Celebrity Chef Egg Salads, Ranked Worst To Best
Egg salad is simple, right? You mix some hardboiled eggs with mayonnaise, black pepper, and salt, and you've got yourself a protein-packed snack or sandwich spread. But if you follow celebrity chefs like Emeril Lagasse and Carla Hall, you know they don't just do the basics.
In fact, we tracked down seven celebrity chef egg salad recipes that differ from the plain old traditional egg salad that's been passed down through your family for generations. These recipes include a little of everything that extend far beyond the usual mix-ins, like mustard and paprika. Not sure if they're worth mixing up in your kitchen? We did the hard work for you by cooking and taste-testing egg salad recipes from Martha Stewart, Alton Brown, Rachael Ray, and other chefs you'll find on your TV, ranking them from worst to best.
Take our word for it or try them for yourself to form your own opinion. One thing we will say is that, although we list these from worst to best, it's simply a comparison of the egg salads we tested. They are each delicious in their own right, and there are absolutely no bad eggs in this lineup.
7. Geoffrey Zakarian's Devilish Egg Salad
Geoffry Zakarian, a restaurateur and star of several cooking television shows, like "Chopped" and "The Kitchen," makes what he dubs "Devilish Egg Salad" on the Food Network. As he describes it, the recipe is an "amped-up version" of classic egg salad. It intrigued us when we saw that it incorporates unique ingredients, like dill pickle relish, Worcestershire sauce, and red bell pepper, that you don't usually find in egg salad.
As Zakarian promises, this recipe is easy to make, despite having a longer list of ingredients than other egg salad recipes. It's also beautifully colorful, thanks to the red pepper and a topping of basil. The reason it fell to the bottom of our list is its flavor. Let's just say that Zakarian wasn't fibbing when he called this an "amped-up version" of egg salad. It certainly is, almost a little too much for an everyday egg salad. This recipe includes both red wine vinegar and Worcestershire sauce. Combined with all the ingredients, this egg salad becomes tangy and savory, which isn't a bad thing; we could only eat a couple of bites before it felt like almost too much flavor.
If you really want to impress dinner guests with an offbeat egg salad that is sure to wake up their palate, this is it. But if you're into more laid-back egg salads that you can eat regularly for lunch, it might not fit the bill.
6. Emeril Lagasse's Egg Salad Supreme
Although he's no longer making television shows showcasing his cooking talents, Emeril Lagasse still holds down beloved restaurants in several locations, including his flagship restaurant in New Orleans. His Egg Salad Supreme recipe is a relatively toned-down egg salad with a few non-traditional ingredients, like dry mustard, minced shallot, and hot Hungarian paprika.
This was one of the easiest celebrity chef egg salad recipes to whip up, which is what we expected, considering that Emeril's website states it's "the perfect protein-packed lunchbox sandwich for the whole family." However, despite including a few extra ingredients, it didn't taste much different than the usual egg salads we've made before. The crunch from the shallot and celery was great, but we wish we tasted a bit more of the dry mustard and paprika. Perhaps swapping out dry mustard with regular mustard could've, as Emeril himself likes to say, kicked it up a notch.
5. Rachael Ray's Deviled Potato and Egg Salad
Rachael Ray is one of the most beloved chefs to grace our televisions, so when we found her egg salad recipe, we knew we wanted to give it a whirl. However, the mood shifted slightly when we learned that it had potatoes in it. Then we saw that it only has a three-star rating on Food Network. Still, with its oddball ingredients like potatoes, red chile, and chicken stock, we simply couldn't pass up the chance to test it ourselves.
The result was much better than we anticipated. The potatoes add an interesting texture, contrasting what we thought would be a not-so-great addition. We also loved all the crunch from the onions and celery, and the red chile, Worcestershire, and hot sauce added some flair. Looks-wise, this egg salad was one of the most appealing with its texture and bright color.
Although we don't think this recipe deserves its three-star rating, we'd give it a solid three and a half out of five stars simply because we can see how combining potato and egg salad wouldn't be for everyone. This recipe is likely one of those love-it-or-hate-it ones you'll need to try for yourself. If you're looking for traditional, comfort-food egg salad, though, it's probably not what you're looking for.
