This TikTok "No-Peel" Hard-Boiled Egg Hack Is Brilliant
My least favorite part of making hard-boiled eggs — and I think many people agree with me on this — is peeling them. The issue only multiplies when you’re trying to make egg salad, which requires you to peel exponentially more eggs. A quick internet search returns a world of tips and tricks to make the process of peeling eggs less terrible. None of them, however, even comes close to the ease of not peeling them at all. When I heard about the viral hack for no-peel hard boiled eggs I had to try it. Bear in mind, this method works best when you want multiple eggs (I cooked six). Here’s how it went.
How to Bake Eggs in a Loaf Pan
Prep the pan. First thing’s first, you’ve got to grease your loaf pan so the eggs don’t stick. You’re not going to save yourself any trouble if you trade peeling eggs for scraping them off the inside of a baking pan. I used 1 tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil, which worked great, but you can use canola or vegetable oil, or even cooking spray.
Crack the eggs into the pan. To re-create the consistency of hard-boiled eggs, I tried to keep the yolks whole, but if you break a few, it’s no big deal. To ensure even cooking, the layer of eggs should be relatively thin on the bottom of the pan — otherwise you risk winding up with eggs that are cooked on the edges but not in the center. I opted for six eggs here, which worked very well. If you want to cook more eggs, I would use a baking dish with a larger surface area, instead of a loaf pan.
Make a water bath. Next I set up a simple water bath. Don’t be tempted to skip this step as it insulates the eggs and helps prevent them from drying out or browning at the edges as they cook. Place the loaf pan inside of a larger baking pan and fill with water up to the level of the eggs. I used a 9×13-inch baking pan, but you could use any oven-safe vessel that’s large enough to hold the loaf pan and a layer of water (you could even use a Dutch oven). I wound up using 6 cups of room temperature water, right from the faucet. No need to boil water for the bath.
Bake. Then just pop the whole thing in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes. You’ll know they’re done when you can shake the pan and the eggs no longer jiggle back and forth.
Chop the eggs. I ran a butterknife around the edge of the pan to release the eggs from the sides and then used a spatula to help them out of the pan and onto a cutting board. I then used a chef’s knife to first cut the thin sheet of eggs into strips, then roughly chop them. After a little cooling I was ready to make egg salad, no peeling needed!
My Honest Review
This could not have been easier, and you will not catch me boiling eggs for egg salad ever again. Not having to peel the eggs makes preparing egg salad a much smoother and less frustrating process. Six eggs was enough to make 2 hearty open-faced egg salad sandwiches, but you could easily double the recipe to make 4.
The only (slight) downside to preparing the eggs this way instead of boiling them is the cooling time. When you boil eggs for egg salad, you can drop them in an ice bath to cool them down quickly before peeling, then you can get to making egg salad right away. There’s no good way to do that here, and since you don’t want warm egg salad (or at least I don’t), this method requires a little patience. The eggs cooled off pretty quickly once out of the pan and chopped, so I recommend using that time to prep the other elements of your salad.
This method works perfectly for easy egg salad, but you could also use it for smashed egg toast, deviled egg dip, or even for make-ahead egg sandwiches if you cut the thin sheet of eggs into squares instead of chopping it up.
Tips for Baking Eggs in a Loaf Pan
Grease the pan. A light coating of oil will prevent the baked eggs from sticking to the pan so you can turn them out easily.
Bake in a water bath. A water bath provides needed insulation for the eggs, ensuring gentle cooking and preventing the eggs from drying out along the edges.
Let the eggs cool before making salad. Since you can’t add your eggs to an ice bath to cool them down quickly, chop them up and then leave them to cool on the cutting board while you prep your remaining salad ingredients.
