Some baking and cooking recipes forego the use of eggs, and some boxed baking mixes and premade powders don’t need eggs to make the recipe work.

If you want to make an omelet, or any other egg-based dish, though, you probably need at least a few eggs to cook the product you want. And with the future of prices looking unfavorable, you may be looking for other ways to add some protein to that breakfast plate that doesn’t involve cracking an expensive egg.

That’s why the rising egg prices are so troubling — what else can you make that is equivalent to an omelet? Or eggs benedict? Even scrambled eggs are a unique food and sometimes, just one part of a breakfast meal, like breakfast bowls or griddle platters. Batch, a bakery in Saxonburg, goes through 60 dozen eggs each week, and a co-owner of the business said it will likely raise prices on quiche. Quiche! There is nothing else like it.

Because of the variety of products eggs can make, it’s easy to see why demand for them hasn’t wavered with the hindered supply. French toast recipes even call for eggs to be put in the mix, to get the toast coating to a nice, runny consistency.

Maybe it’s time to consider other breakfast foods, while we wait out the avian flu and other factors influencing high egg prices as of late.

Box pancake recipes often don’t call for eggs anymore, and a few pancakes is usually enough fuel to get you through to the afternoon on a full stomach. While it is often paired with egg dishes, bacon provides a good level of protein to get the body going, and hash browns — another egg partner — can be a salty side dish that compliments many morning plates.

Although you may miss some of the eggy tastes that fill foods from breakfast wraps to quiche, now would be a good time to expand your horizons when it comes to the most important meal of the day. When you finally get a nice, affordable ham and cheese omelet again, it will taste that much better.

— ET