Eggs in Balinese sauce

Telur Bumbu Bali

One of our international readers recently emailed us asking if we could share our version of telur bumbu Bali.

This dish is a delicious Indonesian recipes made with hard-boiled eggs in a flavorful Balinese sauce. We already have two other Indonesian egg recipes on our website: sambal goreng telur and telur kecap. When it comes to heat, this version falls right between those two. The result is a perfectly seasoned dish that’s delicious as part of a spread of Indonesian dishes or simply served alongside your favorite Indonesian meal.

Preparing the eggs

For a firmer texture and a beautiful golden color, you can briefly fry the eggs in a shallow layer of vegetable oil. This step is optional, but it gives the eggs a lightly crisp exterior and helps the sauce cling a little better.

Heat the oil and cook the hard-boiled eggs for a few minutes until they’re lightly golden all over. Transfer them to a paper towel-lined plate while you prepare the bumbu. That said, they’re just as delicious if you skip this step.

Flavorful Balinese sauce

The heart of this dish is the bumbu, a fragrant spice paste that gives the sauce its distinctive flavor. For this version, we make a mild bumbu with shallots, garlic, red chili, tomato, trassi (fermented shrimp paste), ginger, and galangal.

Blend everything into a smooth paste using a small food processor, then cook the bumbu in a little oil until fragrant. Next, add kecap manis or sweet soy sauce, a little water, salam leaves, and, if you like, a tablespoon of gula jawa (Javanese palm sugar).

Kecap manis

An important ingredient in eggs in Balinese sauce is kecap manis. This is a thick, sweet Indonesian soy sauce with a distinctive flavor that’s widely used in Indonesian cooking. Its syrupy texture and rich flavor come from palm sugar and spices like star anise and cloves. It adds sweetness, depth, and a touch of warmth to this dish. If you can’t find kecap manis, you can use a sweet soy sauce instead. Just make sure to choose a thick, syrupy variety, as thinner versions won’t provide the same flavor and texture.

If you don’t have either on hand, you can easily make a substitute at home. In this recipe, we use 3 tablespoons kecap manis. You can replace it with a mix of 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1 tablespoons molasses, and 1 tablespoon brown sugar. You can make this ahead of time if you want the sauce to thicken slightly, but that’s not required.

Simmer and serve

Once the sauce has developed its full flavor, add the eggs and let them simmer gently for about 15 minutes. This gives the eggs plenty of time to absorb all the flavors. You can also let them simmer longer if you like. They only get better.

Serve telur bumbu Bali as part of an Indonesian rice table or as a side dish with steamed white rice and, for example, sayur buncis (Indonesian green beans in coconut sauce). Plan on at least one egg per person, although most people will happily eat more!

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