Cooking and Peeling Hard-Boiled Eggs Doesn't Have to Be So... Hard

Like pretending to not like Taylor Swift or screwing together your new Tarva bed frame without suffering a minor breakdown, cooking hard-boiled eggs is deceptively difficult. Cook one too long and you’re left with a dry, inedible yolk. But you won’t even know that until you’ve spent 10 minutes trying to peel the damn thing. I promise though: hard-boiled eggs can be easy and delicious with a few simple tips. Bonus tip: listen to "Blank Space" while the water boils. I know you wanted to anyway.

The perfect hard-boiled egg has a completely solid yolk that is light yellow and crumbly. If there’s a greenish-grey ring around circumference, that means it’s been overcooked. Avoid that rookie mistake simply by using a timer and shocking the eggs in cold water right when they’re done to stop the cooking process.

It’s important to boil the water with the eggs already in the pot, because plopping raw eggs into roiling waters will almost always result in broken shells.

Lastly, this is one of the only times you want to use older eggs. Fresh eggs have a tighter grip on their shells and will make peeling a pain. The best test is to submerge them in water. If they lay flat, they’re fresh. If they stand on end, they’re perfect for boiling.

Put the eggs in a saucepan and add enough cold water to cover them by about 1 inch.

Set the pan over medium-high heat and as soon as the water reaches a brisk simmer, set the timer for 8 minutes. As the eggs cook, adjust the heat as needed to maintain just a simmer (not a full boil).

When the eggs are cooked, carefully drain out the hot water, leaving the eggs in the pan. Run the pan under cold water until the eggs are barely warm.

Tap the eggs gently on the countertop, rotating so you crack them all the way around. The shells should come right off. If the shells are stubborn, try peeling them under running water.

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