Today I’m going to tell you the secret we discovered a few years ago for making perfect easy to peel farm fresh hard boiled eggs. If you’re reading this, I’m guessing maybe you’ve been having some of the same frustrations we did: hard boiled eggs with the shell sticking and they just won’t peel. It was so frustrating! Now that I know the secret trick, I can make a beautiful batch of farm fresh hard boiled eggs with peels that come right off. No more hard boiled farm fresh eggs that look like an ugly mangled mess!
It all started about eight years ago before we had our own chickens. I started buying farm fresh chicken eggs from a local woman. I was so excited to finally get back to the farm roots I grew up with where we could source everything locally from people we knew. Well my excitement quickly died after multiple tries to make hard boiled eggs with farm fresh eggs. They were horrible! The shells stuck to the eggs making cleaning them a big, aggravating mess. The leftover product was mutilated with hardly any egg white left since most of it stuck to the shell.
I tried the traditional water boiling method I grew up with. Failure! Someone suggested adding vinegar to the water. Failure! Someone else suggested adding baking soda to the water. Failure again! I was devastated. I felt like there was no way to have an easy to peel hard boiled egg with our farm fresh eggs.
I almost gave up using farm fresh eggs and my dream of having chickens. Then someone told me to try steaming them. Steaming?! That sounded weird but at that point I was willing to try anything. So I did. And what an amazing success it was!!!! It was so successful, I’ve since told many other friends and acquaintances the trick to perfect hard boiled farm fresh eggs without mutilating them. I figured it was about time to share this with you all in case you haven’t been enlightened with this process yet.
How to make perfect easy to peel hard boiled farm fresh eggs
Well technically if you want to be particular about the wording, these aren’t actually hard boiled, they are steamed! That right there is the secret to making easy to peel “hard boiled” fresh eggs. Steaming. Who would’ve thought?!
To steam eggs, I use our steamer pot that fits over a pan and has a tight fitting lid like this one. I love this pot because it makes steaming eggs super easy and there is enough room for me to do a little over a dozen eggs at once if I need that many.
- Step 1: Fill the bottom pan with about one inch of water. Sit the steam pot on top.
- Step 2: Carefully place eggs in the steam pot. I always lay them on their sides so they are stable in the pot. Put the tight fitting lid on top.
- Step 3: Place the pan on the stove and turn the heat on High until the water starts to boil. You can usually hear it start to boil and steam.
- Step 4: Turn the heat down to Med/High so it continues to boil. Set a timer for 15 minutes.
- Step 5: After 15 minutes, I always like to stick a sharp knife into one of the eggs to test to see if they are done. If the knife comes out with slimy egg yolk you know you need a little more time. If the knife comes out with a little hard boiled egg yolk they are done. The eggs are usually done after 15 minutes, I think the knife test is one of those things my mom taught me as a little girl that I never stopped doing just to be on the safe side!
- Step 6: Remove the steamer pot with the eggs from the heat and run under cold water. Fill a large bowl with cold water and add ice cubes to make it nice and frigid. Remove the eggs from the steamer pot and place them in the bowl of ice water. Let them sit for 10-15 minutes until cool to the touch.
- Step 7: Remove an egg from the ice water and using your hand gently roll the egg on a hard surface like the counter top to crush all of the egg shell- but don’t push and roll so hard that you smash the hard boiled egg inside! The shell will almost immediately detach from the hard boiled egg and come peeling off easily. Then you are left with a perfectly peeled farm fresh hard boiled egg!
Now you know that steaming fresh eggs is the secret magic trick to making perfect easy peel hard boiled eggs. No more frustrating, mutilating egg peeling!
What about you, have you tried making easy to peel hard boiled or steamed farm fresh eggs? Any other tips to share in the comments below?
I just:
— add salt to a pot of water,
–bring it to a boil first,
–gently place the eggs into it with a spoon,
–time it for about 14 minutes
–cool them off with cold water immediately.
The shells come right off if you crack and roll them on a counter top with the palm of your hand.
I do it exactly like Walter does. Only have had 1 egg crack when it went in the boiling water and just left it in there and it finished hard boiling with the rest of them. Could not use for deviled egg but fine for egg salad. Works perfectly.
I am going to try Annie’s way. I have everything she has farm fresh extra large brown eggs, the steamer pot, a large mixing bowl and ice cubes and a marble counter top. I live in the country and have easy access to farm fresh eggs. I will tell you what happens, I am a old egg user that are 2 to 3 weeks old. they come right out of the shell, But I didn’t really like to use old eggs, ( I’ll Be Back !) with my results.
I did exactly what Annie has said about how to make easy peel farm fresh eggs. and it worked perfect. I use to just put my eggs in water and boil. Then tried everything I could think of to get the shell off without tearing the egg and had no great success. NOW they are perfect and were really easy to peel, Thank you Annie excellent work. The steam method will be the only way I’ll do eggs and I’ll pass the word around.
Instant pots work very well for very fresh eggs.
1 and 1/2 cups water, steamer basket, fresh eggs, high pressure setting for 4-5 minutes, when timer goes off, let it depressurize for about 6-10 mins, let the rest of the pressure off and immediately remove eggs and place in a bowl of ice water to cool. Shells practically slide off!