I’m often asked what I eat when my tummy is playing up, but when I’m also hungry and need to eat. It’s quite a dilemma actually. When your tummy is upset because your IBS has flared up, it’s incredibly sensitive and you need to be careful with your food choices so you don’t make it worse. Sometimes an IBS flare makes you nauseous and food’s the last thing on your mind, but other times your belly feels very empty and desperately needs filling up. The other catch is that IBS flares often leave you quite exhausted, so you need a failsafe recipe that can be cooked with little effort.
This is one of my solutions to this dilemma: eggs in bread, with a serve of veggies.
How this low FODMAP meal helps me during an IBS flare up
The reason why eggs in bread works for me is simply because it’s eggs and bread, two things my body tolerates very well, even when my tummy is upset (provided the bread is low FODMAP of course). I also particularly like this combination because it was a childhood favourite, so it’s a comfort food for me – very handy when you’re feeling delicate.
When you’re not feeling the best, a meal of eggs and bread is pretty good for providing essential nutrients. Wholegrain bread, such as the multigrain spelt sourdough I usually eat, provides fibre, protein and energy, while eggs provide more protein and energy. Both are also handy sources of vitamins and minerals. And if you can top it up with some veggies you tolerate well, you’ll add in even more goodness. Admittedly I find that my tummy doesn’t like too many veggies when it’s upset, so I normally keep the serve small and focus on energy and filling up.
One of the fun things with egg in bread is that you end up with leftover rounds of bread to make room for the egg. If you want, you can dip them into your eggs. Or you can turn them into little bruschetta, topped with finely chopped veggies. You can use almost any veggies you like, but green beans are something I always have in the house, so they’re a default choice. Then you just need to mix in some flavours and you’ve got a basic bruschetta.
It’s also cheap to make too
This simple meal is not only fast to prepare, it’s also very cheap to make. This is a bonus when your IBS has flared up because it’s easy to misjudge how hungry you are when you have an upset tummy. So while I’m not a fan of food waste, especially from a budget point of view, if you throw some of the meal out because you can’t finish it, it’s not going to be a huge waste.
Which fits perfectly with this month’s Recipe ReDux theme: Budget Eats. We were asked to make a meal for less than $3 per serving and this simple recipe fits the bill. Eggs are very cheap ingredients – even the most expensive ones are about $1 for two eggs. Low FODMAP bread though is considerably more expensive than regular bread. Still, my regular FODMAP Friendly bread is $5.70 per loaf, so two slices is about $0.65. So far that’s $1.65 per serve. And there’s no way a handful of veggies and some simple staples are going to exceed the remaining $1.35. Easy!
So how about giving this simple meal of eggs in bread a go. It will fill you up and won’t break the budget. It will also add a decent dose of nutrition to your day, especially if your tummy is a little tender after a recent IBS flare up. And you probably already have the ingredients in the kitchen.
Eggs in Bread with Green Bean Bruschetta
Prep Time: 4 minutes- Cook Time: 6 minutes
- Total Time: 10 minutes
Yield: 1 serve
Category: Main Meals
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A quick and easy recipe for filling up sensitive tummies when they’re not feeling happy. Eggs in Bread is also a budget recipe that won’t break the bank.
Ingredients
- 50g fresh green beans, trimmed (or frozen green beans)
- 25g cucumber
- 1/2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1/4 tsp white wine vinegar
- 1 tsp fresh dill (or 1/4 tsp dried oregano)
- 2 slices of low FODMAP bread (see notes)
- Dairy-free spread – I use Nuttelex (you could use butter if you can tolerate dairy)
- 2 eggs
Instructions
- Start by making the bruschetta topping. Wash the green beans, put them in a microwave-safe container with a splash of water, and cook for 1 minute (or 2 minutes if using frozen beans). Remove from the microwave and rinse in cold water. Dice the green beans and cucumber, put in a small bowl, add the oil and vinegar, plus dill (or oregano), then mix to combine.
- Heat a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat.
- Lay the slices of bread on a cutting board and lightly butter the bread on both sides with the dairy-free spread (or butter). Note: if your tummy is particularly sensitive to fats during a flare up, skip the buttering step – the bread won’t be as crispy, but the heat in the pan will still toast the bread. Use a large round scone cutter, about 7cm diameter, to cut a hole in the centre of each slice of bread.
