Master the art of the perfect hard boiled egg!
The simple egg is full of healthy goodness: Eggs are a complete protein source, and offer a variety of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. Keeping a supply of hard-boiled eggs in your ‘fridge is an easy way to encourage your family to snack healthy. Our Perfect Hard-Boiled Egg recipe has been tried and tested almost weekly in our home.
Tools & Ingredients
- Large saucepan or pot, big enough to hold the number of eggs you’re boiling, with at least two inches to spare at the top.
- Eggs (Get yours now at our farm stand!)
- Tongs
- Ice
Directions
- Wash your eggs (in their shells) and place in the pot.
- Add enough cold water to the pot to cover the eggs.
- Heat on high heat on your stove until the water boils.
- Boil for 12 minutes. You can turn down the heat, but be sure the water continues to boil for the entire 12 minutes.
- While the eggs are boiling, fill your CLEAN kitchen sink, or another large pot, with ice.
- After 12 minutes, use the tongs to transfer the eggs to the ice, covering them with ice to cool them down as quickly as possible.
- When the eggs feel cool to the touch, dry them with a clean towel and store in an air-tight container in your refrigerator. You can store boiled eggs either unpeeled or peeled. While it’s easier to grab a peeled egg for snacking, unpeeled boiled eggs last longer.
Peeling Your Eggs
No matter what peeling method you use, we have found that the fresher the egg, the harder it is to peel! I think it has something to do with the volume of the egg shrinking as the egg ages, providing more air space between egg and inner membrane, and less attachment to the shell. So, whatever it’s worth, here is the method I find that works best for me:
- Roll the egg on a hard surface, hard enough to break up the shell, but gently enough not to split the egg.
- Gently peel away the bits of cracked shell with the pad of your thumb.
- If you can, very gently grasp a stretch of exposed inner membrane, and patiently peel further.
- It often helps to peel the egg while rinsing under a gentle stream of cool water from your kitchen tap.
Do you sense a theme here? As in so many areas of life, patience and gentleness make all the difference.
Enjoy!
Here are just a few of our favorite ways to enjoy our perfectly hard boiled eggs.
- Quarter the egg, sprinkle with salt, pepper and turmeric and eat.
- Spread toast with mayonnaise, and top with thin slices of hard boiled egg.
- Add chopped hard boiled egg to a salad of baby spinach, grated carrot, and crispy crumbled bacon.