Eggs are a breakfast and brunch staple and incredibly versatile, so you can dress them up in any way you want. However, cooking eggs at home can be tricky, especially if you don’t know what temperature to cook them or the right cooking time.
TikTok creator and chef Andy Hearnden, better known as Andy Cooks, shared his foolproof method for getting the perfect cook on his boiled eggs every single time. No matter how soft or firm you like your eggs, Andy revealed his technique can work for all preferences. He began: “This is how you boil the perfect egg.”
Andy recommended placing your eggs in the fridge, making sure they are cold — not room temperature — when you come to boil them. By putting eggs in the fridge, it can help slow bacterial growth, extend their shelf life, and preserve their quality by keeping the pocket of air inside the eggs small and firming up the yolk and whites.
However, eggs in the UK tend to have a protective coating, so cooling the eggs is merely to help them cook, rather than protect them from spoiling. If you are storing your eggs in the fridge, it’s advised to place the eggs in their original carton on a shelf, not the door, where the temperature is more stable.
To begin, place the cold eggs in a saucepan with cold water. Make sure the eggs are fully submerged in the water.
Turn on the heat and cover the saucepan with a lid. Once the water comes to a rolling boil, turn off the heat, and replace the lid.
Start a timer for six minutes for a soft, jammy boiled egg. When the six minutes have passed, take the eggs out of the pan and place them into a bowl with ice water for ten seconds.
This will help “shock” the egg and make the shell easier to remove. If you want a firmer and more set yolk, boil the eggs for eight minutes.
For a medium well egg, boil for ten minutes, and for a hard boiled egg, leave in the pan for 12 minutes.
Andy’s video has already been viewed over 257,700 times, receiving 11,500 likes and 163 comments.
The chef’s method seemed to split egg fans, with one person saying: “Unless he lives on top of a mountain, or resides on a planet with different water physics, 6 minutes after the water starts boiling the eggs are proper hard boiled.”
Tracey suggested: “I’ve always put them in cold water…bring to boil.3 minutes for soft. Always good.”
Amely wrote: “Great technique! Boiling eggs can be tricky, but this method seems like a game-changer. Definitely going to try it out next time!”
Another said, “Runny yolk is one of those things I wish I’d like but hate. I hate it,” while Sophie commented, “Mine are always room temp. Maybe that’s why I struggle to get it right.”
