When peeling hardboiled eggs, roll eggs on center divider of sink under cold running water. Squeezing the egg with your hands. The shell will peel off easily and the membrane holds the shell almost whole.
By Vi Johnson from Moorpark, CA
This page contains the following solutions.
Peeling boiled eggs is my least favorite chore in the kitchen. I don't like to get the egg shells under my nails. A friend taught me a neat trick several years ago.
Once you have boiled your eggs, take a smallish jar that an egg can fit into. Add about an inch of water. Plop in the egg and put the lid on.
For quick and easy clean up when peeling hard boiled egg, lay a piece of cling wrap on the kitchen bench before you start to peel the eggs. Then when you have peeled the eggs, just throw the peel and wrap in the bin.
Years ago when I cooked a lot, I read a tip for preventing eggs from cracking while being boiled. The method was simple; punch a hole in one end of the eggs with a pin before dropping them into the water.
Many times we have difficulty peeling hard-boiled eggs. Sure, sometimes they are easy to shell, but for some reason at other times, the shells splinter into a thousand pieces and stick to the white!
Hard boiled eggs will peel easily if cracked and placed in cold water immediately after taking out of the hot water.
Instead of spending several minutes peeling each boiled egg, just cut them in half with a sharp knife and scoop out the egg with a spoon. This is so much faster when you plan on cutting them up anyway.
My husband loves hard boiled eggs for a quick, healthier, more than normal snack. With time, I've tried other tips I've read about concerning hard boiled eggs and would like to share my recent discovery.
When boiling hard boiled eggs, try this. After boiling is completed, pour off boiling water and fill with cold water. Fill pan with ice cubes and let set 15 minutes.
This tip is derived from blowing out eggs for egg decorating. Here, to easy peel hardboiled eggs, bang the egg all around on a hard surface and remove some off the top of the narrower end. Form a circle with your thumb and index finger about the same size of the opening, then blow into the egg. The shell will lift, then you can peel it all off in one or two pieces.
I was thinking that overcooking the eggs literally glues the membrane to the egg white. This is a fact. Then, I thought that allowing the egg to cool before peeling would cause the membrane to shrink somewhat, making it fit tighter around the egg white.
After cooking, fill boiler with cold water for eggs to cool. Drain off all water. Hold lid on boiler and shake for a minute or two. Most eggshells will be off. Just rinse off the rest...
To make boiled eggs very easy to peel, add a teaspoon of table salt to your cold water. If you are boiling a lot of eggs for deviled eggs, I would use at least a Tbsp. of salt.
Start eggs in cold water with a couple of heaping teaspoons of salt. The salt sucks the calcium out of the shells and makes them easier to peel.
I don't know if anybody has tried this already or sent this in. But here's a way to peel your "hard-boiled" eggs all at once. I don't think it works for "soft-boiled". I didn't want to try that, could be very messy.
Boil the eggs for 20 minutes, then pour off the hot water. Under cool running water, tap the egg to crack, and the shell will just slide off.
An easy way I have found to peel hard boiled eggs, is with a teaspoon. Hard boil your eggs whatever way that works for you. I crack the shells then use the spoon to peel the eggs.
Put eggs in 2 qt pan add water to cover over eggs and add dollop of vinegar. Get water boiling for 5-8 min and then turn off heat, cover pot and let sit for a while.
This is guaranteed to work. After eggs are hard boiled, take a pint canning jar. Wide mouth works great, but regular will work as well. Put about 2 inches of water in the jar. Insert 1 egg at a time, add the lid and shake it vigorously. Take the egg out, shell and skin come off like magic. Continue with the rest of the eggs. No need to change the water unless you have a bunch or need to add water.
If you keep big chunks of ice in reserve for when you hard boil eggs, you will not waste the small ice that the rest of the family uses. I boil eggs all the time, and it takes lots of ice to cool them down if you are using the little cubes.
I have found that removing the whole of a boiled egg is so much easier if one uses a cutlery knife instead of a teaspoon. The egg comes out cleanly with a knife, a teaspoon seems to leave bits behind.
Tap the egg on the counter all over to crack the egg shell in several places. Rub the cracked egg between your hands to loosened the eggs shell. Then dip the egg in a bowl of ice cold water and begin peeling.
Here are the questions asked by community members. Read on to see the answers provided by the ThriftyFun community.
When I peel hard boiled eggs the shell comes away with some of the white and looks awful, how can I stop this happening? I have tried peeling in cold water and hot and rolling the egg first, but nothing seems to work. The shell just goes brittle and comes off in little bits.
By ROZJUNE from UK
1. Place eggs in pan and cover with water; add a generous teaspoon salt. Boil to your preference. I prefer well done so I gently boil about 8-10 minutes.
2. Remove from heat, drain and run cold water over them until they cool.
3. Roll gently to loosen all the shell and just peel away.
*if you prefer, you can skip step 3 and just put in the fridge until you feel like peeling them later. :0)
We just made a big batch of deviled eggs from my leftover Easter eggs. When we were peeling them, a few of the eggs had the white stuck to the shell so badly that they cracked in big pieces right to the yolk. Other eggs were fine.
I cooked 18 eggs in a stockpot, covered in water. I brought that to a boil then simmered for 15 minutes (directions from BHandG cookbook). I ran cold water into the pot, but I don't think I let it get all the way to cold, maybe more room temperature. We took the eggs from the sink directly to be dyed. I'm wondering if maybe the problem eggs didn't get cool fast enough.
Thanks so much for any advice you might have for me. I generally make hardboiled eggs at Easter and maybe once in the summer, so I don't get a lot of practice.
By Jess from Hillsboro, OR
I've also had this problem, it always seems like the longer I let them cool down the better luck I have. But I wonder if it has to do with how long you cook them?
Anyone out there know what's happening?
I don't know what is happening here, other than when we hard boil eggs that are laid on the same day, the shell sticks to the white. However, as yours must be at least a week old, this surely can't be the case.
When we have quails eggs, instead of just tapping the egg and trying to peel them, we roll them gently all over on a flat surface, to 'craze' the surface, rather than peeling off a big chunk of shell. This might help.
I find that they peel better if you peel them under cold running water.
Removing the shell from hard-boiled eggs is easy if you blow on the shells to gently remove them. This page details how to blow the shell off a hard-boiled egg.
There are a number of popular and less known methods for successfully removing the shells from hard boiled eggs without having them stick. This is a page about removing shells from hard boiled eggs.
