How To Hard Boil an Egg

How to cook, peel and serve a hardboiled egg.

Step 1: Wash Hands

Before you do anything else wash your hands, no one wants to get sick or have dirt in there food.

Comments

[DisplacedMic]

Ha - nice. how to boil an egg. just thought you'd like to know that the youtube video is marked private

[Flea]

You should use week old eggs if you plan on boiling them. It will make peeling them much easier. I boil my eggs with cold water. I find it prevents cracking better than room temperature water. For deviled eggs, try adding some diced onions, garlic, black pepper, and ketchup (yes ketchup) for a unique and flavorful taste.

[EggHead101]

I would agree.
If eggs are a week or more old. Boil them.
Sure you can still fry or omlete them...
But a fresh egg is better for omletes and such.
Granted if you are making a quiche or a soufle' it is fine to use older eggs as the flavor is not based on the egg itself. The egg is more of an binding ingrediant, yet adds some flavor too.

[TheCheese9921]

just about all the food in my fridge is at least a week old, ; )

[guarana]

Ah, I don't know if you were aware but there is an easier way to boil the egg: Instead of setting the stove to medium, set it to high. Wait until the water is at a "rolling boil", then turn the stove off. Leave the egg in the water until it cools off. This will produce a nice hard boiled egg every time.

[EggHead101]

THAT is the way I make a perfect hard boiled egg.
Perfect EVERY time, no fuss, no counting minutes .. .. ..
Way too easy.
Ya forgot to mention to have the egg(s) in the water from the start,
Bring to rolling boil and turn off heat - leaving egg(s) in water till cool.
Like Guarana said.

Works every time, My Grandma taught me that, and she was a full Sioux
 Indian.
Hard to control High and Medium on a full blown fire pit ...So when it boiled = off to the side to cool

[Mad Cat]

Hmmm, in Australia, the eggs are always light-brown.

[TheCheese9921]

we have those here also, I think thats because they are organic

[RomeoTheCotonDeTulear]

The color of egg shells is determined by the type of hen that lays them. Organic eggs therefore come in many different shades, from hens which are fed organic meal and allowed to run free. Commercial eggs are usually from hens which are kept in crates on a ferris wheel type machine. They are fed grain which is laced with antibiotics or the hens are regularly given antibiotic shots through the holes in the crates. They are not allowed to run free at all so their meat tends to be softer due to the lack of muscle tissue. Sickening isn't it? Makes you wanna' go eat an omellete, huh. :-) woof woof

[ReCreate]

Yes,And did you know that they would put a die to make the egg whiter?

[MagiWG]

it is a bleach. All chicken eggs start brown and spotty, then bleached to make them white.

[tsdguy]

Bzzzt. Wrong. As Romeo says, the color of the shell is related to the chicken species. Brown eggs are exactly the same as white eggs. And I'm sorry to say Romeo's comments about organic vs non-organic is not correct. You might say the difference is between free range and factory chickens. You could certainly have organic factory chickens and you can have free range chickens raised with grain and antibiotics.

You should catch a viewing of Penn & Tellers Bullshit on the Organic Movement. Not a pretty sight.

[ReCreate]

Yeah...

[smokehill]

We keep 50 or 60 chickens & some other poultry, strictly as a hobby, but we began eating their eggs 20 yrs or so ago. They are free during the day so are technically "free-range," though I doubt that makes much difference in the eggs. All egg-producing chickens are fed medicated feed, organic & free-range included (I believe). Eggs from the store don't even taste like eggs -- about 3/4 of the taste simply disappears because store eggs are OLD! -- up to 5 wks in the cold rooms & distribution. Fresh eggs also have more orange-ish yolks that "stick up" in the pan (old yolks are limp & flat). Old farmers tell me this is strictly an age-related phenomenon, not due to feed. You're right that eg shell color means nothing, except which variety of chicken laid it. Housewives used to prefer clean-looking white eggs, so that's what the industry produced. One variety, the Aracuna, lays colored eggs (blue or green).

[bettbee]

smokehill, organic chickens are not allowed to be fed medicated feed unless they are sick, in which case there are standards for how long the eggs can't be sold for.

[tsdguy]

Sorry, don't understand why folks make hard cooked eggs this way. How can you get the timing correct if the eggs sit in the water for an undetermined time until the water starts boiling?

I always boil my water first, drop in the eggs (don't forget to pierce the large end with an egg poker so the air can escape) and time for 12 minutes for very moist yolks, 13 minutes for most yolks and 14 minutes for solid yolks.

On the time, drain eggs and run lots of cold water for at least 5 minutes. This keeps the membrane under the shell from sticking and also drives out the sulfurous compounds from the yolk keeping them yellow.

Done. Crack the shells and they split right open - fresh or old eggs, doesn't matter.

[EggHead101]

All good ideas, check out my easy microwave egg sandwich for a tasty and much faster to the tummy delight !

