Peel Boiled Eggs More Easily By Adding This To The Water (It Works Like Magic)

Boiling eggs can seem like a simple task. You just boil and peel them, and they're ready to eat, right? Well, there are actually several mistakes that can be made when cooking eggs, so it's useful to follow some tips for making the perfect hard-boiled eggs. But once you've learned how to get the yolk just as you like it, what else is there to learn about hard-boiled eggs? It's all about the peeling process. Luckily, this tip will make the shells peel off (whole pieces rather than tiny shards) super easily. You need to add a little olive oil to your egg water.

Eggshells are porous, so a little olive oil (a teaspoon or two) will help fill in the tiny shell gaps and create a boundary between the egg's shell and white. The trick also works with vegetable oil, canola oil, or almost any kind of cooking oil. Think of it like pouring a bit of oil to season a wooden cutting board or a cast iron pan. Although both appear to be completely solid, the oil will fill the gaps to give you a more thoroughly impermeable exterior surface, while the oil has just slightly penetrated the minuscule gaps. In this case, the oil in the boiling water will penetrate the tiny pores of the eggshell to arrive just to the white, adding a slick barrier between shell and white. When the eggs have cooled, the shell just needs a little crack and can easily slide off in whole pieces, rather than needing to be picked off in tiny chunks, one at a time. You might just be amazed.

Start with boiling water with a teaspoon or two of olive oil (or most any cooking oil). You only need enough water to fully submerge the eggs. Once it's come to a full boil, lower the temp to a gentle boil, just above a simmer. Spoon the eggs in one-by-one to avoid any immediate cracking. The beauty of this hack is that, because the shells can be removed so easily, you can even go with a relatively soft boil and not worry about breaking the white. For soft-boiled, you'll want to cook them for 3 to 4 minutes; for a medium-cooked yolk, go for 6 to 7 minutes; and for a fully-solid yolk, you should shoot for around 12 minutes.

When they're done, place them directly in an ice bath for at least five minutes to stop them from cooking more internally. After that, you can roll them on the counter to crack them and start the peeling, or put them in the fridge for future use. And, once you have the olive out, not only is it great for making boiled egg prep easier, but it might just be the perfect seasoning you've been missing. Slice your eggs in half, drizzle on a little olive oil, and add some chopped herbs or sprinkle some salt on your hard-boiled eggs to up the umami in the yolk and make the slight sweetness of the whites a little heartier. But, heck, with all the time you'll be saving not pulling out the reading glasses and a tweezer to get every last shard of tiny broken shell, you'll have more time to experiment with new flavors.