How to Make the Best Egg Salad Sandwich of Your Life, According to My Chef-Husband

Chef Luke's best-ever egg salad sandwich

Egg salad is one of those foods I've always wanted to love, but just...don't. I'm honestly not even sure what when my issue with it began. I'm not anti-egg. I love deviled eggs and hard-boiled eggs in salade niçoise and cobb salad. I even love chicken salad and tuna salad but for some inexplicable reason, I've always been freaked out by egg salad.

Something about the look of it just doesn't appeal to me and I would choose any other crustless sandwich on a tiered tea tray if given the choice. Yet, despite my qualms with egg salad, I recently found myself asking my chef-husband Luke to make me his version of the best egg salad sandwich to see if he could change my mind.

With an abundance of eggs on hand the day after Easter, it seemed like the perfect time for the challenge. Here's what happened when I followed him into the kitchen to document his attempt.

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Ingredients for My Chef-Husband's Egg Salad  Sandwich

The shopping list for Luke's best-ever egg salad started out short and sweet: white bread, mayonnaise, fresh dill, Dijon mustard, smoked paprika, eggs and salt.

However, when rummaging around in our fridge, he saw a tray of pickled veggies we had with dinner the other night and decided to use up the pickles and green beans because eggs and beans are a great pair. He also grabbed a jar of capers to another layer of briny tang.

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How to Make My Chef-Husband's Best-Ever Egg Salad

To cook the eggs, Luke brought a large pot of salted water to a roaring boil, added the eggs and cooked them for 7 minutes. When the timer went off, he plunged the eggs into an ice bath waiting nearby to stop the cooking process.

Then he started peeling. "Let me show you the easiest way to peel eggs," he said, flipping on the cold water and placing a colander in the sink. "An egg has a top and a bottom and the bottom has a little divot. Simply tap the bottom on the counter to break the shell, then peel under cold running water and it will come right off."

I watched as the shells slid right off, which was indeed the easiest way to peel an egg that I had ever witnessed.

Once the eggs were all peeled, he quartered them and tossed them into a bowl with the minced pickles, capers and dill, and then sliced the green beans into small coins and tossed those in too.

It's important to note he used less green beans than pickles. "Capers are pretty dry," he tells me, "but too many pickled veggies will overpower the eggs."

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After everything was chopped, he got to work on his dressing. He added a few heaps of mayo and a small jar of Dijon mustard to a bowl, but then he decided to add a bit of hot sauce, too, "for some extra umami."

After mixing in a few splashes of hot sauce, he added a few spoonfuls of the dressing to the eggs. "The key is not to overdress," he said. "That's why we left the eggs a little chunky. We want our egg salad to be lightly bound by the mayo dressing. We don’t want pulverized eggs."

Using a spatula, he mixed and chopped the egg salad together a few more times until it was creamy, silky and well combined. Then it was time to assemble the sandwiches.

Luke placed 6 slices of white bread on a cutting board and spread a thin layer of egg salad on the first two slices. After that, he tapped a healthy dusting of sweet smoked paprika onto the egg salad.

He found some leafy green lettuce that needed to be used up and placed a few leaves on top of the egg salad, then topped the lettuce with 2 more slices of bread.

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He repeated these same steps with the remaining egg salad and bread, then patted everything into place and sliced the crusts off the sandwich. The final touch? Slicing the sandwich in half diagonally and adding a fancy toothpick to hold everything together.

My Honest Thoughts on My Chef-Husband's Egg Salad Sandwich

Even though I had my doubts about this sandwich, it was honestly delicious. I love pickles, so the pops of pickled veggies sealed the deal for me and the spicy mayo-mustard dressing hit all the high notes. Bites of creamy, chunky egg salad were complemented by cool crisp lettuce leaves and I finished my first half without hesitation. I've gotta say that the game-changing ingredient was the smoky paprika that was laced throughout the sandwich. That added dimension of flavor really took this sandwich to the next level.

While egg salad may never be as high on my list of sandwich requests as Luke's famous chicken clubs, paninis and BLTs, I thoroughly enjoyed this sammie on a warm spring day with a chilled glass of rosé. It's a perfect sandwich for post-Easter lunches, Kentucky Derby parties and spring picnics.

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Chef Luke's Best Egg Salad Tips

1. Adjust your egg time if desired. Luke likes a slightly runny 7-minute egg but for firmer hard-boiled eggs, cook them for a full 10 minutes.

2. Use a colander for a shell basket. Cracked shells aren't great for your garbage disposal and a colander or bowl will collect them so they don't pass through when you're peeling the eggs.

3. Don't overdress the salad. Nobody likes a wet egg salad, so err on the side of caution when it comes to dressing. You can always add more if you need it.

4. Make sure your smoked paprika is sweet. As you can see, Luke was very liberal with his paprika dusting and spicy smoked paprika would be way too bold here. Look for sweet "dulce" smoked paprika; his favorite is La Dalia Sweet Smoked Paprika from Spain, which you can buy on Amazon or La Tienda.

5. Buttermilk white bread is best. The soft and ever so slightly tangy bread is what Luke prefers to use, but if you can't find it another soft fresh white bread will work.

6. Always cut your crusts off. According to Luke, egg salad sandwiches are the quintessential tea sandwiches. He thinks the look better sans crusts and stacked in double-decker form with a fancy toothpick to keep everything in place.

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