Cooking Eggs in the Shell

Eggs - should be at least a week old for easier peeling (see below)
Cold water

Place eggs in single layer in saucepan. Add enough cold tap water to come at least 1 inch above eggs. Cover and quickly bring just to boiling. Turn off heat. If necessary, remove pan from burner to prevent further boiling.

For Soft-Cooked:

Let eggs stand, covered, in the hot water, about 4 to 5 minutes, depending on desired doneness. Immediately run cold water over eggs or place them in ice water until cool enough to handle.

To serve out of shell, break shell through middle with knife. With teaspoon, scoop egg out of each shell half into serving dish.

To serve in egg cup, place egg in cup small end down, slice off large end of egg with knife or egg scissors and eat from shell with spoon.

For Hard-Cooked:

Let eggs stand, covered, in the hot water about 12 minutes for large eggs. (Adjust time up or down by about 3 minutes for each size larger or smaller.) Immediately run cold water over eggs or place them in ice water. Crack the shells all over and let them sit in the ice water until completely cooled.

A quick test to ensure that your eggs are hardboiled: When eggs have cooled, spin them on a hard surface (just like you would spin a top). If the eggs spins quickly without taking off or flying off in one direction, the egg is hard boiled and finished. Undercooked eggs (or uncooked eggs) will have a wobbly and unsteady spin.

Store hard-boiled eggs in the refrigerator with their shells on, if possible. The shell will keep them fresh for longer and helps prevent the eggs from absorbing any odors in the fridge. Peeled hard-boiled eggs can be stored in the refrigerator in a bowl of cold water to cover for about 1 week (change the water daily) – or in a sealed container without water (cover the eggs with damp paper towels) for the same length of time.

Tips from Cook's Illustrated:

Whether eaten plain or quartered in a salad, hard-cooked eggs should have a creamy yolk, tender white, and no unsightly green ring.

It is important to start the eggs in cold water and then bring it to a boil. The eggs will heat along with the water, allowing their interior and exterior to cook at roughly the same rate. Covering the eggs with an inch of water further ensures even cooking. When the water first began to boil, we removed the pot from the heat, covered it, and let it sit for 10 minutes. Cooks debate about the ideal length of resting time, but we found that this produced consistently good results.

After the eggs were done resting, we plunged them into a bowl of ice water, which halts the cooking process and prevents a green ring from forming around the yolk. This recipe can be doubled or tripled; just be sure to use a pot large enough to hold the eggs in a single layer with a full inch of water above them.

The kitchn Tests

The kitchn cooked eggs in several ways to see which method yielding the best cooked eggs which were easy to peel.

1. This is what they said about the method above where eggs are placed in cold water, brought to a boil, then removed from the heat and let sit. They only let their eggs sit in the hot water for 11 minutes. I have had the peeling problem the kitchn describes, but have not always found this to be the case,

"The eggs were nicely cooked. The yolks were firm and floury (good for deviled eggs) and the whites tender but firm. However, the shells stuck pretty badly on all of the eggs. I could only chip away a little at a time, often taking good chunks of egg white with the shell. Needless to say, the peeled eggs were not beautiful. My Takeaways: Although this technique was pretty quick and yielded nicely cooked eggs, I would not use it again because the eggs were so difficult to peel."

2. They found that Gently Boiling the eggs for 10 minutes yielded these results:

"The eggs were quite easy to peel, and the shelled eggs looked lovely, with no nicks or gouges. The whites cooked to a firm yet tender texture, and the yolks did indeed have that famous, deliciously jammy yolk — which I love for salads and snacking but might not be ideal for deviled eggs, where a drier yolk works better. (They mention that for completely firm yolks, you can just cook an additional minute.)"

3. Another method they tested, Steaming, is recommended by America’s Test Kitchen.

"America’s Test Kitchen claims that with this method, you can have “eggs so easy to peel that the shells practically fall off.” You start by boiling one inch of water in a large saucepan, then lowering in a steamer basket containing the eggs. You cover the pan, reduce the heat to medium-low, and steam for 13 minutes. Then you place the eggs in an ice water bath in a food storage container for 15 minutes.

"Between the steaming and those slightly odd (and very specific) instructions about shaking the container to break the shells, the eggs were, as advertised, extremely easy to peel. With almost every egg, I was able to remove a perfect whole, intact spiral of shell. This was beyond satisfying. As for the texture, the whites were pleasantly firm and so were the yolks — somehow both crumbly and moist."

4. The method they preferred: Boil Then Simmer.

"In this Food Lab–tested approach from J. Kenji López-Alt, you bring a large pot (about three quarts) of water to a boil, lower in up to six eggs, boil for 30 seconds, and then cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer for 11 minutes. The eggs then go into an ice water bath for 15 minutes before peeling. The claim is that starting the eggs in hot water helps prevent the whites from sticking to the shell, thus making peeling easier.

"The eggs were definitely easy to peel. Starting at the fat end, I was able to pick away at the shell and by the time I got to the “nose” of each egg, the shell typically came off in one big, rounded piece. The yolks were firm and very slightly jammy. And the whites — oh my, the whites — were so tender that their texture was almost indistinguishable from the yolks."

How To Peel Hard-Cooked Eggs Easily:

Leave the hard-cooked eggs in the pan they were cooked in and add cold water. The rapid cooling of the eggs contracts the egg whites, releasing them from the egg’s membrane. It also firms the egg white proteins, making them easier to peel. Cool the eggs for at least 15 minutes for even easier peeling.

Then crack the eggs under water (this seems to help loosen the membrane under the shell). Then roll the egg on the counter to break the shell all around.

Start peeling at the larger end, (the flat side) where the air pocket is, and remove the shell under running water to make the shelling easier. You must get a hold of the membrane under the shell when you remove the shell.

Very fresh eggs are harder to peel. The fresher the eggs, the more the shell membranes cling tenaciously to the shells.

Tip: use the same pot the eggs were boiled in, empty the hot water, add cold water, rinse well to cool down, drain, put the lid on the pot, and gently shake the pot back and forth for about 20 to 30 seconds (as you would for popcorn). This is a quick way to get the eggs cracked.

Age factor in difficulty removing egg shell:

The best way to clean hard boiled eggs begins with boiling eggs that are at least a week old. If they are fresher than that, there hasn't been enough time for the air pockets to develop between the egg white and shell. Without sufficient air pockets, it will be virtually impossible to separate the shell from the hard-boiled egg without removing a portion of the egg white. Hard boiling farm fresh eggs will invariably lead to eggs that are difficult to peel.

A simple test in water will answer the freshness question for you. Place the egg in a bowl of water; if it lies on its side, it is very fresh. As it ages, the air pocket inside the egg grows, which buoys the egg up so it stands on one end. If the egg floats to the top, it is ready for the trash.

The best eggs for boiling are the ones on their way to standing up because that extra air makes peeling easier. That's why you should buy eggs for hard-cooking at least a week ahead of time.