Cottage Cheese, Parmesan and Anchovy Breakfast Muffins
A high-protein savory muffin built on cottage cheese and eggs, with oil-packed anchovy melted into the batter so it reads as depth rather than fish. Bake Sunday, eat Monday through Thursday, one hand on the wheel.
Ingredients
- oil-packed anchovy fillets10 fillets, plus their oil
- olive oilenough to bring the anchovy oil up to 1/3 cup, plus a little for the tin
- cottage cheese2 cups (about 1 lb) — full fat, or 2% for more protein and a slightly drier crumb
- eggs5 large
- Parmesan4 oz by weight, grated fine
- all-purpose flour1 1/2 cups
- semolina1/2 cup
- baking powder2 1/2 tsp
- baking soda1/2 tsp
- black pepper, coarsely ground1 tsp, plus more for the tops
- fresh herbs (chives, parsley, dill — whatever is alive)1/2 cup, chopped
- salt1/4 tsp, and taste the batter before you commit to it
Method
Drain the anchovy oil into a small pan and top it up with olive oil to 1/3 cup. Chop the fillets roughly, add them to the pan, and warm over low heat, mashing with a fork, until they dissolve. Off the heat to cool while you do everything else.
Watch for
Two or three minutes at most — you want the fillets to collapse into the oil, not to sizzle. Bubbling means the pan is too hot and the flavor turns bitter.
Heat the oven to 375°F and oil a 12-cup muffin tin generously, corners included. These stick if you get casual about it.
Weigh out 4 oz of Parmesan. If it came pre-shredded, pulse it in a food processor or run it over a microplane until it's fine and fluffy — shreds stay as separate melted pockets instead of dissolving into the crumb.
Watch for
Cup measures lie here: 1 1/2 cups of shreds is closer to 3 oz than 4. Trust the scale.
In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, then stir in the cottage cheese, the anchovy oil, the Parmesan, the herbs and the pepper.
Watch for
Leave the cottage cheese curds intact. They're what keeps the crumb moist rather than rubbery — don't blend them smooth unless you want a denser muffin.
Whisk the flour, semolina, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in a second bowl, then fold the dry into the wet with a spatula, stopping the moment there's no dry flour left.
Watch for
The batter should be thick and scoopable, closer to a drop biscuit than a pourable batter. Overmixing here is the one thing that will make them tough.
Divide between the 12 cups — they should be generously full — and grind more pepper over the tops.
Bake 22–26 minutes, until the tops are domed and deep gold and the centers spring back when pressed.
Watch for
A skewer should come out clean but slightly moist; cottage cheese keeps them wetter-looking than a sweet muffin, so trust the springy top more than the skewer. Don't chase more color past 26 minutes — a 2% cottage cheese bakes drier than a full-fat one.
Cool in the tin 10 minutes, then run a knife around each and turn them out onto a rack. Cool completely before they go anywhere near a container, or the steam will soften the crusts.