Students Invent A Vegan Hard-Boiled Egg

If you're a vegan and have been dying to bite into a hard-boiled egg, today's your lucky day — science has heard your unpopular plea.

Students at the University of Udine in Italy have convened to invent a vegan version of the snack staple and protein-packed classic. The vegan egg possibilities are now truly limitless: deviled eggs, Cobb salad...

The "egg" itself is made up of various legume-based flours, vegetable oil, a gelling agent, and salt. The resulting mixture exhibits a consistency that alarmingly replicates both the whites and yolks of hard-boiled eggs. The four students behind the genius innovation have issued their invention for a patent after dedicating over a year and a half of painstaking research to the task.

It took them repeated trials, innumerable taste tests, and careful calculation to devise the "optimum formulation" for both consistency and taste.

Their product is cholesterol-free and gluten-free, outdoing the egg in terms of safety for all consumers. Whether the product is more nutritious than an actual egg has yet to be revealed—but we can't wait to use it for these 10 incredible boiled egg recipes.