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When Halloween merchandise arrives in the stores each year, I always pick up the fun Halloween themed silicone molds, or cookie cutters, bakeware, sprinkles and decorations, even if I’m not quite sure what I want to do with them.  I hear…”Another one?” a lot from my husband, but I use these tools as inspiration, it’s just one part of the creative process. Ok, I’ll admit that it usually takes a few years to realize the return on investment of purchasing yet another skull mold or pan, but it’s totally worth it when an idea comes to fruition using one of my ‘investments’. This recipe for Muertos Rancheros is one of those instances. Inspired by an incredible skull omelet from @brentjacobsonfood on Instagram, for weeks I tried to duplicate his skull omelet with no luck. My version was simply…a disaster. It didn’t even look like a skull at all. So I gave up on making cool looking omelets and made a skillet egg dish instead using my Skull Cakelet Pan from Nordicware. I used it to bake the eggs rather than a cake and it worked out perfectly to create these deliciously festive Huevos Rancheros. The difficulty in making soft eggs in a cake pan is that the yolks quickly overcook, so I made these eggs a bunch of times to make sure the directions give consistent results of soft runny eggs. The only catch is that the eggs will continue to cook once you drop them in the hot ranchero sauce so you’ll need to serve immediately, luckily all the ingredients and the ranchero sauce can be prepared ahead of time and reheated so that the eggs can be made right before serving. Enjoy!
Muertos Rancheros
Equipment
Ingredients
- 6 jumbo eggs (yolks separated) (Note: if using large eggs, you will need to add ~1 tbsp. more egg white for each skull by separating additional eggs or using egg whites from a carton)
- 11 oz. soy chorizo (substitute with pork or beef chorizo, if desired)
- 1 15 oz. can black beans
- Ranchero Sauce (see recipe below)
- 6 corn tortillas
- Top with crumbled cotija cheese, avocado, cilantro and lime wedges.
Ranchero Sauce
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 2 jalapenos, diced
- 1 tbsp. vegetable oil
- 4 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes (or substitute 2 cups fresh tomatoes)
- 1 12 oz. can spicy V8 juice
- 1 cup chicken or vegetable broth
- 1 tbsp. Ancho chili powder
- 1 tbsp. chili powder
- 1 tsp. Mexican oregano
- 1 tsp. smoked paprika
- 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper (to taste)
- 1/2 cup cilantro leaves
- salt and pepper (to taste)
Instructions
Ranchero Sauce
- Suggestion: Make Ranchero sauce ahead of time and refrigerate. Add oil, onion, and jalapenos into a large skillet and sauté over medium heat until onions are translucent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and heat until fragrant, ~2 minutes. Add tomatoes, V8 juice, chicken or vegetable broth, chili powders, Mexican oregano, paprika and cayenne and simmer for 15 minutes. Add cilantro leaves and turn off heat and let cool for 5-10 minutes. Transfer to a blender and puree until smooth or transfer to a large bowl and blend until smooth using an emersion blender. Salt and pepper to taste and set aside or refrigerate.
- Add soy chorizo and beans to the skillet and then add the ranchero sauce and heat until heated through. Turn heat to low and let the sauce simmer as you prepare the eggs.
Skull Eggs
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease skull pan generously with vegetable oil.
- Separate the eggs: This step is important because the yolks are added half way though the baking time, which will ensure soft yolks. Note: if using large eggs, instead of jumbo eggs, you will need to add ~1 tbsp. more egg white for each skull by separating additional eggs or use packaged egg whites from a carton.Crack 6 jumbo eggs one at a time, letting the egg white fall into the prepared skull cake pan. Continue to transfer the yolk gently back and forth between the two shells, allowing all the white to drip into the skull pan. Keep the egg yolk in one half of the eggshell and set the shell with the yolk aside on a small plate. Repeat with each of the remaining eggs, each time setting the yolks aside in their shells on the plate.
- Put the egg whites in a 350 degree oven for 3-4 minutes. Remove from oven. The egg white will not be fully cooked at this point, see photo.
- Gently add the reserved yolks to each of the egg whites and return pan to the oven. Cook an additional 3 minutes.
- Remove from oven. The egg will still appear to be somewhat under cooked but it will finish cooking once added to the skillet with the hot ranchero sauce.
- Place a cookie sheet with parchment paper over the skull pan. Use hot pads to pick up the skull pan together with the cookie sheet and invert. The eggs should slide out easily on to the cookie sheet.
- Use a large spatula to gently transfer your skull eggs into your skillet and nestle them in your sauce. Top with cotija, avocados, cilantro and lime and serve immediately with corn tortillas. Poke holes in the eyes to let the soft yolks ooze out.
This looks beautiful. That Ranchero sauce sounds delicious too. Thanks for the link to the skull pan. Odering one now!
Thank you Bethany! 🖤🖤🖤🖤
Lori
I had this post earmarked since last year! Ordered the pan and tried this yesterday … I cheated a little by using Siete’s enchilada sauce as I was short on time, followed the rest of the directions. Only change was adding the yolk directly to the sauce and then just topping with the skull egg-white. Looked and tasted amazing!! Thank you 🙂
Great idea about dropping the yolk into the sauce rather than baking it…they can be overcooked easily! Thank you so much for sharing and I’m so happy you enjoyed the recipe. Happy Halloween.
🖤Lori