Why Muffin Pans?
These Vietnamese-inspired breakfast cups bake up into tender, custardy rounds packed with caramelized pork, quick-pickled vegetables, and fresh herbs. Each cup carries the flavors of a classic bánh mì - savory, sweet, tangy, and herbaceous - held together in a neat, hand-friendly bite.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup matchstick carrots
- 1/2 cup matchstick daikon radish (or mild radish if daikon unavailable)
- 1/3 cup rice vinegar (unseasoned)
- 2 tbsp granulated sugar
- 3/4 tsp kosher salt (divided)
- 1 tbsp neutral oil (canola or vegetable)
- 8 oz ground pork
- 2 cloves garlic (minced)
- 1 green onion (finely sliced, white and green parts separated)
- 1 tbsp fish sauce (such as Red Boat)
- 1 tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
- 1 tbsp light brown sugar (packed)
- 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper (divided)
- 8 large eggs
- 1/3 cup whole milk
- 1/4 cup mayonnaise
- 1 tsp sriracha (plus more for serving, optional)
- 1/2 cup finely diced seeded cucumber
- 1/3 cup fresh cilantro leaves and tender stems (chopped)
- 1 small jalapeño (thinly sliced, optional, for topping)
- nonstick cooking spray
Instructions
- 01Preheat the oven to 350°F. Place a rack in the center of the oven. Lightly spray a standard 12-cup muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray, making sure to coat the sides and bottoms of each round well.
- 02Make the quick pickles: In a small bowl, combine the rice vinegar, granulated sugar, and 1/2 tsp of the kosher salt. Stir until the sugar dissolves. Add the matchstick carrots and daikon, pressing them down so they're mostly submerged. Let sit at room temperature for at least 15 minutes, stirring once or twice. Drain well before using and gently squeeze out excess liquid with your hands or a paper towel so they don't water down the egg mixture.
- 03Cook the pork: Heat the neutral oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add the ground pork and cook, breaking it into small crumbles, until it loses its pink color, about 4-5 minutes. Add the minced garlic and the white parts of the green onion; cook 1 minute more until fragrant.
- 04Season the pork: Stir in the fish sauce, soy sauce, light brown sugar, and 1/4 tsp of the freshly ground black pepper. Cook, stirring frequently, until the liquid is mostly absorbed and the pork looks glossy and slightly caramelized, 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool for 5-10 minutes so it doesn't scramble the eggs later.
- 05Prepare the egg base: In a large bowl, whisk the eggs until well blended and no streaks remain. Add the whole milk, mayonnaise, sriracha, remaining 1/4 tsp kosher salt, and remaining 1/4 tsp black pepper. Whisk until the mixture is smooth and lightly thickened from the mayo - this helps create a custardy texture that holds its round, molded shape.
- 06Assemble in the pan: Divide the cooled pork evenly among the 12 muffin cups, about 1 heaping tablespoon per well, pressing it lightly so it forms a loose base that follows the round bottom of each cup. Top each portion of pork with a small pinch of the drained carrot-daikon mixture (about 1 tablespoon per cup), then sprinkle on a few pieces of diced cucumber and a pinch of chopped cilantro (reserve some cilantro for garnish).
- 07Pour the eggs: Give the egg mixture a quick whisk. Carefully pour it into each muffin cup, filling each well nearly to the top, about 3/4 full but not overflowing. The eggs will seep down around the pork and vegetables, binding everything into a cohesive round cup as it bakes. If any toppings float, gently nudge them down with a spoon so they're mostly submerged.
- 08Bake: Place the muffin tin on the center rack. Bake at 350°F for 18-22 minutes, until the cups are just set in the centers and puffed, and the edges look slightly pulled away from the sides of the wells. A toothpick inserted in the center of one should come out mostly clean with just a bit of moisture, not wet egg. Do not overbake or they'll turn rubbery.
- 09Cool and release: Remove the pan from the oven and let the cups cool in the tin for 5-7 minutes; they'll deflate slightly and firm up, taking on that neat, flared muffin-cup shape. Run a thin knife or offset spatula around the edges of each well, then gently lift each round breakfast cup out and transfer to a plate or cooling rack.
- 10Garnish and serve: Top each cup with a few slices of jalapeño (if using), a sprinkle of the reserved cilantro, and the sliced green parts of the green onion. Drizzle lightly with extra sriracha or serve with small dipping dishes of sriracha and mayonnaise on the side. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Chef's Notes
The mayo in the egg mixture is non-negotiable if you want that tender, custardy interior that still unmolds cleanly as a self-contained round - don't skip it. Drain and squeeze the pickled vegetables well; excess liquid will cause the cups to weep and stick. I measure the pork into the wells with a tablespoon so each cup has enough base to anchor the shape. These keep well: cool completely, then refrigerate in an airtight container up to 4 days. Reheat on a sheet pan at 300°F for 8-10 minutes, or eat cold - like leftover bánh mì, the flavors deepen overnight.
