Top 10 Better Ways To Cook Eggs

Eggs are one of the most versatile — and nutritious — foods. In addition to the traditional ways you’ve been taught to cook and enjoy eggs, here are a few more interesting “egg hacks” you can use just about every day.

Photos by Tina Mailhot-Roberge, themonnie, Craig Dugas, Ian Barbour

10. Cook The Egg In Something Delicious

One of the reasons eggs are so awesome is they go so well with other foods. Some foods make perfect egg cups or containers, imparting even more flavour to your egg dish: avocados, capsicum and onion rings, orange peels, and, of course, bacon come to mind.

9. Cook Eggs When You Don’t Have Any Proper Equipment

This one’s a little odd and best suited for the campsite or just experimenting, but nevertheless, you can fry an egg using paper, a hanger and binder clips. Or maybe when you’re out travelling and hungry for a decent breakfast in your hotel room you’ll remember you can make eggs (and other breakfast food) with the iron.

8. Easily Peel Boiled Eggs In Seconds

Peeling eggs is a hassle when the shells crack into tiny sharp bits or refuse to let go of the egg. There are lots of solutions to this first world problem: blow the egg out of the shell, plunge them in hot water at the start (and then quickly cool them off in an ice bath), time the water boiling perfectly, and/or crack the eggs on flat surfaces (for less shell and better safety). Or shake the shells off with the “bumper car” method or the (crazy Japanese) Tupperware way.

On the other hand, why bother with peeling when you can just cut right through the boiled egg?

7. Cook Eggs With Unusual Kitchen Tools

Pots and pans aren’t the only egg-cooking equipment you might have on hand. A pressure cooker makes easy-to-peel, hard-cooked eggs and steamed eggs in minutes, or you can use an espresso machine to scramble eggs. You can even use your slow cooker to make a breakfast casserole overnight and wake up to a hot breakfast like the one shown above.

6. Make Eggs Last Longer

To keep eggs from spoiling too before their time, avoid the in-the-door egg storage containers and keep the eggs on a shelf instead. They should last three-to-five weeks. You can also make and store poached eggs in the fridge for days. (The Kitchn says two days, but Serious Eats says up to five. Go with what you’re comfortable with.) You can also freeze eggs in ice cube trays to make them last longer.

5. Quickly Test If An Egg Has Gone Bad

Cook with a rotten egg? No thanks. Just put the egg in question in a bowl of water to see if it’s still good.

4. Cook A Big Batch Of Eggs At Once

Got a big brunch party coming up or just many hungry mouths to feed? Making a whole bunch of eggs at once doesn’t take much more effort. Bake eggs in the oven, perhaps with the help of a towela towel; poach many eggs in a pan with teacups teacups or in a pot with mason jars. If you’re boiling many eggs at once, a tea towel can keep them from cracking in the pot.

3. Separate Eggs With A Water Bottle

There are many ways to separate the egg whites from the yolk, including the three-bowl method, but, really, just watch this video.

2. Cut Egg Cooking Time

Eggs don’t take long to cook, but if your stomach is growling and every minute counts, a few tricks will have you eating sooner. Substitute a fresh tortilla for flour to make less time-consuming crepes. Or turn to your microwave to make scrambled eggs in a minute or fried or poached eggs.

1. Perfect Your Egg Cooking Techniques

Now let’s talk egg perfection — or at least, the more general, little tricks to up your egg game, like knowing the right temperatures for different egg consistencies.

• Boiled eggs: Use a calculator to come up with the perfect time for boiling eggs. When soft-boiling eggs, use more steam and less water, and when poaching eggs, try olive oil instead of water. Check out our crash course on the subject, aka Boiled Eggs 101.
• Scrambled eggs: Use a double boiler for fluffier scrambled eggs.
• Omelettes: Add a pinch of bicarb soda to fluff up eggs
• Poached eggs: Poach an egg sous-vide style or use a mesh strainer to keep the egg in its perfectly tight eggy shape.
• Fried eggs: Make the perfect fried egg. Or learn six other ways to fry an egg to perfection.
• Devilled eggs: A freezer bag is your friend.
• Baking with eggs: Fold egg whites into batter like a pro and get rid of egg shells from a mixing bowl with a little water

Finally, the ultimate mark of the egg master: the art of the one-handed egg crack.