The rapid cooling of the eggs contracts the egg whites, releasing them from the egg's membrane. It also firms the egg white proteins, making them easier to peel. Cool the eggs for at least 15 minutes for even easier peeling.
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.
The soonest time to peel hard boiled eggs is after they have sat in cold or ice water for ten minutes. Give them at least this long, to prevent overcooking and make the peeling process easier.
Keeping Hard-Boiled Eggs Fresh
For maximum freshness, leave them in their shells until you are ready to eat or prepare. The shell will help to protect the egg from bacteria, and can help prevent them from absorbing odors from other foods in your refrigerator.
Give Eggs Time To Cool
The quick cooling of the hard-boiled eggs causes the egg whites to contract, freeing them from the membrane. If you let them cool for about 15 minutes, the peeling is much easier.
Drop the eggs into boiling water. Eggs that are added to a pot of boiling water rather than brought to a boil along with the cold water in the pot will be easier to peel. Plus, when you're boiling eggs with the intention of jamminess—say, for soy-marinated eggs, this method allows for more precise timing.
Let the eggs sit in the cold water for 15 minutes to cool (you can add a few ice cubes to make them cold if using immediately), or refrigerate overnight. Peel under cool running water. Whether you peel them right out of the pan or the next day doesn't matter.
Leave eggs in the ice bath for 10+ minutes to allow for thorough cooling/easy peeling (you can place them under running cold water instead, but without the cold shock from the ice bath, you may have a harder time peeling, especially if your eggs are farm fresh like ours).
The rapid cooling of the eggs contracts the egg whites, releasing them from the egg's membrane. It also firms the egg white proteins, making them easier to peel. Cool the eggs for at least 15 minutes for even easier peeling.
Apparently super fresh eggs are difficult to peel because the pH of the white is more acidic which causes it to adhere to the shell membrane more tightly. Two solutions here – use older eggs or add a little bicarb soda to the cooking water to increase the pH.
Give the eggs at least five minutes in the ice bath before you try to peel them—letting them cool may help make it easier to peel them, but it's also so you don't burn your hands.
Here's a hard-boiled egg tip that we know to be true: Starting your eggs in hot, already-boiling water makes them easier to peel. In a column for Serious Eats, cookbook author and food columnist J. Kenji López-Alt found that "starting cold resulted in eggs that had just over a 50% success rate for clean peeling.