14 Egg Hacks You Need to Know | Allrecipes

Looking to make eggs easier, faster, and a whole lot more fun? In this video, Nicole shares 14 egg hacks that will change the way you cook—from no-peel hard-boiled eggs to air-fried “boiled” eggs and microwave-friendly tricks that save time and cleanup. Nicole walks you through clever techniques like:

+ Cracking your eggs before boiling for easy peeling
+ Making an omelette or poached egg right in the microwave
+ Hard “boiling” eggs in the oven or air fryer
+ Using a spoon, baking soda, or even shaking to make peeling easier
+ Cutting eggs for egg salad with a baking rack
+ Removing shell fragments with another shell

Whether you’re meal prepping, packing lunches, or just tired of struggling with stubborn shells, these hacks will make your egg game stronger than ever.

Timestamps:
0:00 – All About Eggs
0:20 – No-Peel Hard-Boiled Eggs
2:47 – Microwave Omelette
4:43 – Microwave Poached Egg
6:49 – No-Water Oven “Boiled” Eggs
8:41 – Air Fryer “Boiled” Eggs
9:56 – Spoon Peel Hack
10:31 – Tap to Peel Hack
11:50 – Crack Before Cooking Hack
12:26 – Baking Soda Peeling Hack
15:16 – Knife Trick for Cutting
16:36 – Ice Eggs
18:32 – Use a Shell to Remove a Shell
19:12 – Baking Rack Hack
20:07 – Shake ‘Em Off Shell Hack

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We cook and eat a lot of eggs. Therefore, there are a ton of egg hacks out on the internet. From prepping and cooking to peeling and chopping, I’m showing you the best ones out there to make your life a little bit easier. Some of these I’ve tried before and some I’m trying with you for the first time. Let’s get cracking. This first one is no peel hard-boiled eggs. I’ve been wanting to try this one for a while and this is perfect if you have to cook and chop a lot of hard-boiled eggs, whether it be for potato salad or egg salad or just some meal prep for the week. This one seems pretty genius. At first, I thought it doesn’t make sense. I was like, that’s not really a hardboiled egg, but I think it is. So, you take a loaf pan and grease it up. Then, you just take as many eggs as you want and crack them in here. I think probably up to a dozen. I’ve seen her do like, you know, seven or eight at a time. I’ll see I’ll see how many fit as I go. 10 eggs in the loaf pan. Then you set this into a casserole dish. Then you pour water around it. So we’re creating a water bath similar to how you cook a cheesecake so that everything cooks gently and evenly. So you pour the water up to the height of the eggs in the pan. And then it goes into an oven 350° for about 30 minutes. So definitely easy, definitely like messfree, not having to deal with the shells. You shall see. Looks pretty good. The yolks have set. Will they taste like hard-boiled eggs? That is the question. All right. Then you just simply invert it onto a cutting board and chop it up. So, so far it works. Will they taste like hardboiled eggs? The yolks are firm. Nicole did not do a very clean removal, but it’s getting chopped up anyway. Now, look. This looks like a hard-boiled egg to me. They smell like hard-boiled eggs. And you know what that smells like. All right, then we chop. I got to taste it to make sure it tastes like a hardboiled egg. This is smart. Definitely will be doing this again. I will always do this. I will always do those if I’m making potato salad or egg salad or anything else that requires chopped up hard-boiled eggs. Let’s make egg salad, shall we? By far the easiest egg salad I’ve ever made. We got to give that lady credit who started this trend. I give this hack a 12 out of 10. A+ I just wanted an excuse to do this next one again. This is the Joseé Andre’s famous microwave omelette. The best omelette. I don’t know if it’s technically an omelette or a proper way to make um eggs, but it’s one of the most delicious ways I’ve ever had an egg. Simply an egg. Mayonnaise. And don’t be shy with it. It’s like a big glob of mayonnaise, which mayonnaise is just eggs and oil. Okay? And then you just whisk this together until it’s really creamy and pop it in the microwave. He didn’t put any seasonings in it or anything. Once the two come together, it is like the creamiest situation. Then take a microwave safe bowl, grease it up a little bit into the microwave for about 40 to 50 seconds. See how it like puffed up, but it’s soft and delicate. It’s not like rubbery scrambled eggs. So, you invert it. See, that’s just like creamy goodness. That is not like raw egg right there. And then he finishes it off