- Put the bread slices and the ‘holes’ into the frying pan and cook for about 3 minutes until toasty and browned a little. Flip them all over. Then oil the centre of each hole (where the eggs will go) by putting a small amount of dairy-free spread into the centre of each hole. Add the eggs to the holes and cook for 3 minutes or until cooked to your liking. I’ve cooked them sunny side up with the yolks soft, but if you like them flipped over, you can do that.
- To serve, put the eggs in bread on a plate. Put the toasted holes beside them on the plate and top with the bruschetta mix.
Ingredient Notes
- This recipe is suitable for a low FODMAP diet, provided that the recommended serving size for this recipe is not exceeded.
- This recipe is naturally dairy-free and nut-free, and it can be made gluten-free with the right bread. However, if you have an allergy to any of these items, or have coeliac disease, please check the labels on any purchased ingredients to ensure they are safe for your requirements.
- If you don’t have fresh green beans, use frozen green beans instead. If you don’t have cucumber, leave it out. Or you could add in a small amount of tomato instead.
- If you don’t have fresh dill, dried oregano also works very well with the beans and cucumber.
- When choosing a suitable bread, try to select one that contains wholegrains or seeds so that you’ll get a good boost of fibre. Some sourdough spelt breads have this, but if you can’t find one, a spelt bread made using traditional sourdough techniques will be low FODMAP. It might be difficult to find a gluten-free bread that’s also low FODMAP and contains wholegrains, but a good alternative is to choose a gluten-free bread that has added fibre instead.
Low FODMAP Portion
- Serving Size: the whole recipe
Hi, I thought I was pretty safe with my gluten-free bread on the low fodmap diet, but have recently discovered recipes like this one, talking about gluten-free bread, “so long as it doesn’t have any high fodmap ingredients, so now I am frantically checking my bread ingredients too! I have just checked my gluten-free bread and it has some kibbled soy and soy flour in it. Do you know if these ingredients are OK or not?
Hi Alma. Not all gluten-free flours are low FODMAP since some can be high in fructans or GOS. I wrote about this in an article about low FODMAP flours, which you can read here: https://alessirritablelife.com/how-to-make-a-low-fodmap-flour-mix/ Remember though that for FODMAPs, portion size does matter. So it’s possible for a product to have a small amount of high FODMAP ingredient and still have the end product be low in FODMAPs. Of course unless it’s tested, it’s a bit of guess work and trial and error. But if a high FODMAP ingredient is high up on the ingredients list, then it will probably make the end product high FODMAP.
In terms of your bread, soy flour is quite commonly used in breads but it will depend on how high up the ingredient list it is. If it’s low in the list, it should be fine. If it’s one of the primary flours in the mix, then it could be an issue. With the kibbled soy, this ingredient isn’t tested but since it’s made from whole soy beans, it’s likely a high FODMAP ingredient. Again though it will depend on how much is in the bread since small amounts of soy will still be low FODMAP. It’s possible your bread is okay though since Monash has tested and approved Helga’s Gluten Free Soy & Linseed bread as being low FODMAP.
These are the ingredients of Helga’s Gluten Free Soy & Linseed bread: Water, modified tapioca starch (1442), rice flour, maize starch, kibbled soy (3%), linseed (3%), vegetable oil, sugar, soy flour, egg white, iodised salt, psyllium flour, yeast, preservative (282), thickener (464), vegetable gum (412), vitamin (thiamin). May be present: sesame seeds. This has a save serving size of 78g (2 slices)
So you can see that there is both kibbled soy and soy flour in that bread, but overall it comes out okay. It’s most likely because the amounts are small and because the amount of FODMAPs from the main ingredients is very low (i.e. tapioca starch, rice flour and maize starch). Have a look at the ingredients list on your bread and see how it compares to this one. I’m not familiar with NZ breads so can’t help you with brands, but you could try contacting Alana Scott from A Little Bit Yummy: https://www.alittlebityummy.com/ since she lives in NZ and follows a gluten-free and low FODMAP diet.
Green Bean bruscetta! What a fabulous idea, I love it!
Thanks Autumn!