According to culinary lore, the 100 folds in a traditional chef’s toque represent the 100 ways to cook an egg. (Escoffier’s Guide Culinaire offers 143 techniques, but who’s counting?). The good news: You only need one tool—a cast iron skillet—to apply most of them. Not only can you cook eggs many ways in cast iron, you should: the material’s superior heat retention and (especially in baking) heat distribution means better eggs—softer scrambles, crispier fried edges, and fluffier frittatas and stratas—no matter how you cook them.
Below, some of our favorite egg recipes for cast iron skillets: