Eggs in Purgatory

The Southern Italian dish of eggs in purgatory—"uova in purgatorio" in Italian—has been a go-to meal for my family since I was young. I grew up in an Italian-American household where my mom always had the freezer stocked with a few quarts of homemade tomato sauce to thaw out for various meals, and eggs in purgatory was a frequent quick breakfast.

The one-skillet dish features eggs gently poached in a bright, savory tomato sauce spiked with red pepper flakes and a pop of fresh basil. The rich yolks mingle with the spicy sauce, and everything gets scooped up with crusty bread, making it an excellent breakfast‑for‑dinner option. The name “purgatory" is believed to come from the red, bubbling, spicy tomato sauce, which represents the flames surrounding the souls in limbo in purgatory.

I’m a fan of eggs in purgatory because the dish is incredibly delicious and the fact that it embodies the Italian cooking ethos of using just a few stellar ingredients and letting them shine, but there’s also a practical reason to love it: It’s convenient. A basic version comes together quickly from pantry staples you likely already have on hand: Tomatoes (canned work best), olive oil, onion, garlic, oregano, and red pepper flakes are cooked in a skillet until the flavors blend and the sauce thickens, then the eggs are cracked in and cooked until just set. My recipe also includes fresh basil, which adds a wonderful brightness to the dish, and can be considered a pantry staple if you have a garden in your yard (or windowsill).

Even if you don’t have premade sauce on hand like my family always did, you can make eggs in purgatory in less than 30 minutes. Plus, it can be customized with ingredients you have on hand and want to use up, such as crumbled cheese, olives, sausage, or sautéed vegetables. Here are a few tips to prepare this simple, rustic egg dish with a devilishly good tomato sauce.

Tips for Perfectly Poached Eggs in Purgatory

Skip the fresh tomatoes and use canned instead. Yes, fresh tomatoes, especially plum or Roma tomatoes, are wonderful when cooked down into a nice thick sauce, but making a flavorful sauce from fresh tomatoes takes hours of simmering, and that's assuming you can even get good tomatoes. Most of the year, that's easier said than done. For a quick-cooking tomato sauce that can be made anytime, canned tomatoes are a better option, and roughly crushed canned whole peeled tomatoes are best for this recipe.

A perfect sauce for eggs in purgatory should be slightly chunky, which is why I like to crush whole tomatoes by hand. Plus, whole peeled tomatoes typically work better for sauces than diced tomatoes or crushed tomatoes—that’s because diced tomatoes are packed with calcium chloride, which helps them keep their diced shape even after extended cooking, preventing them from turning into a cohesive sauce. At the other end of the tomato texture spectrum, canned crushed tomatoes lack enough texture and also often have a watered down flavor. Whole peeled tomatoes break down easily and have a concentrated flavor. You don’t need to get out your food mill or food processor to purée them; you can easily break them down by squeezing the tomatoes through your fingers in a bowl to get irregular chunks, and then they’ll further melt into the desired sauce consistency while simmering.

Canned tomatoes can vary greatly in quality, so I recommend using a trusted brand. Of the readily available brands, I like Cento San Marzano Certified Peeled Tomatoes, Muir Glen Organic Whole Peeled Tomatoes, and Red Gold Whole Peeled Tomatoes. If these brands are unavailable, you’re unlikely to go wrong with canned tomatoes labeled D.O.P. San Marzano tomatoes imported from Italy. The D.O.P. seal ensures that they were grown, harvested, and processed under very strict protocols that guarantee a certain base quality.

Add plenty of aromatics. Beyond great quality canned tomatoes, the sauce gets its concentrated flavor from sautéing a mixture of onion, garlic, tomato paste, and fresh oregano in a healthy dose of olive oil. Once these ingredients have hit their aromatic sweet spot, it's important to immediately add the tomatoes. This will instantly cool the pan, halting the cooking of the aromatics, preventing overcooking. While I call for a full teaspoon of red pepper flakes, you can use less or more, depending on your spice tolerance. I also like to add a full cup of basil leaves to the sauce while simmering to bolster its flavor.

Add the eggs off heat. To turn the sauce into a meal, all you need is to gently poach the eggs directly in the sauce until just set. This can be easier said than done, as making shallow indentations in the sauce and cracking each individual egg into the wells can take some time, causing the first egg to overcook by the time the last egg is cracked in. To avoid this and to help the eggs cook at a more even rate, remove the skillet from the burner to eliminate the urgency of adding them over heat. I also recommend cracking each egg into a small bowl before carefully adding it to the sauce so you can remove any rogue eggshell pieces before adding each egg to the skillet. It’s also easier to neatly slip each egg into the sauce from a bowl, which helps keep the eggs from spreading too much as they cook. 

Spoon some sauce over the egg whites and finish on the stovetop. Taking a cue from Kenji’s shakshuka recipe, I incorporate his technique of spooning a little bit of the sauce around the whites of the eggs to help them set just a touch faster than the yolks. While some recipes rely on the oven to finish cooking the eggs, I found that covering the skillet and letting the eggs simmer and steam on the stovetop works just as well. Monitor the skillet closely and make sure to cook until the egg whites are just set and the yolks still golden and soft—perfect for dipping bread into.