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So, you may not know this about me but I LOVE egg salad and deviled eggs. I rarely make them though because I suck at making hard boiled eggs. Thankfully, today’s guest post from It’s Always Ruetten is all about how to make the perfect hard boiled egg!
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Hello Just Us Four Readers! My name is Julia and I blog over at It’s Always Ruetten! If you’re looking for some easy (but impressive) craft projects, ideas for renters, and a few references to my furry loves Ricky Ricardo and Odo, be sure to swing by and read what’s been Ruetten (check out the story behind the name of my blog here)!
Today, I am excited to share with you how to make the perfect hard-boiled egg! If you’ve ever made hard-boiled eggs and ended up with the less-than-appetizing gray ring around the yolk, then read on to learn about the trick to perfect hard-boiled eggs I was taught by my dad. It works every time!
What You Need:
Desired number of eggs
Pot sized to hold the number of eggs you are using
Hot water and cool water
Stove top
Timer
What to Do:
1. Begin by placing the cold (right from the refrigerator) eggs into your pot;
2. Fill the pot with hot water (as hot as you can get from the faucet works) until all of the eggs are just covered;
3. Put the uncovered pot on the stove and turn the burner on high;
4. Set your timer for 15 minutes;
5. Let the water come to a boil and continue to cook the eggs until the timer goes off;
6. After 15 minutes, turn the burner off and let the eggs sit for another 10-15 minutes;
7. After the 10-15 minutes have passed, carefully pour the water out and replace with cool tap water (repeating twice to cool down the eggs);
8. Crack and peel the eggs!
The trick is to put the eggs in the water before you put it on the stove top! Something about letting the eggs come to a boil with the water keeps the gray ring from forming.
I hope you found this trick helpful! I would love it if you would check out some of my other projects too!
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Thanks Julia! I can’t wait to try this and start enjoying hard boiled eggs, egg salad and deviled eggs without the wait to have someone else make them!
Nothing beats a well cooked hard boiled egg, thanks for sharing 🙂
I wished this worked for me!….. it actually used to, because I have always put my straight-from-the-fridge eggs in the pot first, covered them with water before bringing them to boil. Even cooled them down with tap water…. But ever since we moved 8 years ago, this has not worked since. 🙁
With a bunch of different trial and error attempts, no matter what I did, the eggs would not even peel correctly. Layers of the egg white would peel off, too, so the shell membrane was not separating from the egg. Sometimes the yolks had the gray ring and sometimes they didn’t….. It did not matter the size of the eggs nor the brand. It was very, very frustrating.
Then one day, I was hard boiling extra-large eggs and forgot about them. I had forgotten to set the timer that day and got busy doing something else. The eggs ended up literally on the stove 1 HOUR and 15 MINUTES, boiling most of that time!!! At least I had put extra water in the pan, LOL!
But I thought, “Well these are ruined and will be like rubber.” But I decided to cool them off first and then peel them to check, before throwing them out. To my complete and utter surprise, I not only could peel them easily but they were not even ruined… the whites were perfect, not rubber-like!! And NONE of them had any gray ring that time!!
Since then, I have cooked all my hard-boiled eggs that way – an hour & 15 minutes – so they’d be easy to peel, since that was my biggest issue… with the exception that I make sure they stay covered in water now. I usually add a cup or 2 of boiling water (from a glass measuring cup I’ve brought to boil in the microwave). And in the summertime, we get so hot here, that the “cold tap” is actually lukewarm, so I add ice to the pot after pouring the hot water out, and then add the tap so the water is colder and cools the eggs down faster. I’ve had some come out with the gray ring, but most without.
I’m not sure why this works for me, but I have come to the conclusion that it’s different than before we moved mostly because we’re at a different elevation. You know, like with baking…. there’s different directions for higher elevations right on the cake box!…. And maybe the difference in the hardness of water is a factor, as well as how the eggs were stored at the grocery store before purchasing, and in the fridge at home (one area inside might stay colder then another), and I think even what the chickens are fed to begin with is part of it. Because otherwise, how would I get some eggs with the gray rings and some without when they come from the same box of eggs, are all cooked at the same time, for the same length of time, in the same water, etc., etc.???…. Go figure 🙂
This is so interesting! I have never really considered how location could effect how the eggs need to be cooked. It makes perfect sense though. Glad you brought it up here.
Pinned for my daughter! Thanks! Julia
Thanks! I definitely pinned this too as I love hard boiled eggs.
Hmmm seems very simple but I never learned about this yet! Thanks for the tip! Coming from Serenity link up.
Hard boiled eggs are definitely one of those things that should be simple but just aren’t. I am definitely trying this version to hopefully master them.