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Follow these steps to make hard boiled eggs. Hard boiled eggs are a great snack or breakfast on their own; I also love them on salads or made into egg salad sandwiches. My favorite camping breakfast is a hard boiled egg sprinkled with Lawry's Seasoned Salt. Low in calories at only 72 each, eggs are a great source of lean protein. They're also packed with vitamins and minerals, and are an excellent source of choline, which is important for cellular maintenance and growth, brain development, and memory.
I conducted a little "egg-speriment" before I wrote this post (see what I did there), to see if any of the Internet's claims that adding an extra ingredient to the boiling water would help the hard boiled eggs become easier to peel. I hard boiled 3 eggs in plain water, 3 eggs in water with 1 tablespoon of kosher salt, 3 eggs in water with 1 tablespoon of baking soda, and 3 eggs in water with 1 tablespoon of vinegar. I made sure they all came from the same (new) carton of eggs and that my methods for each trial were exactly the same. What I learned was...they were pretty much egg-zactly the same :) I don't think adding anything extra to the water makes eggs noticeably easier to peel, but if you want to challenge me on that feel free to do so in the comments!
What You'll Need:
Water
Ice
Step 1
Fill a medium saucepan with enough water to completely cover the eggs once you add them. Only boil enough eggs to form a single layer on the bottom of the pan; if you need to do a lot of eggs consider using a bigger pan or boiling in batches.
Step 2
Bring water to a full, rolling boil over high heat.
Step 3
Once water is boiling, reduce heat to medium and use a spider skimmer or slotted spoon to add the eggs, one at a time, to the simmering water.
Step 4
Once all eggs are submerged, set a timer for 12 minutes.
Note: every stove is different, so you may have to run your own "egg-speriment" to figure out the right length of time for you to hard boil your eggs. With my stove, 12 minutes yields perfect hard boiled eggs that have just the tiniest spot of jam in the very center of the yolk, which is how I like them. In general I would say your boiling time will be between 12 and 15 minutes.
Step 5
When your eggs have 2-3 minutes more of cooking time, fill a bowl with water and several cups of ice.
Step 6
Once your timer goes off, turn off the heat and use a spider skimmer or slotted spoon to carefully remove the eggs from the pan and place in the ice bath. Allow eggs to sit in the ice bath for 15 minutes.
You can peel eggs to use immediately, or store them in the shell in the fridge for up to one week.
Notes on peeling:
I recommend tapping the bottom of the egg against your counter or cutting board, and peeling from there. I always remind my foods students to peel over a dish towel on the countertop, not over the garbage can, because they will almost always drop them in the garbage can :) Rinse peeled eggs under cold water to get any last remnants of shell.
Another thing I have learned about peeling hard boiled eggs: The older the egg, the easier they will be to peel. This is because the older the egg gets, the larger the air space (space between the flat/bottom part of the egg and the shell) becomes, and if you tap a hard boiled egg on the bottom to peel it, it will be easier if there is a bigger space than a smaller one.
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