It’s that time of year again, everyone’s got a big ol’ pot of hard boiled eggs rockin’ and rollin’ on the stove… wait, how long do we cook them again?  Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered!  The perfect hard boiled in just 4 easy steps.  The yolk is bright yellow, no greenish-gray, chalky layer, and it’s pretty close to being dead-center of the white.

The Perfect Hard Boiled Egg

Start with the best eggs you can get your hands on.  Drop the extra buck and buy organic, or find a friendly neighborhood farmer to sell you some lovely kitchen-scrap fed, possibly pastured raised eggs, from happy hens.  Just remember that fresh eggs need to be aged awhile to make great hard boiled eggs (who are we kidding, Easter Eggs!).  Although fresh eggs can hang out for about month, hard boiled eggs must be eaten within 7 days.  Bring on the deviled eggs and egg salad sandos!

We have 6 hens (the “Ladies”) in our front-yard chicken coop, who lovingly bestowed us with these beauties.  As you can see, they are greenish-blue, we saved the lightest eggs over the past few weeks and allowed them to age in the refrigerator.  I’m not too worried about the color, I think they are lovely and give a muted hue once dyed.  Also, I have a 3 and 5 year old, so these eggs are bound to become gray-brown and cracked anyway, right?

Step 1.  Cold Eggs, Cold Water

Take your eggs out of the refrigerator and put them in a large, heavy bottom pot.  Pour in cold water and cover the eggs with about an inch of water.

Step 2. Bring to a Boil

Gently heat the pot until it comes to a full, rolling boil, then remove from the burner and cover with a lid.

Step 3. Time It

Set the timer for 10 minutes, the eggs will cook perfectly and slowly from the residual heat in the pot and water.

Step 4. Cold Plunge

After 10 minutes in the pot, the eggs will be done, but we have to stop them from over cooking.  Fill a large bowl with cold water and gently lift the eggs into it with a slotted spoon.  When they feel cool, transfer them to the refrigerator.

I know this isn’t exactly the perfect hard boiled egg, but because it sort of exploded, I decided to eat it as soon as it cooled.

That might have been my first-ever heart-shaped yolk, how sweet?