BEST Deviled Eggs Recipe - How to Make Deviled Eggs | Downshiftology (2024)

FAQs

Why do you add vinegar to deviled eggs? ›

A light-colored vinegar, like the white-wine vinegar we use in these creamy deviled eggs, brings a touch of acidity to the filling and balances the richness of the yolks and the mayonnaise.

If you are responsible for bringing deviled eggs, you can give yourself a head start with these tips: Boil the eggs up to 48 hours in advance. Peel, cut in half, and remove yolks. Place egg whites on tray, cover with plastic wrap, and store in fridge.

Once the water is at a rolling boil, turn off the heat and cover the pot with the lid. Allow the eggs to sit in the hot water for the following times according to the desired doneness: 3 minutes for SOFT boiled; 6 minutes for MEDIUM boiled; 12 minutes for HARD boiled.

Making them too far in advance. Deviled eggs can be watery, dry, or lose flavor the longer they sit, so don't make them too far in advance. For the best results, prep your eggs and make the filling up two days in advance, and store them separately. Assemble the eggs before serving.

Mash yolks with a fork and stir in mayonnaise, pickle relish and mustard. Add salt and pepper, to taste. Fill egg whites evenly with yolk mixture. Garnish with paprika, pickles and pimentos.

I would never use vinegar in deviled eggs. I use a mixture of mayo and mustard, with smoked paprika, cayenne pepper and sea salt. Sometimes I add finely minced gherkins, or fresh herbs like dill, thyme or marjoram. No vinegar needed.

Prep deviled eggs too far in advance, and you'll have dried out filling and stinky boiled egg whites. For the best results, prep your deviled eggs up to two days in advance and keep the egg whites and filling separate until you're ready to serve. This prepping method also applies if you're not even leaving the house.

It's common for deviled eggs to "sweat" in the fridge, which can make them kinda soggy in a day or two. The paper towels will absorb the extra moisture and keep them fresh much longer! Change the paper towels every other day if you haven't already devoured them by then.

If you preferred to have no mustard flavor, a prepared curry powder or paste adds delicious flavor to deviled eggs. You could also reach for sriracha, smoked paprika, harissa, horseradish, wasabi, pesto, pureed avocado, pickle relish, I could go on forever.

You might have heard that you should drop your eggs into room temperature or cold water and then bring the water to a boil. This is a myth. In our tests, bringing the water to a boil first and then lowering the eggs into the bath made for easy peeling and more accurate timing.

Do you boil eggs covered or uncovered? ›

Bring water to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat to moderately high and cook eggs at a gentle boil, uncovered, 10 minutes. Pour off hot water. If using eggs right away, shake pan gently so eggs bump into one another (to crack shells). Run cold water into pot to stop cooking.

Bring the water to a boil over high heat. Then, let them sit in the hot water. As soon as the water begins to boil, turn off the heat and cover the pot. Leave the eggs in the hot water for anywhere from 10-12 minutes, depending on how you like your eggs.

Don't overcook eggs. I normally put them in cold water, bring them up to a boil, then pull them off the range, cover them with a lid, and let them sit for 15 minutes. Then, plunge them in cold water until they are cooled, and peel them immediately.

Standard deviled eggs are undeniably good, but adding a touch of tomato paste and a generous pinch of smoked paprika makes them a bit more sophisticated. The flavor is gently sweet, forcefully spicy and perfectly smoky.

You've got this backwards: it's the “cooked all the way through” that is the problem. Basically the white sets more firmly the higher the temperature. If you boil your eggs in rapidly-boiling water, the white will be rubbery. If you boil them in just-barely simmering water, the white will be more tender.

Acid can help with cooking other styles of eggs, too

Adding a teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice to a pan of roiling water helps poached eggs to set better, and to maintain their shape while cooking, rather than the whites spreading haphazardly all across the pan.

Along with the egg yolk, mustard helps emulsify the mixture, reducing the risk of our mayo breaking. Vinegar or lemon juice — Not only does a little acid like wine vinegar, champagne vinegar, and lemon juice add incredible flavor to the mayonnaise, it also helps to stabilize the mixture.

"Vinegar is an inherently acidic material, so if we add a few drops of vinegar into that boiling water that is going to increase the rate of denaturing and it's going to make that happen faster and help the poached egg hold its shape better."

Adding white vinegar or apple cider vinegar to your pot of water allegedly results in softer, easier-to-peel eggshells. That's because the acid in vinegar dissolves some of the calcium carbonate that makes up the egg's hard exterior.