Looking for the perfect Jurassic Park recipe? You’ve come to the right place! My Herbivore Salad is as delicious as it is whimsical. With leafy greens, prehistoric pine nuts, and dinosaur eggs served in cheesy nests, this salad will have your friends and family roaring with delight.
I came up with this fun recipe for my Jurassic Park party. The cheese “nests” are a hack I used to do all the time. I’m talking every time I hosted friends in my early twenties, I’d serve salad in a parmesan bowl. I don’t know why I stopped doing it! I used that same method to make cute little cheesy nests for my “dino” eggs.
The toasted cheese nests add a wonderful umami flavor to this salad. Plus, they’re cute as can be! You absolutely need a nonstick pan or electric skillet for the task. It only takes a couple of minutes to make.
As for the eggs…could they look any cooler?! Start by hard boiling eggs. (If you’ve never used my hardboiled egg method before, you’re in for a treat. My mom is the QUEEN of hardboiled eggs. Her method is flawless and it’s the official Rose Table method.) You can do this days before you need them. Peel the eggs, then pan fry them for a couple of minutes in a bit of butter, turmeric, and paprika and bam, they turn into dino eggs. So quick and easy and fun! (See a more detailed article about the dinosaur eggs here.)
UPDATE: Rose Table reader Monique made this dish for her husband’s birthday and it came out perfectly! Thanks for sharing, Monique. Your table is too cute too!
How fun are these dino eggs for a Jurassic Park party? They are wonderful in this salad. I hope you love this recipe as much as I do! It’s impossible for a dino lover like me not to grin from ear to ear while eating this whimsical dish.
Herbivore SaladMixed greens
Dino eggs, recipe follows
Asiago or parmesan cheese
Pine nuts
Balsamic vinaigrette
- Make Dinosaur Eggs. (See below.)
- Place mixed greens on plates.
- Grate asiago or parmesan cheese. Heat a nonstick pan over medium heat and add about two tablespoons of grated asiago in a circle. Cook for a few minutes minutes or until cheese starts to look toasty, then flip and cook for another thirty seconds. Remove to a muffin cup (or something similar in size) and allow cheese disk to fall around the cup slightly to form a cheese dish.
- Set cheese “nest” in the center of your greens and place dino egg inside. Top with pine nuts and serve with balsamic vinaigrette.
Dinosaur Eggs
6 large eggs (at least a week old!)
Water
Ice
1 Tbsp butter
Dash turmeric
Dash paprika
- First, hard boil the eggs: Carefully set eggs in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Place pan on stove and bring to a boil. When water begins to boil, cover pan with lid and remove from heat. Set a timer for 22 minutes. Prepare ice bath by filling a medium sized bowl with ice and water. Right when the timer goes off, remove eggs from saucepan with a slotted spoon and plunge into ice bath. Let sit in ice bath for about fifteen minutes, then remove and refrigerate or use immediately.
- When ready to make dino eggs, carefully peel the eggs. Melt butter over medium-low heat in a sauce pan, add a dash of turmeric and paprika. Go light on the spices at first – a little turmeric turns the eggs quite yellow; you can always add more to the pan! Add the eggs to the pan and roll the eggs around to fully coat them in the spices. Lightly fry them for a minute or two, just to sear in the color. Remove with a slotted spoon to a plate.
Read more about my Jurassic Park party here. Watch the episode:
Happy cooking,
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