Ahh, hard-boiled eggs. They are delicious and so versatile. They can be:

• Chopped up and made into egg salad
• Layered in a green salad
• Eaten on their own
• Used to create lovely devilled eggs

But, many cooks cringe as they try to remember how to easily hard-boil eggs without them being too runny, overdone, impossible to peel, or having that weird green tinge around the yolk.

So many factors affect the cook of hard or soft-boiled eggs. With this in mind, we love this technique because it just works.

The trick here is that we use steam instead of plunging the eggs into boiling water. The results are much more consistent and the incidence of cracked ugly eggs is much much less (it has yet to happen to me).

MORE INFORMATION

The only factor that may cause an issue is altitude. If you are at high altitude, increase the steaming time to about 15 minutes for hard-boiled.

• The initial temperature of the eggs does not affect the cook time. Go ahead and use eggs straight from the fridge.
• Hard-boiled eggs, in the shell can be refrigerated up to 1 week. Peeled hard-boiled eggs can be stored in the refrigerator in a bowl of cold water for about 1 week (change the water daily) – or in a sealed container without water (cover the eggs with damp paper towels) for the same length of time.
• View our Hard-Boiled Egg recipe with pictures.

 

 

How to Steam Hard-Boiled Eggs

1. Place 1 – 2 inches of water in a sauce pan.
2. Insert a steamer basket into the pot. If you do not have a steamer basket, a small rack will work fine as well. The key is to keep the eggs out of the water but close to the water’s surface.
3. Place a lid on the pot and heat the pot on high heat until it comes to a full boil.
4. Place your eggs in the steamer basket and put the lid back on the pot. Do not overcrowd the eggs. They need the steam to circulate around them.
5. Start your timer (6 minutes for soft-boiled, 15 minutes for hard-boiled). High altitude will require longer cooking time.
6. Once the time is up, immediately remove the eggs from the pot and place them in a bowl of ice water for 15 minutes.

Go ahead and try it. I think you will like it. Let us know how this worked for you.