Behind the Scenes
How This Recipe Was Made
Follow the creative team's conversation as they developed, photographed, and published this recipe.
Mon
Tue
Wed
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Fri
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Margaret
Head Baker
Marcus
Copywriter
Steph
Project Manager
Julian
Art Director
Devon
Site Architect
Ria
Social Media Manager
Coffee's terrible today. Anyway - we need to lock the concept. Weekly muffin pan recipe, rotating anchors. Bánh mì egg bites this week. Thoughts?
The pickling angle is what sells this - those quick-brined carrots and daikon aren't just flavor, they're doing the actual structural work inside the pan, keeping everything from getting soggy. Bánh mí deserves that kind of specificity.
Yeah, the pickling is doing real work here - not just flavor, like you said, it's the whole thing that makes them hold together in the pan.
The vinegar ratio matters - too weak and they collapse by noon, too sharp and you lose the pork. Start at 3:1 rice vinegar to water, taste as you go.
Those carrots need to be *visibly* brined in the first shot - the shine, the translucence. That's the stop-scroll moment, not just the concept.
Those brined carrots ARE the visual - but not because of shine. Because they actually look like something you'd want to eat, not a prop.
We shoot the brine going in - that moment when the carrots hit the liquid. That's the hook, then cut to them finished. Process over perfection.
I'm into that - the carrots going in, then the payoff shot. That's our angle, yeah? We're good to go with that.
Trays from yesterday still holding up. The egg ratio needs work though - too much moisture, they're splitting on the sides.
Yeah, I caught that too - maybe we pull back the egg and lean on the pickled veg to carry the moisture instead?
The vinegar's the spine here - if we trust that to anchor the whole thing, the egg becomes structure, not seasoning. Fewer eggs means they won't weep out under heat either.
That's the right read - vinegar carries the acid and preserves, eggs just bind. Cut the eggs back twenty percent, we test it tomorrow morning.
Just got the three shots backed up - macro, overhead, and the three-quarter hero. The pickled vegetables are reading beautifully in all of them, but we need to decide which one carries the story here.
The macro's the one - that vinegar shine on the daikon is what stops the scroll, and we can crop it vertical for the main feed without losing the story.
The macro definitely stops the scroll, but are we losing the whole setup - like, what if we need to see the pan's role in this? Might the three-quarter give us that?
The macro gets the craving going, yeah, but the three-quarter is where we actually see why this wants to be a muffin pan - those eggs sitting snug, vegetables tucked tight, everything held together without any fuss.
You're right - seeing the eggs nested in there is actually the pitch for why someone would make this instead of just scrambling them in a bowl.
So we're going three-quarter then - and honestly, that's the stronger choice because it actually shows people why they'd reach for the pan instead of a skillet.
Three-quarter shows the actual work - that's the right call. No macro tricks needed when the food does its job.
Morning. Got the bánh mì bites copy locked down - thinking the title should be "Pickled Radish, Soft Eggs, Open Hands" but I'm open to pushback. The writing leans into why the vinegar matters here, the quick-pickle method, the grab-and-go nature of it all.
The vinegar angle is solid - that's the actual story. But "Open Hands" reads like a yoga class. Lead with what makes them work: twelve done at once, grab one cold from the fridge tomorrow morning.
Marcus nailed the vinegar focus, and you're right - "Ready" does more work than poetry here. The twelve-batch thing is what actually matters to someone standing in front of their fridge at 7:00 am.
The quick pickle ratio is wrong. Vinegar to sugar - it's 3:1 and they have it backwards. That's going to be sour and gritty by Monday.
Good catch - I'll fix that in the CMS before we go live.
Wait, hold on - we need to actually test that ratio before it goes live, right?
Yeah, testing it matters - but also, Margaret's right about the science here, the vinegar needs to be the dominant note or the whole thing falls apart halfway through the week.
Marcus is right - you can't taste this after it's been sitting three days with the ratios flipped, and by then it's too late to fix it.
The pickle sits there for days doing its work whether we're watching or not - that's the whole point, so getting the ratio right the first time isn't optional.
Yeah, I'll test it first thing and push the corrected version live once it's verified. Site's ready to go whenever you need it.
Staging the bánh mì bites now, should be live in a few minutes for verification.
Good, but did you taste the pickle brine before it went in - that ratio looked thin when I checked it yesterday.
Checked it this morning - ratio's solid, you were just looking at it before the sugar dissolved.
Fair enough - sugar takes time. Page looks clean, pickle's balanced now. You're good to go.
Alright, everyone in? This is it - banh mi egg bites go live in a few.
Yeah, we're live - and I'm genuinely proud of how the copy landed on those pickled vegetables, the way we let the sourness do its own work instead of explaining it.
The sourness carries the whole thing - you got it right. Recipe's live, it's clean, it works. I'm out.