Once you've gently lowered your eggs into boiling water—and remember, there should be enough water to cover the eggs by at least one inch—let them cook for 10 to 11 minutes, depending on size. In her battle-testing of Korbee's preferred method, Jampel noted that his 10-minute boil produced "perfect specimens."
It's important to start the eggs in cold water — bringing the water and eggs up in temperature together ensures even cooking and prevents cracking. Bring the water to a rolling boil over high heat, then immediately remove the pan from the heat. Cover, and let stand for 10 minutes.
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.
Chef Ramsay opts to boil his eggs for four and a half minutes to keep the egg's center slightly soft. When your eggs are finished boiling, drain the water and run the eggs under cold tap water in the pot. According to Chef Ramsay, cooling the eggs as quickly as possible prevents their yolks from turning gray.
According to our friends at Delish, adding a teaspoon of baking soda to your boiling pot of water will help the shell peel off seamlessly. Why? The alkaline in the baking soda will help your egg whites loosen up from the shell, making it easier to peel.
Adding white vinegar or apple cider vinegar to your pot of water allegedly results in softer, easier-to-peel eggshells. That's because the acid in vinegar dissolves some of the calcium carbonate that makes up the egg's hard exterior.
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.
The vinegar in the water makes the eggs easier to peel. Here's why: The vinegar's acid not only dissolves some of the calcium carbonate in the shell, it also helps the whites set faster. Running the hard-boiled eggs under cold running water as you're peeling, meanwhile, helps the shell separate from the membrane.
Apparently super fresh eggs are difficult to peel because the pH of the white is more acidic which causes it to adhere to the shell membrane more tightly. Two solutions here – use older eggs or add a little bicarb soda to the cooking water to increase the pH.
The Elite Gourmet Easy Egg Cooker can quickly boil eggs in the morning while you are brushing your teeth! Just add eggs water push the power button and within minutes your eggs will be ready. Using the egg tray handles hold the egg tray under cold water to rinse and cool down if you need to peel them right away.
The liquid that truly makes a difference between passable eggs and restaurant-quality special-event-feeling eggs is water. That may come as a surprise, but the food scientist Natalie Alibrandi told Well + Good that water makes sense at a chemical level.
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.
Shocking your recently boiled eggs by submerging them into a bowl of ice water is key. The quick cooling of the hard-boiled eggs causes the egg whites to contract, freeing them from the membrane. If you let them cool for about 15 minutes, the peeling is much easier.
Some people prefer to peel their hard-boiled eggs before storing – and that's A-OK. You'll just need to take a few extra steps: Transfer hard-boiled eggs to a bowl of cold water immediately after cooking to help them cool down faster. Peel the eggs under running water.
Keeping Hard-Boiled Eggs Fresh
For maximum freshness, leave them in their shells until you are ready to eat or prepare. The shell will help to protect the egg from bacteria, and can help prevent them from absorbing odors from other foods in your refrigerator.
4 minutes for slightly set yolk and set white. 5 minutes for a medium cooked firmer yolk and white. 6 minutes for hard boiled with lightly soft yolk. 8 minutes for firmly hard boiled.
These two hacks were tested to see which of them actually work. Adding vinegar to boiling water made it easier to peel. Adding baking soda made it almost impossible to peel.
Add salt and vinegar to the water.
The salt permeates the shell a little bit, and the vinegar helps to break down the shells, making them easier to peel.
It's not necessary to add anything to the water. Some people also swear that adding a bit of salt, vinegar or even baking soda to the boiling water makes eggs easier to peel and/or makes them taste better. We, however, prefer the simplicity of plain ol' water. Why do you put boiled eggs in an ice bath after cooking?
Carefully place the eggs in a large saucepan; add cold water to cover by one inch, and bring to a rolling boil. Cover pan; remove from heat. Let stand 12 minutes, then drain and rinse under cool water. To store, keep eggs unpeeled in the refrigerator, up to 4 days.