Yotam wears Tekla sleepwear. Grooming: Carol Morley at Carol Hayes. Photograph: Pål Hansen/The Guardian View image in fullscreen Yotam wears Tekla sleepwear. Grooming: Carol Morley at Carol Hayes. Photograph: Pål Hansen/The Guardian Yotam Ottolenghi recipes Breakfast Flipping marvellous: Yotam Ottolenghi on the joy of simple breakfasts – plus six exclusive recipes Weekend mornings are for family – and whoever happens to be over. Forget fussing and focus on just one big lovely thing for the middle of the table. Here’s how
Yotam Ottolenghi Sat 29 Aug 2026 09.00 CEST Share Prefer the Guardian on Google F amily life has had a bigger impact on how I cook at home than almost anything else. There’s a lot of pasta on the menu these days, and potato wedges with different sauces. A lot of meatballs. And a great many pancakes – more than I would have ever predicted before I had kids.
My weekend pancakes – which made their way into my book Simple Too – are supposed to be a batch-cooking exercise: lots made on Sunday, then reheated through the week, in the toaster or a dry pan on the stove, so breakfast is more or less solved until Friday. That’s the theory. In practice, all 22 pancakes the recipe makes are gone by Sunday lunch – eaten by the boys, their friends, or whoever happens to be over for breakfast.
I love having friends over and what I want is something so they can help themselves But my kitchen on a weekend morning doesn’t only answer to my kids, even though that’s their indisputable assumption. I love having friends over for brunch, and what I actually want, most weeks, is one big thing in the middle of the table – generously for everyone. So they can help themselves and I’m not the only one standing after everyone else has sat down.
Like the butter beans with Urfa chilli butter, with toast, bacon and semi-hard-boiled eggs. Or a big tray of baked za’atar tomatoes and mascarpone, with some sausages and sourdough. Or a big pan of menemen (Turkish scrambled eggs) with a leaf salad and a few slices of avocado.
I feed a lot of people – with the things I really want to eat and without too much fuss: that’s the idea. Here are some of the breakfasts and brunches in Simple Too – for you, your hungry family and all your breakfast guests.
View image in fullscreen Food styling: Alice Wood. Photograph: Jonathan Lovekin Menemen is a Turkish breakfast dish: scrambled eggs, spices, tomatoes. Simple! It’s the most comforting of all ways to start – or end – the day. The key is to add the eggs off the heat, so that they cook gently in the residual warmth of the pan. Serve with buttered toast or a leafy salad with slices of avocado.
4 eggs 3 tbsp olive oil 1 onion, finely chopped (160g) 3 garlic cloves, crushed 1 tsp cumin seeds ½ tsp Aleppo chilli flakes ½ tsp ground cinnamon ½ tbsp tomato paste 300g cherry tomatoes, halved 1 tbsp double cream 5g coriander leaves, roughly chopped Fine sea salt
Read more Put the eggs into a bowl with half a teaspoon of salt. Lightly beat, just to break up the yolks, and set aside.
Put the oil into a medium frying pan on a medium-high heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook for five minutes, stirring a few times, until softened and starting to colour. Add the spices, tomato paste and an eighth of a teaspoon of salt and cook for two minutes, until fragrant. Add the tomatoes and 60ml of water, then cook, uncovered, for 10 minutes until the tomatoes have broken down. Squish them with the back of a spoon if they need a b…