Here’s a good, all-purpose method for making hard boiled eggs for snacking, for tucking into salads, or making egg salad or deviled eggs.
An overcooked hard boiled egg has a pale yellow yolk with a chalky texture and – when extremely overdone – a greenish-gray ring around it. Yuck. Equally yucky to me (though loved by some) are what they call “jammy” eggs, which have runny yolks. (I love a warm runny egg, but cold and runny equals slimy to me.) My 11 minute eggs hit the sweet spot with a yolk that’s firm yet still moist and dark yellow/orange in the center. If you like your eggs jammy, shave a couple of minutes off the standing time in the instructions below. Just know you can’t make egg salad or deviled eggs with eggs that soft.
Here’s my technique for cooking the eggs. Scroll down for basic instructions for using them in egg salad and deviled eggs.
Hard Boiled Eggs
Ingredients
- Large eggs
Directions
- Step 1 Place cold large eggs in a pot that’s just big enough to hold them in a single layer without any extra space. The size of the pot is very important! If your eggs don’t take up all the space in the pot, the extra space will be taken up with water, and the amount of time it takes that water to heat up will throw off the timing in an unpredictable way. I usually cook 6 eggs in a 2-quart pot that’s 6 inches in diameter.
- Step 2 Add cold water to come up 1 inch higher than the top of the eggs.
- Step 3 Put the pot on a cold burner, uncovered, and turn the heat on high. Bring the water to a boil. As soon as the bubbles start to break the surface of the water and the eggs start to dance and rattle, set your timer for 11 minutes. Let the pot boil, uncovered, for exactly one minute. As soon as your timer reads 10 minutes, immediately remove the pot from the heat and cover it.
- Step 4 Let the eggs sit in the hot water, covered, for exactly 10 minutes. Meanwhile, fill a large bowl with ice water.
- Step 5 Use a slotted spoon to transfer the eggs to the ice water. Leave them in the ice water for 5 minutes before peeling.
Next comes peeling. Older eggs are easier to peel than fresh ones. If your eggs are very fresh and you’re having a hard time, try peeling them under cold running water. If that still doesn’t work, use a spoon. Turn the spoon with the concave side toward the egg and gently work the spoon between the egg and the shell. Turn the egg, cupping the spoon against the egg as you turn, and pry the shell away.
For easy peeling you can also cook your eggs in an Instant Pot. The Instant Pot doesn’t make the process any faster or more convenient (kind of the opposite actually), but it does make them easy to peel. My issue with the Instant Pot is that to achieve what I consider to be a perfectly cooked egg I’d need to cook them for 7½ minutes. My Instant Pot doesn’t count down by seconds during the last minute and it doesn’t have a one-minute warning timer, so it’s all kind of a bother, and I find the stove much easier. But when I do use the Instant Pot, this is what I do – your Instant Pot may be different from mine, so YMMV:
Instant Pot Hard Boiled Eggs
Ingredients
- Large eggs
Directions
- Step 1 Fill the inner pot of the Instant Pot with 1 cup of water.
- Step 2 Add a basket or trivet, and pile in as many eggs as you want to cook. Seal the pot and set it to Pressure Cook on the Low setting. Select a cooking time of between 7 and 8 minutes. You can expect a slightly soft-centered yolk at 7 minutes, and a firm, dry yolk at 8 minutes. I find that 7½ minutes yields the best results.
- Step 3 When the time is up, manually release the pressure. Immediately transfer the eggs to a bowl of ice water using tongs or a slotted spoon. Let the eggs sit in the ice water for 5 minutes before peeling.
Egg Salad
For a basic egg salad: Cook, cool, and peel 6 large eggs. Finely chop the eggs, either with a knife or with an egg slicing gadget (to use the slicer, slice the egg, then carefully pick it up and turn it 90 degrees and slice again.) Dump the chopped eggs into a medium bowl and add one finely minced celery stalk, ¼ cup of mayonnaise, 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard, 3/8 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt (or a scant ¼ teaspoon Morton’s), 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper, and a large pinch of cayenne. Stir until combined, then taste and adjust the seasonings. Add minced dill, parsley or chives if desired – fresh herbs only, please! Six eggs will make about 1½ cups of egg salad, to serve 3 or 4 people.
Deviled Eggs
I use the same flavor profile for deviled eggs as I do for egg salad: Cook, cool, and peel 6 large eggs. Cut each egg in half lengthwise. Carefully pop out the yolks onto a cutting board, and place the whites on another work surface. Use a fork to mash the egg yolks into a smooth paste. Scrape the egg yolk paste into a bowl and add 3 tablespoons mayonnaise, ½ teaspoon Dijon mustard, 1/8 teaspoon of Diamond Crystal kosher salt or a large pinch of Morton’s, and a small pinch of cayenne. Mix the ingredients together, mashing them into the side of the bowl with the back of a spoon until completely smooth. Taste and adjust the seasonings – and remember, the whites will be completed unseasoned, so the yolks have to be flavorful enough to carry them.
Spoon the mixture back into the cups in the centers of the egg white halves, or if you want to get fancy, use a pastry bag to pipe the filling in decoratively. (I very rarely use a pastry bag – it’s a pain, and it doesn’t make them taste any better. Deviled eggs are not meant to be elegant.).
You can use all 12 of the white halves, or just 10 if you want the filling in each deviled egg to be more generous. Sprinkle the tops with paprika or finely minced fresh herbs such as dill, parsley or chives. You can also garnish deviled eggs with all manner of other things, from pickles to caviar. My favorite is just plain and simple with a light dusting of paprika, but let your imagination be your guide.