4. Martha Stewart's favorite egg salad recipe
Supposedly, the egg salad recipe we tried from Martha Stewart is her "favorite egg salad" recipe. It's technically designed to be made into a sandwich, but to be fair to the other egg salad contestants, we tried it on its own.
Martha's recipe landed right in the middle of the pack for us. It's a relatively straightforward egg salad recipe, so we can see why she loves it so much. It's a traditional egg salad elevated with a splash of lemon juice and mashed avocado. Martha uses just a touch of mayonnaise rather than the big scoop other recipes use, swapping out most of it for the avocado. The result is a really creamy egg salad that's sure to be a hit with avocado lovers. You get just the right amount of avocado flavor that's brightened up by lemon juice.
Truly, the only reason this doesn't sit higher on our list was because it got slightly outshined by others we tried that went a little bolder and offered something a bit different. Still, this recipe is one you should consider a go-to when you're looking for a refreshing, light, perfect-for-lunch egg salad.
3. Alton Brown's Breakfast Egg Salad
When we think of breakfast foods, eggs come to mind, of course. But egg salad is usually reserved as more of a lunch or dinner option. However, Alton Brown tests that concept with his Breakfast Egg Salad recipe, which blends bacon into the egg salad for a delicious morning kick-starter.
This egg salad became one of our favorites from the very first bite. Bacon isn't an ingredient we've ever seen added to egg salad, but it's easy to see where Brown was going when he created this recipe. Not only does the recipe call for crispy bacon chopped up inside the egg salad, but it also calls for a small amount of reserved bacon fat combined with other ingredients, like mayo and hot sauce, to form the base. The bacon fat boosts the creaminess of the egg salad and adds a ridiculous amount of flavor, even with just a small amount added.
If you're tired of the usual scrambled eggs or omelet in the morning, you'll want to whip up this breakfast egg salad for variety. You can even hard-boil eggs and cook a few strips of bacon at the beginning of the week to save time making fresh egg salad each morning.
2. Sunny Anderson's Quick Ham and Egg Salad
When we came across chef Sunny Anderson's Quick Ham and Egg Salad recipe, we did a double take. Ham and hot cherry pepper slices in egg salad? Not only that — but in the same egg salad recipe? The ingredients list was certainly intriguing enough for us to want to whip up this recipe and see why it has a five-star rating.
Immediately after the first bite, we knew why it was a hit. This egg salad has loads of texture from scallions, red onions, and ham, plus just the right amount of heat from the sriracha and hot cherry pepper slices. And, although we really weren't sure about sticking cubed ham in our beloved egg salad, we're happy to admit that our worries were totally unwarranted. Ham absolutely belongs in egg salad — or, at least, it works beautifully with Anderson's egg salad recipe. It strikes such a good balance between rich and light without going overboard on the savory, which is what we were hoping for with Geoffrey Zakarian's recipe — he is her co-host from The Kitchen,
This egg salad is designed to go on a sandwich with tomato, lettuce, and onion, and we can't wait to test it in that format on our next lunch break.
1. Carla Hall's perfect egg salad
Carla Hall's egg salad recipe, which she claims to be "perfect," has been all over food blogs for the past few months, ever since she posted the recipe and the steps she takes to make it on her Instagram feed. We were excited to try it because of all the buzz it's received, although the recipe itself sounds like your typical egg salad: eggs, mayo, mustard, sweet onion, chives, salt, and pepper.
Where Hall's recipe differs from others is the technique she uses to make it. Hall claims that the key to upgrading your egg salad is to use your fingers to tear up the egg whites first, then crumble the egg yolks on top of the egg whites before mixing in the other ingredients. Supposedly, this method results in a creamer egg salad, although it doesn't seem like using a specific technique to crumble up your eggs would result in a different texture, right?
Well, we were wrong about that, too. Hall's recipe is, in fact, the creamiest of the bunch, proving that having the right texture can win you a battle of the egg salads. Perhaps Hall's ingredient measurements are spot on, too, because the flavor of this egg salad is 100% on point and what we'd expect from a traditional egg salad. But it's ultimately the creamy texture that edged this recipe into our number-one spot, and we'll never doubt Hall's seemingly unnecessary cooking hacks again.