Easy Deviled Eggs

Are you looking for a delicious recipe to prepare at your next gathering with family or friends? Deviled eggs are always a popular choice, but many cooks don’t make them, feeling unsure of the steps necessary for a successful result. There’s nothing worse than boiling a dozen new eggs and realizing you can’t remove the shell without removing half the egg white. That’s when you stop making deviled eggs for the day and try to save the eggs by making an egg salad instead!

However, you’ll be pleased to know that making deviled eggs doesn’t have to be difficult. A few simple tips can make the whole experience easy and fun.

First, you should never use the freshest eggs for a deviled egg recipe. Why? This is because new eggs are much harder to peel than those that have been aged for at least a week, preferably two weeks. No one is exactly sure why old eggs are easier to peel than new ones, but most researchers believe it’s due to the buildup of a layer of gas between the shell and the egg’s membrane. This helps the egg membrane loosen more easily from the cooked egg white.

Secondly, have you ever boiled eggs and after peeling found there was a greenish-brown coating around the egg yolk? This occurs due to a natural chemical reaction between the iron in the egg yolk and the sulfur in the egg white. You can minimize this green coating by quickly chilling the eggs after the initial boil. Here’s a brief rundown of the cooking technique: Place the eggs in a pot large enough to comfortably layer the eggs, and fill with water to within an inch above the eggs. Bring the pot to a boil, then remove the pot from the hot burner and let it sit with the eggs for 20 minutes to finish cooking the eggs. Then, immediately remove the eggs from the hot water and place them in a bowl of ice water to cool. This rapid cooling will prevent little (if any) icky greenish things from forming, resulting in better color and flavor for the deviled egg filling!

A third tip: add the mayonnaise as the last ingredient when making the deviled egg fillings, and only a tablespoon at a time, or only a half tablespoon at a time for smaller recipes. A typical complaint I’ve heard from people trying a new deviled egg recipe is that the egg filling ends up too runny or too thick. Too thick is easy to fix by adding a little more mayonnaise, but once you’ve made the filling too runny it becomes a bit more challenging! If you add your mayo a little at a time, rather than all at once, you’ll have better control over the final thickness of the filling. You want the filling to be thick enough to stand up and not run over the edges of the eggs when hungry hands pick them up!