How to Boil Eggs That Are Easy to Peel

Cooking hard-boiled eggs is easy as pie. Peeling them afterwards is not. Sometimes they get peeled like a charm, but sometimes they are able to drive even the most devoted cooker crazy. What is the secret? It is possible to make hard-boiled eggs always easy to peel? Sure!

What eggs are easy to peel?

The older an egg is, they easier it is to peel. We no way mean to say you should store the eggs for months, but 2-weeks eggs are all right. If you have fresh eggs (one week old or less), they are sure to give you hard times when peeling. Use them to cook omelets, scrambled eggs or poached eggs, and select some older eggs for hard boiling.

How to hard boil eggs?

1. Use a lot of water. All the eggs should be covered with at least 1-2 inches of water. The more layers of eggs you have in the saucepan, the more water should there be over the eggs, so try not to stack a lot of eggs in a small saucepan.
2. Put eggs into cold water and bring them to boiling over high heat.
3. Lower the heat, cook the eggs for a minute or two, and turn the heat off. Cover the saucepan and let them stay in the hot water for 10-15 minutes. The exact time depends on the eggs size, the amount of eggs, the amount of water, etc. so you may need to experiment a bit to find your own perfect timing. But in most cases 12 minutes are enough. Or, if you prefer the your eggs a bit translucent in the middle, take them off the hot water in 6-7 minutes.
4. Put the eggs into ice water. Let them stay there for 5-8 minutes.

What if you have only fresh eggs, but need them hard-boiled?

1. Pour an inch of water into a saucepan and bring it to boiling.
2. Take a steamer basket and put the eggs into it. Put the steamer basket into the saucepan with boiling water and cover it.
3. Steam the eggs for 12-15 minutes.
4. Put the eggs into a bowl filled with cold water.

How to peel the hard-boiled eggs?

Tap the egg a few times on the table so that the shell finely cracks all over. Then roll the egg between your palms. Peel the egg from the dull end, holding it under the running cool water – this will make the peeling easier.
If you’ve got hard-boiled eggs, that are difficult to peel, just crack them all over, but do not peel them – let them soak in the water for a few minutes. Let the water get into the cracks between the shell and the white.