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.
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.
Here's her hack for how to peel hard-boiled eggs in large batches: Put five thoroughly cooled hard-boiled eggs into a small plastic container with some cold water, top with the lid and then gently rock and shake until the shells break and fall away. You'll almost always end up with perfectly peeled eggs.
It's best to store hard-boiled eggs with the shells on, as the outer layer serves as a protective barrier. Plus, they're easier to peel once they've chilled in the fridge for a while. It's a win-win! Transfer hard-boiled eggs to a bowl of cold water immediately after cooking to help them cool down faster.
Ideally, peel the eggs as soon as they're cool. Start at the broad end, and hold the egg under running water to loosen any bits of stubborn shell clinging to the sides. Another thing to keep in mind is the freshness of your eggs.
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.
The vinegar in the water makes the eggs easier to peel. Here's why: The vinegar's acid not only dissolves some of the calcium carbonate in the shell, it also helps the whites set faster. Running the hard-boiled eggs under cold running water as you're peeling, meanwhile, helps the shell separate from the membrane.
Once the eggs have cooked to your preferred time, use the skimmer to remove the eggs and immediately submerge them in the ice water bath to stop them from cooking. You'll let the eggs sit here for about 5 to 10 minutes before peeling.
Add salt and vinegar to the water.
The salt permeates the shell a little bit, and the vinegar helps to break down the shells, making them easier to peel.
Add salt to the water? Egg white solidifies more quickly in hot, salty water than it does in fresh. So a little salt in your water can minimize the mess if your egg springs a leak while cooking.
How Do You Boil Eggs So They Don't Crack? Salt in the water can help prevent cracking. Vinegar in the water can also help keep the egg whites from running out of an egg while cooking if a small crack develops.
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.
At the lower pH of a fresh egg, the proteins in the egg white bind tightly to the keratin in the membrane during the cooking process, which makes it nearly impossible to remove the shell without chunks of white attached.
As J. Kenji López-Alt explains in his book The Food Lab, salt inhibits the proteins in the egg yolks from binding too tightly as they heat up, which results in a moister, more tender curd: “When eggs cook and coagulate,” he writes, "the proteins in the yolks pull tighter and tighter together as they get hotter.
Several cooking sites suggest adding baking soda to the pot of water. Apparently, baking soda raises the eggs' pH level and makes them easier to peel. You simply add 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda to a quart of water and then follow the usual steps of hard boiling an egg.
Lower your eggs straight from the fridge into already-boiling water, or place them in a steamer insert in a covered pot, steaming at full blast on the stovetop. If boiling, lower the heat to the barest simmer. Cook the eggs for 11 minutes for hard or six minutes for soft.
Because older eggs have more alkaline, you shouldn't add vinegar to the cooking water, though some recipes recommend it. Adding about a teaspoon of baking soda to the cooking water increases the alkalinity, which will make the eggs easier to peel later on.
According to our friends at Delish, adding a teaspoon of baking soda to your boiling pot of water will help the shell peel off seamlessly. Why? The alkaline in the baking soda will help your egg whites loosen up from the shell, making it easier to peel.
Eating eggs leads to elevated levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), also known as the “good” cholesterol. People who have higher HDL levels have a lower risk of heart disease, stroke and other health issues. According to one study, eating two eggs a day for six weeks increased HDL levels by 10%.