with just some Parmesan cheese, freshly grated, but I’m being lazy. And some chives. I mean, that’s a restaurant quality egg in under a minute. It’s like, you know those like Starbucks egg bites how they’re like soused like you know they’re so gently cooked but they kind of have a weird texture to me like that I don’t love. This is like that same gentleness but in like a creamier, richer, more delicious package. It’s like it should not be that good. It’s so good. If you appreciate like just simplicity at its finest, this is that. While we’re at the microwave, let’s go ahead and do another one. Poached eggs in the microwave. I did this one years ago, but it’s been a while. Let’s see if it still works because poaching eggs is just one of those things that intimidates people. I think this might take the guesswork out of it. So, I’m starting with you can just do a mug or, you know, any kind of bowl or whatever is microwave safe. I’ve got just a half a cup of room temperature water in there and I’m going to add just like a half a teaspoon of vinegar. And then in with the egg. Now, I have seen some suggestions say we need to poke a hole in the yolk. I’ve never done that, but this will hopefully keep it from exploding. Well, that was easy. Another thing you could do is just microwave it with another plate or something, you know, small to cover that so it won’t explode in the microwave. We’ll just do both. All right. And then it’s just like about a minute. Now, every microwave power is different. You might need a little more time after a minute, but you can just kind of give it a flip. You just want to make sure the white is set. That’s the goal. Okay, I think I have a powerful microwave. My yolk is set after a minute. Back to the drawing board on this one. I’m also not going to puncture the yolk in this one. Let me try that again. Okay, this looks pretty good. Might just take like a second to figure out your microwave, but this might be a perfect poached egg. I know it doesn’t appear to be cuz you can see the yolk, but sure be standing over a stove. Did we do it? Did we nail it? They even made a little holidays for this. Please be perfect inside after all this. The moment of truth. Did we make a perfect poached egg in the microwave? I’m not mad at that at all. I feel like people want to be mad at this idea, but you can’t. So, these next two hacks, hard-boiled eggs, no water required. So, the first one is in the oven. People love this method because of just how easy it is. There’s no thinking required. You place some eggs into a muffin tray, go into the oven, 350° for 30 minutes, and you get perfect hard boiled eggs. A muffin tin is perfect because this way they don’t roll all over the baking pan. So you can do 12 at a time, 24 at a time. Hope you didn’t blink as far as that preparation goes. Into the oven. 350. That’s 27 minutes later. to the ice bath. And then same thing, you want to let them sit in here for about about five minutes. Now, this might scare people. I feel like this one’s going to scare people. So, you get a little That’s just where it was sitting in the pan. Okay. Just as if you were cooking anything else. This was also 27 minutes. Feeling like I might could have gone less. What we’re really concerned about is how are they cooked inside. Beautiful. You don’t have any like gray ring around it. You could probably go like 23 minutes if you still want it like slightly jammy in the middle. But if you like just a perfect horrible egg, then this way is foolproof. See? Just cut it away. No harm, no foul. Get it? 9.5 out of 10. Had to deduct a little for the brown spot. The next waterfree hard-boiled egg is in the air fryer. I’ve done them in the air fryer and in the Instant Pot. Equally blown away with both of those methods, but I’m going to show you the air fryer because I feel like people use the air fryer way more than an Instant Pot. So, this just goes in at 250° in your air fryer for 15 minutes. While we wait on these, it is important to have an ice bath ready. This is regardless on how you make your hard-boiled eggs. You want to stop the cooking right when it’s done. So, ice bath is the best way. Okay, air fryer. Here’s what they look like. They have little brown spots on them. That’s probably just any debris that was on the egg and it just got cooked into the ice bath. You want to let them hang out in the ice water for about, you know, 5 minutes or so before we go to peel them. Okay, let’s see how we did. It’s damn near perfect, if I do say so