For The Easiest Egg Salad, Use Week-Old Eggs. (Trust Us)
Egg salad is a lunchtime staple for a good reason. You don't need a lot of time, skill, or ingredients to whip up a batch, and now that egg prices have come down, it's easy on the wallet. Not only that, but a scoop of egg salad is equally at home in a sandwich, on a cracker, or rolled into a wrap. In fact, the most challenging part about making egg salad isn't the recipe itself; it's peeling all those hard-boiled eggs.
The internet is filled with tips to make egg peeling easy, from poking them with a pin to adding salt to the water, but there's one trick that will get your eggs to peel perfectly smooth every time: Use older eggs that have been in the fridge for a few days. Some culinary science backs the theory up, but it all boils down to (ahem): If you use week-old eggs, you'll have an easier time peeling.
Eggshells aren't totally airtight
If you've ever boiled eggs from the same carton and found that some are hard to peel one day while others come out much better a week later, you're not imagining things. Older eggs really are easier to de-shell, and this is because the pH changes while they're sitting in your fridge waiting to be made into classic egg salad.
When you look at an egg, it looks deceptively like a sealed package. After all, you have to break the shell to get to the protein contained inside. Eggshells are porous when it comes to gas and some liquids, however. When they lose freshness, they also lose carbon dioxide and moisture stored in the egg whites. While that process doesn't make any difference in the taste of an egg, it's significant when you're boiling eggs because the egg's pH changes as it ages. The higher the pH, the less the egg white adheres to the shell's inside.
However, you don't need to let eggs sit around forever to make egg salad. Hold off on boiling them for about a week after you buy a carton, and you should have no trouble peeling the shells. Most egg cartons have expiration dates of around 30 days or less, giving you plenty of time to let the eggs do their thing while staying well within the window of freshness.
You can also use baking soda in your water
Don't let your egg cravings dictate your cooking schedule. Waiting a week for eggs to age perfectly for boiling can be a hassle. You don't have to wait around for aged eggs now that you know how pH affects eggs and eggshells. Instead, add a teaspoon of baking soda to the boiling water for your next batch of hard-boiled eggs. The alkaline nature of the baking powder will raise the pH of the water and the eggs, and your shells should come off of the boiled eggs just as easily as using older eggs.
Adding baking soda to cooking water is a great trick to keep up your sleeve if you're making a batch of classic deviled eggs. This is because fresher eggs are better for deviled eggs; older eggs can develop a large air bubble at one end and create misshapen eggs that don't look as nice. It doesn't matter much when it comes to egg salad; however, since the eggs are mushed, save your salad recipe for when you've got eggs that need to be used up. You'll save some food from going to waste and get a tasty, inexpensive lunch to boot.