How To Peel a Hard Boiled Egg Perfectly Every Time
Whether you’re whipping up deviled eggs, egg salad, or just snacking on a hard boiled egg, there’s one pesky problem that always gets in the way. That’s right, we’re talking about the stubborn shell. Peeling it away from the eggy goodness inside can feel like a battle against tiny shards or take so long that you forget why you even wanted to eat it in the first place.
If you frequently find yourself frustrated by this universal predicament, you’ll be thrilled to learn there’s an easy trick to getting that shell off in a matter of seconds. The technique was shared on YouTube back in 2015 but gained a lot of attention when it resurfaced more recently thanks to its seemingly magical solution for easily peeling hard boiled eggs.
Take a look:
I have personally viewed this video about 20 times. It just seems too good to be true, right? There might be some editing or sleight of hand going on there — which is obviously why I had to try it out for myself.
That started with me refreshing my memory on the best way to hard boil eggs. For such a humble recipe, there are a lot of very strong opinions on this subject. I decided to go with a method that had me place the egg in water, let it come up to a boil, then turn the heat off and cover it for 10 minutes to finish cooking. I then placed it in a bowl with ice water to stop the cooking process.
Instead of rolling the egg on my countertop to crack its shell like I would normally do, I carefully plopped it into a glass and covered it with a little water. After swishing it around for a few seconds, I attempted to slide it right out of the shell like they do in the video.
It didn’t go exactly as well as their egg, but I could tell that swirling the egg around in a little bath had helped to separate it from its shell. The water method also gently cracked the shell all over without accidentally smashing it like I’ve maybe (definitely) done when using my rolling technique.
