You Should Never 'Hard-Boil' Eggs In The Oven. Here's Why
When you need to entertain or just crave a quick snack, eggs always come to the rescue. According to Breakfast With Nick, hard-boiled eggs don't take much effort to make — after dropping and cooking your egg in boiling water, you can dunk them in an ice water bath to easily get the shells off. This foolproof method seems pretty straightforward and works for most people, but some home cooks like to go above and beyond, getting creative with their hard-boiling techniques.
There's more than one way to skin a cat, and chefs have tested out every way we can cook eggs. According to Salon, we can cook our eggs in an Instant Pot, sous vide them to perfection, and even traditionally steam them until the yolks harden.
Out of all the tested methods, experts have found that eggs cooked to a "hard-boil" in the oven come out the worst. This cooking method has a solid pedigree. According to Food 52, Alton Brown recommends the oven-baked hard boiling method when you have to cook a bunch of eggs at once. While the initial claims seem promising, no one would want to eat these eggs.
A truly inconsistent egg
When baked in an oven, whole eggs do some strange things. According to Salon, you just have to bake whole eggs in their shells in the oven for 30 to 35 minutes for a hard yolk. The eggs don't cook evenly and some of the whites don't solidify, making them incredibly hard to peel. The final texture of eggs cooked in this method not only proved inconsistent, but the ones that made it through had an unpleasant texture. Overall, the oven method ranked as the worst method if you try to hard-boil eggs.
Next time you need to cook for a large gathering or party, avoid relying on your oven to cook large quantities of eggs at once. The tested results can only leave you disappointed with a bunch of unevenly cooked eggs that no one would want to serve guests, let alone eat by yourself. Stand by the tried-and-true boiling techniques when all else fails, and you can't go wrong.