you can try adding in 1 to 2 tablespoons of additional crumbled tofu. Find the ratio that tastes best for you, and more affordable breakfasts are at your fingertips.