[xevious]

Your video is HUGE in size relative to the short run time and is difficult to see clearly because of the rather dim light. It is not very helpful. You should consider redoing this. Plus, your technique is not very efficient. There is a better way to peel an egg...

[E-R-IC]

my fiend has a phobia of eggs, once this guy made his desktop background a big exploding egg, and he almost cried

[Riley4509]

a phobia of eggs? really? wow i've nvr heard of tht before its...interesting...lol

[Riley4509]

you used the wrong "there" you said "there" it should be "their" haha but thnx it worked =D

[RedLion]

Boiled eggs are delicious and good tuna salad can't be made without 'em. I've been boiling eggs and making tuna salad nigh on 30 years. This is my quick and dirty: 1. Pierce holes in large end of the eggs. 2. Place in smallish pot and cover with cold water. 3. Add heat until water comes to a full, rolling boil. 4. Reduce heat to mild boil, wait 3 minutes. 4. Remove from heat, cover, wait 45 minutes. 5. Dump hot water and add ice cubes to fill. 6. After completely cooled (very cold to the touch), peel & use what you need; mark the date on others with a Sharpie, place back into carton and refrigerate. Boiled eggs should easily keep a solid two weeks - however, you must use your best judgment. The nose generally knows.

[GrumpyOldGoat]

If you want the yolk centered inside the egg, put a rubber band around the carton and prop the eggs on their side for a day or so before cooking. This allows the yolk to center itself, and deviled eggs are cetered.

[Zetheros]

I accidentally swallowed an egg (without the shell) whole >.>

[Daykun]

TheCheese9921, you obviously should have added another step on how to eat the egg ;) When de-shelling the egg I try to hit it several times so that I create a "cut" around the egg. You can then take off both halves. This is faster and doesn't make that much of a mess. But you have to train this technique yourselves...

[sojakai]

Crack the egg all over, then starting at the bottom, just peel around the egg. I can normally peel off the entire shell in one peace with a trickle of cold water or bowl.

[inorganic]

great instructable! i learned before that piercing the egg before boiling also prevents it from cracking due to the heat. don't worry, there won't be any egg spillage. also for those curious about the greenish gray tinge that the yolk gets sometimes, it comes from the reaction of iron in the yolk and sulfur in the egg white. When heated, the two can combine to make green-gray ferrous sulfide and hydrogen sulfide gas. So 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. i love eggs. =)

[sojakai]

Basically, It's a sign of over cooking your egg. I think Elton Brown had a nice way of cooking hardboiled eggs. He said to put the eggs into the pan, cover with water. Bring to a boil and then turn off the heat, let sit for 4-7ish minutes then cool down. Nearly imposable to overcook them.

[Aburame Shino]

Yummy. Me and my grandmother (may she rest in peace, because it's like 9 o'clock here, and she's probably in the bed) used to make about 12-15 of these and de-shell them together. I'd eat some of them with mustard (yum) and she'd use the rest to make deviled eggs (yum).

[Bas]

Add the outer (dry) layers of onions in the pan to give the egg shells some color (:

[dchall8]

Julia Child published a technique using an ice water bath to cool the boiled egg followed by a 10-second reboiling to pull the shell away from the cooled egg. Supposedly this technique was developed by the "Georgia Egg Board," a nonexistant group. There is a Georgia Egg Commission with a similar recipe but it is clearly not the same as Ms Child's recipe.

[t0dd]

I have secret egg boiling techniques passed down from on high: 1. Get the water boiling before adding the egg. 2. Poke a tiny hole in the big end of the shell, keeping the shell from sticking when peeling. This is a huge time saver when making egg salad. Mmmm, egg salad.

[megziewoodles]

I usually loosen the shell by rolling the cooled egg on the counter under my palm. If that makes sense.

[terramonkey]

To avoid cracking the eggs let them warm to room temperature for a while after removing them the fridge or if in a hurry run under the hot tap for a few moments, and use a spoon to lower them into the pan

[chatterbox14730]

No matter which way you boil eggs, they all taste good to me :)

[Kiteman]

I was going to post something sarcastic, until I remembered that Kitemother-in-law once over-cooked a boiled egg so badly that she had to repaint the kitchen. Seriously - she left it on the heat so long it boiled dry and sort of exploded in a cloud of sulphurous fumes that yellowed the paintwork.

[jeffreyf]

You should add "how not to boil an egg"

[westfw]

Been there, done that. DON'T leave the house while you have eggs boiling. Exploded eggs smell bad in addition to making a big mess.

[TheCheese9921]

lol, thats funny

[alwhorley]

Please do not take this as criticism, merely as an alternative method. This is a good Instructable, with lots of hard work evident. Thanks! Start with cold water, add eggs and water to a pot, making sure the water covers the eggs. put over high heat, cover and bring to a boil, when the boiling begins, set timer to 3 minutes. When the timer sounds, remove from heat and set your timer to 8 minutes, leave the eggs in the pan, cover during this eight minute span. proceed as instructed here to cool and peel your eggs. This method almost guarantees bright yellow yolks with no green ring.