Next to over-easy eggs served with toasted homemade bread, hardboiled eggs are my favorite. They’re a great way to add a boost of protein to your day, and they’re pretty simple to make, as long as you know how to boil eggs.
At first, this may seem like a ridiculous statement. How hard can it be to boil eggs? But if you’ve ever tried to boil eggs and failed, you know that how to boil eggs isn’t as easy as it might at first appear. Undercook them, and you end up with a runny mess; or overcook them, and you get that ugly green ring around the yolk and a slightly sulfur taste.
If you want to avoid those hardboiled egg snafus, here’s what you need to do.
1. Place the eggs in a single layer in a heavy-bottomed pot. Today, I am boiling eggs for Easter decorating, so I’m using my largest stockpot. On a normal day, I choose my smallest pot.
2. Cover the eggs with cold water. You want the water to rise about one inch above the eggs, about the distance from the end of your thumb to your first knuckle.
3. Cover the pot with a lid, place the pot on the burner, and set the burner to HIGH. Once the water begins to boil, remove the lid and set a timer for two minutes.
4. After boiling the eggs for two minutes, turn the heat element OFF, cover the pot with the lid, and let the eggs sit for 5 – 10 minutes. If I’m boiling only two or three eggs, 5 minutes is plenty. If, however, I’m boiling an entire pot filled with Easter eggs, I let the eggs sit a little longer.
Note that the time needed for your particular batch of eggs may vary widely, depending on the size of your eggs, the number of eggs you’re boiling, and the amount of water you used. You can always check the status of the batch by removing one egg, running it under cold water, peeling it, and cutting it open. If it isn’t done to your satisfaction, leave the rest of the eggs covered for a few more minutes.
5. When you’re satisfied that the eggs are done, remove them from the pot using a slotted spoon, place them in a colander, and run them under cold water. Alternatively, you can put all the eggs in a large bowl filled with ice water. The eggs will peel better if you wait to peel them until the eggs are entirely cooled. Be sure to store them in the refrigerator if you’re not eating or decorating right away.
And that, my friends, is a perfect hardboiled egg!
This is the way I’ve been doing it since someone told me about this technique. One caveat about boiling eggs: Some time back, a friend and I were boiling 20 dozen eggs for a fund raiser party. We went right to an egg farm, picked up the eggs and took them home and started boiling them. When we tried to peel them, the outside of the eggs were sticking to the inside of the shells. It was a MESS! When we called the people who sold us the eggs, they said that too fresh eggs will do that when boiled. She told us that they should be at least 5 – 7 days past laying for them to peel easily. Whenever I am planning on boiling eggs, I try to buy them at least 5 days before I am going to boil them. I rarely have any problems with peeling them now.