Featuring asparagus & eggs and loaded with both probiotic and prebiotic foods, this kimchi breakfast bowl recipe is an amazingly delicious and comforting way to start the day.

Kimchi breakfast bowl with asparagus and eggs in an off-white ceramic bowl with a blue and tan patterned napkin

This is for sure my new favorite go-to breakfast (or lunch). It's warm, savory and immensely satisfying any day of the week--and, it's super fast with only one pan required!

The key to this recipe is to keep some leftover rice on hand, as well as a jar of kimchi which is widely available now at Whole Foods and other health-food type stores or Asian markets. I always have a jar in the fridge just in case I don't have any homemade kimchi ready to go.

If you have these things on hand, plus eggs and asparagus (or any other veggies), you can have this breakfast bowl ready from fridge to table in 10 minutes tops.

White rice, kimchi, ghee and coconut aminos in glass food prep bowls alongside a whole brown egg and six stalks of trimmed asparagus

Meet asparagus, a fabulous prebiotic vegetable

So we're all familiar with probiotic foods like yogurt which contain live cultures and help maintain or improve the natural ecosystem of our gut microbiome.

But, these living microbes need to eat too...and we can feed them by including lots of prebiotic foods in our diet. Prebiotics are specialized fibers that feed the good guys.

There are some common prebiotic foods like onions and garlic, and some less common such as Jerusalem artichokes.

And then there are others like asparagus which, at least for me, just don't come to mind often enough to incorporate into meal planning. At least, until I knew of its prebiotic benefits--now I try to use it OFTEN. 🙂

And then we have kimchi -- my favorite probiotic food

I ❤️ kimchi. I don't know why, but the more I have it the more I crave its spicy complex flavor. So I'm trying to incorporate it into new recipes in interesting (and obviously delicious) ways.

And the first time I had eggs with kimchi is was kind of revelatory. So unexpectedly good. I know it may sound a little weird at first if you haven't tried that combo, but trust me on this one. 😉

Oh ghee oh my

And ghee (pronounced "gee") is my favorite new way to fry eggs. You could totally substitute regular butter or any other fat you prefer (coconut oil works well too in this recipe). But I just love the rich nuttiness that is ghee, and it's much easier to NOT burn than butter due to its higher smoke point (like coconut oil).

After about a minute of frying the egg in ghee/butter/oil over medium heat you can go ahead and throw in the trimmed asparagus for another minute while the egg finishes up. I like to cook asparagus only minimally to preserve as much of the prebiotic benefit as possible before the fibers start breaking down.

A sunny side up egg and six asparagus spears frying in ghee in a stainless steel skillet

And lastly, a secret ingredient: coconut aminos. I LOVE its savory but also sweet flavor as a complement to the spicy kimchi. A perfectly acceptable substitute would be tamari or soy sauce--it's just saltier due to the higher sodium content. I just pour a little coconut amino liquid over the rice and asparagus as I assemble it all in a serving bowl. Perfection.

Kimchi, fried egg and asparagus spears over white rice in an off-white bowl atop a light grey marble countertop

And there you have it. A scrumptious breakfast bowl recipe that combines super gut healthy foods. Bon appétit!

🍳 Recipe