I’ve read that sous vide can produce perfect boiled eggs, but I haven’t tried it with my Anova just yet.
I haven’t had a problem with peeling eggs since I started using a modification of the America’s Test Kitchen method. You have to shock the eggs twice*: the first time when you add refrigerator-temperature cold eggs to water that is already boiling, and the second time when you add the boiling hot eggs to an ice-water bath with enough ice that it doesn’t all melt by the time the eggs are cool. ATK also recommends shaking the eggs in a closed container to loosen the shells, but I don’t bother. I must have been overzealous with shaking because that just made a mess. I also like my eggs cooked a few minutes longer than ATK recommends.
- Apparently, dancing naked around the kitchen doesn’t count. That would shock most foodstuffs, but not eggs, with everything they’ve seen.
Glad it worked for you! Best thing I like about the steaming method is you don’t need a lot of water. Just pour enough water to last you about 12 minutes of boiling (that’s about a half-inch of water for me.) So it’s a little quicker to get everything up to temp. And I do everything with the eggs straight out of the fridge; no need to let come to room temp.
I use the steam method when I soft boil eggs. But for hard boiled I prefer water, could not tell you why. I think I just like the more rubbery white you get with boiling.
But more people need to try steaming their eggs.
Well, they have been through a chicken’s butt.
This one of those ‘is everyone else mad or is it me?’ threads, because this isn’t a problem I recognise at all! Never have problem peeling boiled eggs.
I always start them off in already-boiling water, don’t know if that’s what does it. Oh, and douse in cold water after boiling.
Thirding the recommendation of an instant pot. If you’re eating a lot of hard boiled eggs, it’s the best answer I’ve found. It’s not a magic wand, there will still be some stubborn ones. But it really does make a big improvement on average, and it’s also a SUPER easy process to do consistently.
There are also silicone “shells” you can get to cook eggs inside to make boiled eggs you don’t have to shell at all. Some people swear by them. I haven’t tried, partly because I’m always skeptical of silicone cookware (I often find it difficult to clean).
Post #30 does suggest that is, indeed, what does it. The steaming method I mentioned does the same thing: you put a cold egg in an already hot steaming environment and shock it with cold water at the end, so should produce the same results.
At the risk of stirring up what turned out to be a surprisingly contentious topic, this reads like a situation crying out for an eggcup.
Given that there are budget considerations here, I won’t recommend that you invest in one. But the principle behind them is sound. All you need is some sort of container which can hold an egg vertically. Luckily you have one in the shape of the box the eggs came in. You don’t need the whole box, just one of the segments. Then proceed as follows:
- Put egg in eggbox segment: blunt end up or down according to preference.
- Cut off the top of the egg - an ordinary table knife will suffice.
- Use a tea/coffee spoon to eat the egg from out of the shell.
- Dispose of shell and lid.
Straightforward, and saves you messing about with ice water etc.
The OP is talking about peeling hard-boiled eggs, not soft-boiled.
Yes, I know.
Double-post
Here’s an idea: why not remove the shell BEFORE you put the egg in the boiling water…? Problem solved!
Poa…stealing!
FWIW, this article turned up in my news feed this morning:
This 2-step method will give you perfect hard-boiled eggs
I have been using one of those newfangled egg steamers, they require piercing the eggs. I have found that my eggs are all amazingly consistently easy to peel.