Name: Telur Balado: Indonesian Eggs In Spicy Chilli Sambal
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 35 min
Ingredients: 12 eggs.; ¼ cup cooking oil (and extra for frying.); 1 lemongrass (bruised and cut an inch long.); 4 kaffir lime leaves.; 1 teaspoon salt (or according to taste.); 1 teaspoon granulated sugar.; ¼ cup water.; 8.82 ounces red chillies.; 1 medium brown/yellow onion (chopped.); 3 cloves garlic.; 2 tomatoes.

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Hard-boiled eggs are good. Hard-boiled eggs in spicy chili sambal? Even better. Telur Balado is a classic Indonesian vegetarian dish that proves the simplest ingredients can deliver the biggest flavors.

Telur Balado

Telur Balado, also called Balado Telur, is a vegetarian dish made with hard-boiled eggs and spicy chili sambal. It’s a dish that elevates humble eggs by pairing them with sambal sauce.

And the sauce adds an irresistible spiciness that turns bland boiled eggs into an exquisite dish.

Telur Balado the Indonesian hard boiled eggs in spicy chilli sambal on a white dish with three heads of garlic on the background.

So you’ll get the creamy egg with the kick of spicy chilies. And when you eat it with hot plain white rice, you’ll need nothing else but peace and quiet. Because the dish is just too yummy.

The dish is originally from West Sumatra (Padangnese) and is now quite popular in Indonesia. You can always find it on the menu at Padangnese restaurants almost everywhere in the country. It shows that the demand is there. Therefore, it’s on the menu for trade.

Like other Padangnese dishes, this vegetarian dish has a similar spicy flavor. Padangnese food is well-known for being spicy and using a lot of chilies. And the word Balado actually refers to dishes cooked with lots of chilies.

You can use your homemade Sambal Goreng Terasi for this dish if you already have it. But if you don’t, you can make the more simplified chili sambal in this recipe.

Main Dish or Side Dish

Honestly, it can be hard for me to decide whether this egg with chili sambal is a main dish or a side dish.

Because you can have this telur Balado as both a main or a side. But you still have to enjoy it with rice-based carbs such as plain white rice, nasi uduk, nasi kuning, or lontong.

And if you want to have it as a side dish, you can serve it along with beef rendang, lontong sayur, etc. Just like many Padangnese do.

Why You’ll Love Telur Balado

🥚 Eggs + sambal = magic — two humble ingredients that together create something really special.
🌶️ That sambal hits different — bold, spicy, and packed with garlic and shallots that soak right into the egg.
🍚 A perfect rice companion — spoon the sambal over rice, and you’ve got a full, satisfying meal.
💰 One of the most budget-friendly dishes out there — eggs are cheap, and sambal ingredients are cheaper.
🥗 Vegetarian but never boring — proves you don’t need meat for a deeply flavourful dish.
⚡ Quick to make — boil the eggs, make the sambal, done.
🍳 Great for meal prep — makes a big batch and pairs with almost anything all week.
🇮🇩 A true Indonesian comfort food — the kind of dish that feels like home.

What You Need to Make Telur Balado

You don’t really need fancy ingredients for this dish. Apart from the eggs, you will only need fresh red chilies, tomatoes, onion, garlic, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, salt, sugar, water, and cooking oil.

Ingredients for telur balado with an overlay text.

As for red chilies, you can combine the big red chilies with bird ’s-eye red chilies (which are hotter). Or, you can just use the big ones only if you don’t want the dish to be too spicy. Bird’s Eye red chilies are hotter.

And the tomatoes are used to balance the heat of chilies. Therefore, if you think the number of chilies suggested in this recipe may be too much for you, you can replace some of them with more tomatoes. But make sure to cook the sauce until most of the liquid has evaporated. Otherwise, you will taste nothing but tomatoes.

Easy Way to Cook

This egg dish is darn easy to make. In essence, you just have to boil the egg and make the chili sambal.

The hard-boiled eggs can be deep-fried before being mixed into the red chili sambal sauce.

So you will have a slightly crispy egg on the outside and a firm boiled egg on the inside. But you can skip the deep frying. Especially if you like the smooth texture of hard-boiled eggs. Just make sure you boil the eggs until really firm and hard. So they won’t break when cooked in the sauce. It takes approximately 10 minutes to boil the eggs at room temperature. And if your eggs have been chilled in the fridge/ refrigerator, it may take 5-6 minutes longer.

The next thing you do is make the sambal. Pound all the spice paste ingredients into a paste. Then heat a little oil in a pan and add the spice paste along with lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves. Add in sugar, salt, and water. Cook until the spice releases a spicy but delicious aroma. Let it simmer for about 2-3 minutes, until you can see the oil slightly separating from the edges.

While your sauce is cooking, peel the eggs and put them in the sauce when it’s ready. Cook the eggs in sambal for at least 3-4 minutes.

Top Tip for Delicious Balado Telur

Make sure you boil the eggs really firm and hard.
Fry the chili spice paste until it’s fully cooked and the liquid in it has evaporated, leaving the sauce thick, smooth, and shiny.

More Spicy Recipes

Thank you for reading this Telur Balado recipe. Hope you like it. If you do try it, please share your thoughts in the comments below. I really appreciate it.

If you like spicy food, I recommend you check out my other recipes similar to:

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Thank you and all the best.