Sometimes when all you want is a sunny-side-up egg, you end up cracking open the eggshell and breaking the yolk. There is plenty of advice on how to avoid this catastrophe, including striking the eggshell with a knife, but here's an even better foolproof method.

The best way to ensure that your yolk stays intact yolk is to gently tap your egg against something flat like a countertop. Put your thumb on the egg's bottom and your next two fingers on top, then lightly press your thumbs toward the crack to pry it open. Sometimes you may get a few eggshells in your mixture, but there's also a trick for this.

You can use the smooth half of an eggshell to scoop up the stray bits while keeping the yolk intact, but this can also rob you of quite a bit of egg white in the process. To avoid this, wet your fingers and carefully pick out the shell fragments, although it will take a couple of tries to get them out.