Treat Yourself to Matzo Brei

I’ll stop there, since there are as many reasons to make matzo brei as there are ways to make it.

“Matzo brei” is Yiddish for “fried matzo.” (The “brei” conveniently rhymes with “fry.”) This simple Ashkenazi dish of eggs, matzo (unleavened flatbread made from flour and water), and fat is eaten during Passover, the Jewish holiday during which observers avoid eating leavened food. The requisite steps go something like this: Break sheets of matzo into pieces, soften them in liquid (water or milk), mix them with eggs, and then scramble everything in fat. Those details in between? They all depend on what you grew up with and what you’re used to.

The first brei I had was cooked on a hot plate in my friend’s college dorm room. She had sautéed some onion in butter before adding the egg-matzo mixture to the pan and folding it all together for a minute or two. The result was deeply savory, and its texture—with its tender pockets of egg‑coated matzo—was more substantial and satisfying than any plate of scrambled eggs I’d ever eaten

In the 20 years since then, I’ve made matzo brei countless times—always during Passover but also any time I’ve had a box of matzo to use up or wanted a heartier, more dynamic plate of eggs. Because one of the best things about fried matzo is that it’s infinitely customizable. You can cook it like a pancake in a single layer or stir it up like a scramble. You can make it sweet or savory and zhuzh it up with just about any condiment: hot sauce, maple syrup, jam, applesauce, sour cream, or ketchup. And the flavor is neutral, so it can easily be the foundation for more elaborate riffs. When I talked to legendary Jewish cookbook author Joan Nathan, the conversation turned into a brainstorm of possible mix-ins.

“I happen to really love chicken livers, so I would put them in,” Nathan said. “And then, of course, if you’re going to do chicken livers, you might as well do green and red onions with them.” 

Other ideas for spiffing up the scramble that arose from my conversation with Nathan: sautéed mushrooms, crispy pastrami, smoked salmon, and peanut butter and bananas. 

But you can’t have great matzo brei without nailing the building blocks, starting with the egg-to-matzo ratio. You can use as little as one egg per sheet, which sufficiently binds up the matzo shards, but I prefer my fried matzo to have a more substantial scrambled egg presence. Three eggs per two sheets, I found, is enough to thoroughly coat the matzo pieces without overwhelming them. As for the soaking liquid, water (many cooks rinse matzo under the faucet) and milk work perfectly well, but I realized that I could do without either one if I simply dunked the broken pieces right into the whisked eggs. It saves a step, and as long as I let them hydrate in the eggs for a few minutes, the matzo softens without turning soggy.

Meanwhile, matzo brei’s flavor is largely bound up in the fat and additional seasonings, which is why I always use nutty-tasting butter for a sweet scramble or schmaltz when I’m going for savory. And I’m generous with it—both for the flavor it delivers and to pay off the “brei” that the name promises. 

Onions are the other key to matzo brei with a savory backbone, so I usually start by chopping and sautéing a big handful in the fat until it’s soft and just shy of browned. (Alternatively, you can use caramelized onions.) Then I pour in the egg-matzo mixture, gently stirring and folding everything together over medium heat until the eggs are just cooked through and most of the scramble sets up into rustic, tender, two-bite clumps. That’s all there is to it, save for liberal doses of salt and pepper and sometimes a last-minute handful of fresh herbs (I like dill and chives). Be generous with the seasonings—the main ingredient in matzo brei is still matzo, after all.