myself. That’s a perfect hard-boiled egg. While we’re here, let’s insert another hack on how to peel a hardboiled egg using a spoon. Now, this one I’ve never done before, so this is another trial and error. You get it going and you get just a little bit off. Then you slide a spoon under the membrane. That’s pretty easy. See, am I teaching you’all anything by now? Cooking hardboiled eggs in the air fryer, A+. Peeling eggs with a spoon, A+. Three hacks at one time right here, because I think everyone’s big debate when they’re making hard-boiled eggs, is they don’t want to deal with the peeling. The peeling, especially if you just bought the eggs, you’re thinking they’re too fresh, they’re not going to peel. One of these hacks is for you, if not all three. What I don’t want you to do is buy uh those pretty hardboiled eggs. They’re overpriced and they’re not as good. The yolks in that are always a little bit rubbery. You don’t have to do that just to get like perfectly peeled eggs because I’m over here making your life easier. Use one of the things I’m teaching you. Honestly, I’ve never tried any of these three ways. So, um, we’re all in for a treat here. Hack number one, they say you can just tap the bottom of the shell until you hear like a little pop sound. So we have to listen carefully. So I heard it I didn’t know it was I didn’t know it was going to be that uh easy. Okay. See, but it didn’t make a crack in the shell. You just We just heard that little tap sound. That was exciting. She’s blown away. This other way also involves a little bit of a crack, but this time you actually, I think, kind of do crack the shell. You just give it a tap on a surface and then place it in the water. I’m a little skeptical on this way because I think it’s going to make the white uh leak out into the water. But no, wait. I think I go like that. And it does kind of make a little crack. But I think it’s the same mentality as the spoon tap. The spoon tap just seems a little safer. Oh, see, I know that’s going to leak out. Okay. And then a little baking soda. About half a teaspoon in your water. And then just drop the eggs in. Now, I cook my hard-boiled eggs the same way every time if I do them in the water. And I start them all in, you know, just regular cool or tap, you know, whatever tap water. And then I bring them up to a boil. I bring them up to a boil. I let them boil for 1 minute and then I cover them and let them sit for about 9 to 10 minutes. Then do the ice bath. I feel like when I was a kid, it really works that if you squeeze an egg, you can’t just break it. I know this is about popping my hand. Oh, I’m doing as hard as I can. I swear. Look at that. Oh my god. I’m really squeezing. All right, the spoon taps into the ice pan. All right, our fresh just spoon tapped egg. P.S. We bought these eggs yesterday. That really slipped off. I didn’t even have to do it in the water or use a spoon or anything. Why do we like not know these things before Tik Tok teaches us? Beautiful. Perfect. And so fast. Spoon tap. 12 out of 10 works. This one is the egg tap where you kind of crack the shell a little bit. So, I thought the white was going to seep out. There is no seepy white in here. I get more seepy white when I don’t do anything. These little eggs are just stronger than I thought. I just can’t believe just thinking back on all the eggs I have wasted. I mean, it’s perfect. Okay, that is a beautiful boiled egg. Do not buy those pre-boiled eggs in the grocery store cuz you just don’t want to peel eggs. The baking soda. Does baking soda in the water help these peel easier? It does. Dad gum it, it works. Why have we struggled all those years and wasted so many eggs when we do this? I feel like the little tap works slightly easier, but 10 out of 10. Our lives just got a whole lot easier. This next one I think is most useful if you are making deled eggs and you just want the prettiest like hald eggs. This one I thought I could take it or leave it, but I was thinking about sometimes like when you’re making hardboiled egg, I mean deileled eggs and you cut it in half like this, you get, you know, the yolk sticks here and then you have to like pop this out, but sometimes it leaves like, you know, a little yolk in there or you do what I just did and accidentally just tear the white. The trick is, now this is my first time doing this, so I might do it wrong, is you take a knife and you just roll it backwards to you and it cuts the white and it leaves the yolk intact. It does make a beautiful