These bacon wrapped egg muffins are not your grandmother’s bacon and eggs. She was a practical woman, distracted by the responsibilities of laundry, sweeping and a good game of bridge, so the only fun thing you could do with her delicious offering was maybe to make smiley faces from the egg yolks and strips of bacon.

This dish is more something crazy Aunt Dottie, your slightly eccentric and genial second aunt, would make. She’s the one who can’t make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without making it look like Mickey Mouse or an hors d’oeuvre without turning it into a zillion bite-size pieces adorned with lots of wooden frill toothpicks.

Oh…and here’s my little pooch trying to butter me up for some reason…

It’s fun food! And delicious! And perfect for breakfasts, road trips, cook outs, pot luck brunches, and picnics. Or just because you’re alive and happy and want to make a little scrumptious treat for yourself. Or, as in my case, for my girls.

I feel like i’m cheating with this recipe, clearly. I’ve wrapped bacon around something, and we all know that bacon takes even the sole of a beat up shoe to new heights. But you must admit it looks pretty darn cute! Even better, when you bite into it, the egg has this almost spongy souffle-like consistency that complements the earthy, smoky chewiness of the bacon. And the slightly caramelized pepper…well, they add just a little bit of their peppery bold flavor, which rounds out the savoriness of the cheese and onions.

I’ve given these cute little puffs as a school snack to my girls for three days in a row now (they’re officially finished now…no more…NOT my girls, the egg muffins) and not a peep of complaint about how they were missing a little variety in the snacking world. Alexia, my 11-year old, informed me that they actually tasted even better the next day because the flavor of the bacon came through so much more vividly after they had sat a bit. And she was right! Of course, she was eating mussels when she was two, so she has definitely developed some opinions as far as food is concerned.

In this dish, I riffed on a delicious looking recipe that I found on a wonderful site called Fat Girl Trapped in a Skinny Body. I took one look and couldn’t resist making them.

making bacon wrapped egg muffins

Start by preheating the oven to 450°F.

Wash and chop up 1 red or yellow pepper, or half of each.

Peel and chop up 1 medium yellow onion.

Wash and roughly chop 1/3 cup loosely packed parsley leaves.

Heat 1 tablespoon or so of olive oil in a nonstick skillet and add the chopped pepper and onion. Cook them for 10 minutes, or until they are softened and slightly caramelized. Add a little sea salt and mix well. Take them off the heat and set aside to cool.

Break 6 eggs into a medium-sized bowl and add the chopped parsley and salt and freshly-cracked pepper to taste.

Combine the cooked pepper and onion into the egg mixture and beat well.

Add ½ cup of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, or a shredded cheese of your choice, and beat well. I know…it looks like a night after too much tequila. Let’s move on…

Transfer the egg mixture to a measuring cup. I have found this method to be the easiest and least messy way to transfer the mixture into the muffin cups.

Prepare the pan by spraying olive oil into all the muffin cup. If you don’t have the spray, you can also place a drop or two of olive oil in each hole and then spread it around with your finger. I usually don’t have oil spray on hand because I always wonder about the quality of an olive oil that can squirt out of a little tube, but I decided to buy the ‘health food store’ version for convenience. It smelled and tasted fine, so I went with it.

Cut 12 slices of bacon in half lengthwise. I use kitchen scissors to do this, which makes this process super easy. Trim the fatty ends off of each strip.

Arrange each strip around each muffin pan hole. You may have to trim some excess off as you do this because you don’t want the bacon to overlap. If it does, the parts that overlap won’t cook properly and you’ll end up with more chewiness than you want.

Fill each muffin cup with the egg mixture.

Place the muffin tin in the oven and lower the temperature to 425°F. Bake for 10 minutes and then lower the temperature to 350°F and bake for another 15 minutes or until the tops of the egg muffins are nice and golden. Allow them to cool for 10-15 minutes and then gently, with your finger tips, gently lift them out and place them on a serving platter or plate. Serve immediately, though they actually taste even better the next day. Makes 24 mini muffins.