cold water: you might have heard that you should start the eggs in room temperature or cold water and then bring them to a boil. This is a myth. According to our tests, starting with hot water yields eggs that are easier to peel—so always start by boiling your water.
You might have heard that you should drop your eggs into room temperature or cold water and then bring the water to a boil. This is a myth. In our tests, bringing the water to a boil first and then lowering the eggs into the bath made for easy peeling and more accurate timing.
Fill a medium saucepan with boiling water – you'll want to fill it about 2/3 full. Return the water to a boil. Or, if you don't have an electric kettle, you can bring the water to a boil in the saucepan. Carefully add the eggs to the boiling water and boil for 5 minutes.
According to Kaysen, adding the eggs after after the water is boiling often helps prevent them from overcooking. What's more, adding your eggs to the water after its boiling helps prevent that less-than-appetizing greenish-gray hue from forming around the egg's yolk.
With all that in mind, here are the cooking times for various types of boiled eggs. The times start after the water has come to a boil and you've turned off the heat. 2 minutes - The white isn't fully set and the yolk is totally raw. 4 minutes - The white is fully set, but the yolk is thick and runny.
To avoid getting a green yolk, cook your eggs just long enough to reach the desired doneness—no more. And quickly plunge the cooked eggs into cold water to stop the cooking process and minimize the iron-sulfur reaction. Some people also say that the cold-water plunge makes eggs easier to peel.
How to Boil Eggs. Place cold eggs in a large stainless steel pot and cover with cold water, filling 1″ over the surface of the eggs. Bring to a rolling boil over high heat uncovered. Once at a boil, reduce heat to keep a medium boil then set a timer for your desired doneness (see chart below).
Place eggs in a medium pot and cover with cold water by 1 inch. Bring to a boil, then cover the pot and turn off the heat. Let the eggs cook, covered, for 9 to 12 minutes, depending on your desired done-ness (see photo).
Give the eggs at least five minutes in the ice bath before you try to peel them—letting them cool may help make it easier to peel them, but it's also so you don't burn your hands.
This article has been viewed 1,831,784 times. To tell whether an egg is raw or hard-boiled, place it on its side and spin it. If the egg spins steadily, it's hard-boiled; if it spins slowly or wobbles, it's raw. If you can't tell, stop the egg with your finger, then take your hand away.
The main difference when comparing hard-boiled vs. soft-boiled eggs is how cooked the egg whites and yolks are. Hard-boiled eggs are firmer because the egg is fully cooked so that there's no runniness. Soft-boiled eggs are only partially-cooked, so they have a runny yolk and a less-firm exterior.
The only problem with this approach, though, is even if you lower the eggs as gently as possible into the boiling water, they can easily crack. This is because cold eggs are shocked by the extra-hot water. To prevent this, remove your eggs from the refrigerator before you start bringing a pot of water to a boil.
Use a slotted spoon or spider to gently lower the eggs into the hot water. Then lower the high heat to maintain a gentle simmer rather than a rolling boil, so the eggs don't knock around in the pot. You don't need to add baking soda or vinegar or salt at this point.
A boiling start for 30 seconds to a very gentle simmer for 13 minutes, then an ice bath at the end makes perfect, easy-to-peel hard-boiled eggs.
Boil for 6 – 7 minutes over medium-high heat for perfect hard-boiled eggs. Using a slotted spoon, transfer them to a large bowl of ice water and let them cool for a few minutes. Or you can place them under cool running water to stop the cooking. Peel and serve the eggs immediately.
If you boil an egg for five or 10 minutes, it becomes firm and cooked. If you boil it for hours, it becomes rubbery and overcooked.
Bring the water to a boil over medium heat. Then, set the timer and boil the eggs for 10 minutes. Depending on how soft you like your yolks how long to boil eggs can vary from 5 minutes to 12 minutes. The less time in the hot water, the less cooked the eggs will be.
This is because the egg white or “albumen” in a fresh egg has a relatively low pH level, making it acidic. When cooked, these fresh egg whites bond strongly to the inner shell's membrane. As an egg ages, the pH level rises and the inner membrane is less likely to bond to the albumen, so the shell peels off much easier.
“Undercooked hard boiled eggs can leave the yolk and possibly the white runny and any possible Salmonella bacteria can survive. This could lead to foodborne illness,” Blakeslee said.
When you boil eggs, hydrogen sulphide - a toxic gas is released in the whites of the egg. This happens especially when you overboil the eggs. If you have noticed, overcooked eggs have a green coating on their yolk, which is a signal that you should not eat them.
Here's a hard-boiled egg tip that we know to be true: Starting your eggs in hot, already-boiling water makes them easier to peel. In a column for Serious Eats, cookbook author and food columnist J. Kenji López-Alt found that "starting cold resulted in eggs that had just over a 50% success rate for clean peeling.