Hardboiled eggs are a great way to use your farm fresh eggs. They taste great in egg salad, potato salad, a green salad, or even just plain! My husband’s favorite way to eat them is as a deviled egg and don’t tell him, but I will share my recipe at the end of this post. Before we get to using them in recipes though, we need to get them cooked and peeled.
Cooking Your Hard Boiled Eggs
To get the perfect hard-boiled egg, you will want to bring a large pot of water up to a boil. You can salt the water if you like but I haven’t found there to be much difference in salted or unsalted water. Once the water is boiling, gently add your eggs using a slotted spoon or a wire spider skimmer.
The water will take a few minutes to come back to a boil, don’t start your timer until the water is boiling again. After the water is boiling again set your timer for 13-15 minutes depending on the size of your eggs. If you have smaller eggs, go with 13 minutes and large eggs should stay in the water for 15 minutes.
The Secret to a Perfect Peeled Hard Boiled Egg
This next step is my secret for getting the perfect peel on my eggs. It is fast, it is easy, and it leaves no egg white stuck to the shells.
While the eggs are boiling fill a large bowl with ice water. You will want to fill the bowl about half-way with ice and then add cold water just until the ice starts floating. Set the bowl on your stove or counter close to your boiling pot of eggs. When your timer goes off, use your slotted spoon to remove the eggs and put them directly into the ice water. This shocks the eggs and does two very important things. First, it stops the cooking process. Second, the sudden cold contracts the eggs and pulls them away from the shells to make for easy peeling.
Peeling Your Hard Boiled Eggs
Once you get your eggs in the ice bath, you need to start peeling immediately. If you wait too long the eggs will start to adjust to the temperature and expand back to fit the shell.
Start by tapping each end of the egg on a hard surface like your stove or countertop, then turn the egg on its side and roll it along whatever hard surface you are working on. Once the egg is cracked all the way around, peel open the pocket at the end of the egg and slide the rest of the shell off. Rinse the egg in the ice water and put it in a separate bowl to use for your favorite recipe.
Pro Tips
Here are just a few tips to make sure you get the perfectly peeled hard boiled egg each time.
- Use eggs that are similar in size.
- Use a pot large enough for the eggs to lay down on the bottom of the pot. No stacked eggs.
- Unless you have extra peeling help, only do one dozen at a time.
- Use a bowl that is large enough to fully immerse all the eggs you are cooking.
- Peel immediately after putting the eggs in the ice water.
Deviled Eggs Recipe
And finally, the best way (according to my husband) to use a perfectly peeled hard boiled egg.
Ingredients:
12 large eggs
½ cup mayonnaise
1 ½ tsp yellow mustard
2 tsp white vinegar
Paprika for color
Cut eggs lengthwise and pop the yolks out into a separate bowl.
Add mayonnaise, mustard and vinegar to the yolks and mash together with a fork until smooth.
Using a piping bag (or a ziplock bag with the corner cut off) pipe yolk mixture back into the egg whites. Sprinkle paprika on top for color.
Michele Cook is a farmer, author, and communications specialist for the National Federation of Press Women. She raises chickens, goats, and vegetables on her small farm in the beautiful Allegheny mountains of Virginia. If she is not outside caring for her farm you can find her curled up in a chair with her nose stuck in a good book. Follow her on her website.
7 Comments
I don’t have chickens here in town but an ordinance is under discussion. When I was growing up in Amarillo, Texas, my constant companion was a blind hen named, Blindy. I was an asthmatic and she was easy for me to sneak up on. I have often had people ask me, “You had asthma and you played with a chicken?” I loved that chicken. Thus, started my lifelong love affair with chickens. I am 77 now and I do hope that we will be allowed to have a few chickens. I have lived in a small rural community in South Dakota now for 50 years. You are cooking eggs the same way I do and they are great. I also let them cool on the stove and do them that way too.
In my opinion you are cooking/boiling your eggs too long. This leads to a green film around the yolks and makes them smell bad. I boil my eggs for no more than 5 minutes then turn off the stove leaving the eggs in the hot water for an additional 15-20 minutes depending on size. This results in a beautifully cooked yolk with no green film or smell. And they peel easy right from the now warm water. They it. You may change your mind.
I haven’t experienced any green around my eggs doing it this way but I think that is because I shock them so they stop cooking at the end. I believe that’s the big difference in this way of doing things, but like my Dad says “there is more than one way to skin a cat!” or in this case, peel an egg.
The only way to get perfect hard boiled fresh eggs peeled is to steam them and then put them in ice water. I have tried your way many times and still had chunks pulled off the whies when peeling.
Hi Jan,
I think our methods are pretty similar. That ice bath at the end does a lot of good when peeling eggs. I really struggled with this until I tried this method. Thankfully, my husband doesn’t mind deviled eggs with chunks out of them lol.
From Central Labrador, Canada.
I too have a dozen, barnyard blend, layers and a few Pekin ducks(that lay every! day)!. We and our friends like a few pickled eggs once in awhile so I do a dozen fairly often. I use the smaller or cracked ones. For a dozen; I make sure that all of them are cracked most all the way around, cover them with water, add 1/2 cup of vinegar, bring the water to a hard boil on the electric stov, shut it off, leave them sit for maybe 10 minutes then run cold water over them and peel away . I generally put them in the brine the jar of dill pickles when the pickles are all gone.
We will try your husbands favourite way of having devilled eggs. Jim
Thanks for the reply Jim, let me know how you like the deviled eggs!