Do you have a favorite breakfast food? If you’re a Californian, you may reach for the sourdough bread and an avocado to make some delicious avocado toast. If you’re from the South, maybe you’d rather have some buttery grits for breakfast. No matter where you’re from, there’s a pretty good chance that eggs are making an appearance somewhere on your breakfast plate. Although we all have our own ways of preparing them, one of the more versatile is to hard-boil your eggs.
Still, making hard-boiled eggs can prove to be a little tricky to master. How do you pick fresh eggs? How to boil them? Fortunately, we’ve got the complete guide for you today. Here are the steps to making perfect hard-boiled eggs.
The Perfect Freshness:
To make sure your eggs are going to be delicious, it’s important to test them for freshness whenever you’re unsure about them. Fortunately, there’s a very simple test for this that involves dunking them in a little bit of water and seeing how they float.
If It Sinks To The Bottom: These are very fresh eggs and they are going to be delicious after you cook them.
If It Sinks With One Corner Lifted: These eggs are probably about a week old but still fine to eat. It’ll still be a good meal.
If It Sinks And Stands On A Point: These are two to three weeks old and need to be eaten immediately if you’re going to eat them at all.
If It Floats At The Top: These eggs are too old (spoiled, in other words). Definitely do not eat these.
Now that you have fresh eggs, here’s what you do next:
The Perfect Method:
1. First, put your eggs in a pot filled with cold water. Don’t add in too many eggs so that there’s enough space between them to cook evenly and make sure they’re covered with about an inch of water above them. If you want to make your life easier down the line, add a little vinegar to the water at this stage to make peeling them later easier.
2. Once you’re ready, set your pot over medium-high heat. Once your water starts boiling, cover the pot and take it off the heat. Once it’s off the heat, get an egg timer and set it! The trick here is to know exactly how to cook your eggs to your needs. But we’ll go into that in a moment.
The Perfect Timing:
As we said, the amount of time you let your eggs cook is going to make them come out very differently. Here are the different consistencies:
Three Minutes: If you leave it in for this long, you’re essentially soft-boiling your eggs. The result will be egg whites that are soft and a little bit gooey still. The yolks will also be completely liquid.
Four Minutes: At this stage, the whites will be set but still quite soft. Similarly, the yolks will be runny but a little bit thicker than they would be at that stage.
Six Minutes: Here, the whites will be soft but firmer and the yolks will be smooth and gelatinous but definitely more on the solid side. If you’re looking for a perfectly mid-textured egg, this is the ticket.
10 Minutes: Here your whites and your yolks will both be very firm but the yolks will stay have some play to their texture. If you want a little creaminess but still a solid egg overall, this is a good time to take them out.
15 Minutes: Finally, 15 minutes of cooking your eggs are going to give you a completely hard-boiled egg, cooked all the way through. The eggs will be solid and the yolks will be a little on the crumbly side.
When you take your eggs out at any stage, be sure to dunk them in an ice bath to stop them from cooking and then get ready to eat! In addition to a nice thing to have for breakfast, hard-boiled eggs are a nice protein-packed snack to enjoy throughout the day as well. Happy eating!
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