Zesty Deviled Eggs
Round of applause for me finally being able to successfully make a full tray of deviled eggs! Every other attempt before this has resulted in me giving up and smashing them into a quick egg salad instead. I never realized how hard it was to peel a dang egg. They would constantly fall apart as I peeled them and let’s face it, broken egg whites do NOT make for very attractive deviled eggs. Luckily, after several attempts of trial and error, I’ve finally mastered the art of peeling an egg. I’ve compiled a list of my top tips that will hopefully help you get that darn shell off!
TIPS FOR PEELING A HARD-BOILED EGG
- Place the eggs into a large pot of water and bring to a rapid boil. Keep the eggs at a boil until you see at least 1-2 eggs “crack.” This is always the method I use to ensure the eggs are cooked to perfection. I don’t cook them for a set amount of time but if I were to guess it takes about 20-30 minutes for at least one egg to crack. This is assuming you have approximately 15 eggs in the pot. I find that cooking the eggs until they crack ensures that they are cooked through making them shrink just slightly enough to pull away from the hard shell.
- After boiling, immediately place the eggs under a steady stream of cold water. You can keep the eggs in the pot, pouring the hot water out and letting the cold water from the faucet run over them. Make sure to keep them under the water for at least a few minutes before starting to peel them to give them a chance to cool down sufficiently. It not fun trying to peel a burning hot egg! Plus, the cooler they are the better chance of the skin not sticking to the shell when you go to peel it.
- When it comes to actually peeling the egg, I do something a little unconventional. I like to crack the egg ALL OVER. I gently tap the egg on the counter several times turning it along the way until the whole egg is covered in cracks. I really don’t know if this is a necessary step but, in my experience, it’s ALWAYS accomplished a clean peeled egg.
- Lastly, when you first break into the shell and try to pull it off the egg, you’ll notice there’s a thin, rubbery layer underneath. If you’re able to get a good handle on that layer, you can peel the whole shell off in one go!
Just take your time, peel carefully and even if a few eggs fall apart along the way, they won’t go to a complete waste. You can use the broken eggs in your filling for some extra flavor. Once you get the egg peeling out of the way, the rest of the recipe is pretty straight forward. Check out my website for more and definitely leave me a comment on your best egg-peeling tips!
TOTAL TIME: 45 minutes
MAKES: 30 deviled eggs