cut, but it did not release the yolk like it’s supposed to do. This show might have just gone to 14x. Guys, maybe you’ve done this one and I’m just doing it wrong, but I might have just shown you 14 of the best hacks instead of 15. Or maybe you were perplexed when you saw this hack, too, and thought, I don’t get it. I don’t get why you would do that. Pass on this one. I’m here doing the Lord’s work for you on this one because I think a lot of people are intimidated to flip the eggs or sometimes you just want that perfect fried or sunny side up egg, but you don’t want to risk breaking the yolk when you flip it. So, we got you covered. This is a hack I learned from my friend Rosco Hall and it is called ice eggs. And the purpose of ice eggs is to kind of steam the egg so it cooks all the way around without having to flip it. So, I’m going to start just by melting some oil or butter in a skillet. And then you’re just going to crack your eggs right in. All right. So, you get your skillet hot. Your egg is cooking like how you normally do. When it starts sizzling a little bit, then you add your ice. When it’s nice and hot, we’re going to create that steamy environment. So, in goes our ice. Two to three cubes should be good. Turn your heat down. Cover it and let it go. A minute or two later. Voila. Voila. Is right. Look, your white is set and the yolk is still runny. Who knew it was that easy? You’re going to want to grab it out with like a slotted spatula so you don’t get like water on your plate. The perfect sunny side up. Eggs. Hit them with a little pepper. I like a runny yolk. Cheers to ice eggs. It’s delicate. This is the way like an egg should taste. This is your like nostalgic morning perfectly cooked egg. I just got to get some toast to soft this up. I mean, it’s it’s perfect. Literally perfect. Eggs on the rocks. You might know this one because it’s kind of an oldie but goodie. But you know like how you’re making scrambled eggs or you’re cracking eggs into like brownie batter and you get a little shell in there. Do you know the easiest way to remove an eggshell is with an eggshell. Let me show you. Your other shell acts as a magnet. Watch. See it just kind of scoops right in there. Bing. You see how it kind of goes in by itself? It’s a magnet. A shell to remove a shell. And then you don’t have to like lose so much egg in there. It only removes the shell cuz nobody needs a crunchy egg. This is another one I’ve seen but never tried. This one again comes in handy if you are making a big batch of egg salad or potato salad. And if you didn’t do the first way and you’ve got hard-boiled eggs, but you don’t want to sit here and chop them all, the baking rack. Now, I could see this working even with potato salad cuz you could also do your potatoes this way, too. Your baking rack is going to act as a knife and a guide. And you can just put some eggs on here and smash them through. Okay, that was pretty easy. The good thing is you don’t have to get your cutting board all like, you know, pasty with a bunch of like chopped hard-boiled eggs. You can just stick this straight in the dishwasher. So, I can see how this works. Plus, you get like perfectly diced eggs. It is fast. It is easy. Easy enough. I would do that again. Another easy way to peel your eggs, you can shake them off. I think this hack is for the people that don’t want the eggs to really touch their hand. They don’t want to deal with the smell. This one’s for you. You can do multiple or just like one at a time this way. So, take a container. If you’re doing just like one or two eggs, a small jar with a lid works perfectly, or so they say. And then if you’ve got a few more, you can use like a plastic container. We’ll just do both and see if they both work. You add a little water to it. Don’t know how much. And then you just drop your hard-boiled eggs right in. Pop the lids on and shake. Maybe this one works better with just one egg. What am I doing wrong? Maybe the jar doesn’t work. Closing the the things are the hardest part. Oh my gosh. I got to get a different container. Let’s try again. This one was supposed to be so quick and easy. [Applause] Oh. Sorry guys. I think I’ve shown you what not to do. Shaking eggs in a container is the hack not to try. I will definitely be using some of these in my egg preparations in the future, and I hope you will, too. In the meantime, let me know what I did wrong here. Lord, that was a mess. Wonder if I can get it like this. Like pressure. I don’t know. Try it. Sorry.