Fried Eggs Get A Serious Flavor Boost Thanks To Pickle Juice

In the wide world of breakfast food, few options stand on their own like a pair of perfectly fried eggs. Sautéed in a tablespoon of butter — whether it's cooked over easy, over hard, or sunny side up — it's hard to beat a nice fried egg. Serve it with a side of bacon and hash browns and you've got a winner of a breakfast. So why would you ever mess with perfection?

So color us shocked when we saw what TikTok user @dansgoodside added to his sunny side up eggs. After frying the eggs until three-quarters done, the man added pickle juice. Pickle juice! But if you really think about it, the combination makes enough sense. It's a salty, briny finish that doesn't seem to overpower the subtle flavor and texture of the eggs.

And you know here at Chowhound, when we see an intriguing recipe or a twist on a simple classic, we have to try it for ourselves. And that's exactly what we did.

Two eggs cracked in some melted butter over medium heat. For sunny side up eggs, this usually takes a few minutes. With about one minute left, we dropped about a tablespoon of pickle juice in and covered the pan. The pickle juice helped steam the eggs just enough to make the whites and yolks set. The result? We're not complaining.

While this extra step might not be your everyday go-to for cooking eggs, it's not a bad option at all if you want to mix things up. The pickle juice adds seasoning, in the form of brininess, with the cut of vinegar balancing out the creaminess of the egg yolks. Too much pickle juice would overpower the eggs, but we thought a tablespoon was the right amount.

Obviously, if you don't like pickles then this won't be your deal (dill?). But there's actually all kinds of different ways you can use pickle juice. It's not uncommon for pickle juice to be part of a chicken brine or marinade. Some tasty burger and fry sauce recipes give instructions to mix it in. Obviously it also works well as a pickling agent for many vegetables. You can use the pickle juice in a salad dressing, a chicken salad, or even an alcoholic beverage — like a bloody Mary or martini. So go ahead and drop a dab of pickle juice into the pan with your fried eggs. But as we've explained, you can also do a lot more with it. Maybe we've all been sleeping on the versatility of pickle juice for way too long.