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. The egg white solidifies when it hits the salt water, sealing up the crack so that the egg doesn't shoot out a streamer of white.
The salt allows the egg whites to incorporate more air while being beaten. Poached or fried whole eggs toughen when salt is added before cooking, but when a small amount of salt is added to scrambled eggs or omelets the albumen in the egg white breaks down faster and makes blending with the yolks easier.
Salt made very little difference on the final texture of the eggs, but, if anything, the longer the eggs were salted, the more tender and moist they were. While salt certainly doesn't hurt the eggs (and may even help), there's no question that the most important factor when cooking eggs is the cooking technique itself.
Top Tips for Hard-Boiled Eggs
Add salt: Adding salt to your water is one way to help your eggs turn out better. The salt in the water will help with egg flavor since the eggs will absorb some of the salt while cooking.
Combine salt, vinegar, and water in a large pot, and bring to a boil over high heat. Add eggs one at a time, being careful not to crack them. Reduce the heat to a gentle boil, and cook for 14 minutes.
A boiling start for 30 seconds to a very gentle simmer for 13 minutes, then an ice bath at the end makes perfect, easy-to-peel hard-boiled eggs.
When enough salt is added to the water, the saltwater solution's density becomes higher than the egg's, so the egg will then float! The ability of something, like the egg, to float in water or some other liquid is known as buoyancy.
The best reason to add salt to water is to improve the flavor of food cooked in it. Salting water also helps it boil (slightly) faster. While salting water does increase the temperature at which it boils, the effect is so small that it really has no impact on cooking time.
According to Bon Appétit, the perfect time to salt your scrambled eggs is right after you've finished whisking them in the bowl ... ideally 15 minutes before cooking.
Once the water is boiling, reduce the heat to low (so that there's no bubbles) and use skimmer to gently and slowly add the eggs to the water. Then, turn the heat back up to a boil. Set a timer and cook the eggs for 6 to 7 minutes for soft-boiled eggs and 12 to 14 minutes for hard-boiled eggs.
You might have heard that you should drop your eggs into room temperature or cold water and then bring the water to a boil. This is a myth. In our tests, bringing the water to a boil first and then lowering the eggs into the bath made for easy peeling and more accurate timing.
Some chefs add a little milk or cream to make the eggs fluffy. Adding salt at the beginning might interact with milk or cream unfavourably.
And it doesn't matter whether that hot start is in boiling water or in a steam-filled pot or pressure cooker. All those eggs will be noticeably easier to shell than those started in a cold pot. Starting eggs in cold water greatly increases the chances of shell-sticking.
Salt and Pepper
Specifically, salt suppresses bitter tastes to help bring out the eggs' natural taste, while pepper adds a pop of outside spice. You can switch up your eggs' flavor by using different types of pepper. While black and white pepper come from the same plant, they have slightly different tastes.
It's not necessary to add anything to the water. Some people also swear that adding a bit of salt, vinegar or even baking soda to the boiling water makes eggs easier to peel and/or makes them taste better. We, however, prefer the simplicity of plain ol' water.
I use about ⅛ teaspoon (0.5 grams) of salt per large egg. I prefer it on the saltier side. However, you can reduce it down to 1/16 teaspoon per egg, which is about a pinch. Salt enhances the savory flavor of the eggs, but more is happening.
MYTH: Salted water boils faster. TRUTH: Adding salt raises the boiling point of water (slightly), so it does make your water hotter, but it's not going to boil any faster. The amount of salt added is much too low to make a noticeable difference in your cooking time.
Ideally, you should wait until your water is at a rolling boil. The boiling water will agitate and dissolve the salt quickly. You can add salt to your cold water if your prefer, though. You don't want to forget it after all!
When you dissolve salt in water, it breaks into sodium and chloride ions. If you boiled all the water off, the ions would recombine to form solid salt. However, there is no danger of boiling the NaCl: The boiling point of sodium chloride is 2575 F or 1413 C.
This means the egg is old, but it may be perfectly safe to use. Crack the egg into a bowl and examine it for an off-odor or unusable appearance before deciding to use or discard it. A spoiled egg will have an unpleasant odor when you break open the shell, either when raw or cooked.
Osmosis will occur; that is, the water will migrate from the side of the membrane where water molecules are abundant (i.e. outside the egg) to the side where water molecules are less abundant (inside the egg). After 24 hours, the egg will be plump again!
This process of water moving through a membrane is called osmosis. Osmosis equalizes – or makes the concentration of water on both sides of the egg membrane the same. This means the egg will swell as the water moves inside and get larger.