For Perfectly Poached Eggs, Avoid This Seasoning Mistake

If your poached eggs are often good but just short of great, you may be making one common mistake with your water. Many people say adding salt to your water before you poach your egg is useful, including the venerable food scientist Harold McGee, author of On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. While salting your water can help with your timing by adding density that makes your egg float to the top when it's done, it will also break down the egg's proteins and give it a chalky texture.

The conflicting advice is understandably confusing — everyone has their own version of the "absolute truth" on what is needed to make a perfect poached egg. Some people say to add a bit of vinegar to your water, while others say don't bother. We say to let the eggs warm up before putting them in the water because that will cool down the water, avoiding a common egg-poaching mistake, while others say poaching cold eggs straight from the fridge helps them retain their shape. Honestly, you need to try all the techniques (or hacks, whatever you want to call them) and see what works for you, and one of the big ones is whether or not you should salt your water.

When to add salt to scrambled eggs can be just as contentious a matter. Harold McGee writes in his book that "salt dissolves into positively and negatively charged ions that cluster around the charged portions of the proteins and effectively neutralize them." He continues, detailing that this causes the proteins to "no longer repel each other as strongly, and therefore approach each other and bond together earlier in the cooking and unfolding process." All of this is to say that, according to McGee, the "eggs end up more tender when salted."

The problem with salt water when poaching eggs is that the white needs to set soon after it hits the hot water, which the salt restricts, leaving the white loose and ragged. So, salt your poached eggs after you've cooked them! And if you want some additional flavors to your dish, you can always add other seasonings to your water when poaching your eggs.