I love having breakfast for dinner. It’s a nice change of pace to mix in from time to time, and I enjoy breakfast foods more when I don’t have to prepare and eat them quickly before heading out the door.

To literally spice up the breakfast-for-dinner fun even more, we recently tried Rick Bayless’ recipe for Huevos Rancheros, or Rancher’s Eggs, as described in his “Mexican Everyday” cookbook.

The dish offers an authentic Mexican take on the “simple” breakfast, but it’s filling enough to feed a heavy appetite such as that of a hard-working farmer or rancher, as the name suggests.

Fresh ingredients create a rush of flavor in the sauce for these Huevos Rancheros, but for those who don’t enjoy much “heat” in food, it’s not too spicy.

Here’s how it’s done. (And we’ve cut down the recipe’s yield for two people.)

Ingredients

4 corn tortillas

4 eggs

1 jalapeno (or chile of your choice)

5 tomatillos

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

1 ½ tablespoons olive oil

1 cup chicken broth

2 small garlic cloves

1 ½ tablespoons heavy cream

½ teaspoon salt

queso fresco

Instructions

1. Chop garlic, chile, tomatillos and cilantro.

2. Heat oil in a medium saucepan.

3. Add chopped ingredients to pan and cook on medium-high heat for 7 minutes until sauce thickens.

4. Add chicken broth and simmer over medium heat for about 10 minutes.

5. Stir in heavy cream. Taste and season with salt.

6. Cook four sunny-side-up eggs. Leave yolks exposed if prettier presentation is desired.

7. Heat four corn tortillas. (For fresher tortillas, wrap them in about six damp paper towels. Insert into a large plastic zip-closing bag. Fold over, but do not seal. Microwave on defrost setting for 4 minutes. This is Rick Bayless’ trick for freshening your store-bought tortillas, and we very much approve after trying it!)

8. Place 2 tortillas on each plate. Top each tortilla with an egg. Spoon sauce over everything. Sprinkle with cilantro and queso fresco. (We bought a block of queso fresco and grated it ourselves.)

Matthew’s Take: Before trying this recipe, we had never before cooked with tomatillos or cilantro. Along with all of the other ingredients, those two items added so much flavor to this dish. And I highly recommend freshly grating queso fresco to sprinkle on top. Yolk-exposed sunny-side-up eggs are not my forte, so that was perhaps my greatest challenge with putting together this plate. It takes some practice to get the eggs done enough for our taste, while still acing presentation. This isn’t your fastest breakfast-for-dinner meal, but it might be your most flavorful.

Molly’s Take: Wow! From the grocery trip where I packed my cart with fresh ingredients to the final delicious product enjoyed over eggs and warm corn tortillas, this recipe experience was banging! The sauce poured over the fresh, sunny-side-up eggs contributed a powerful flavor and every bite was delightful. We did not have a food processor to finely blend the chopped ingredients, but as you can see, chopping them as we did worked out just fine. You really can’t beat the freshness and wholesomeness of this dish. It just makes you feel at home and warm and taken care of. Treat yourself sometime with these Huevos Rancheros. You won’t regret it.