Classic devilled eggs recipe - tips and tricks to make them easy to make!

Posted by

Devilled eggs. They must call them that because they’re sinfully delicious… and usually involves a lot of bad words and inventive curses during their inception (at least in my kitchen there is!). So here’s some tips, tricks and recipe for devilled eggs that hopefully won’t cause you to lose your temper and actually tell your friends it wasn’t that hard to make!

Tip #1: get really fresh eggs.
No, I’m serious. I’ve tried making hard boil eggs with ones close to expiring.. so if you want your eggs to look like the roads we have in Edmonton in the spring after the snow melts.. delightful craters, sinkholes…get your hands on fresh eggs and you’ll be amazed at how easy it is to peel the eggs almost flawlessly.

Tip #2: Hard boil, cool and peel your eggs the same day
There’s folks that recommend you pop your freshly cooled hardboiled eggs in the fridge and you can easily peel them later… they are part of the group of people that want to make you totally miserable! Ignore them!! Eggs don’t separate nicely from the shell once they are icy fridge cold vs an egg slightly warm inside and cold shell from icebath

Tip #3. Use a timer.
You can have the eggs just popped out of a chicken and the best technique, but you’re going to have undercooked runny eggs (great to eat, sucky for devilled eggs) or the dreaded grey tinge (but still edible) to the yolks if you overcook the suckers.

Tip #4: Gently tap and roll the egg to crack the shell
Its common sense – if you whack the crap out of the egg, you’re gonna get a funny looking egg, or bits of broken eggshell deeply imbedded into the darn thing. And if you roll the heck out of it.. the egg will split into several pieces… whoops!

Tip #5 Have a small bowl of water next to you
Use it to rinse off all the small bits of egg shell that you always seem to want to stay and refrain from gouging them out with your fingernails (as you mutter death threats under your breath)

Tip #6 Set aside some time to do this and make extra
Yes, while making the actual goop for the center takes 2 minutes, without practice (and ignoring the tips), getting the darn eggs hardboiled and peeled will take you easily an hour, and if you want to make things pretty and pipe the goop with a decorative tip, tack on an additional 20-30 min. Making extra means you can eat all the ugly ones and serve the prettiest un-mutilated ones to your friends and guests… who btw will inhale these babies in a fraction of the time it took you to make them.  I used the Wilton small decorating bag  from a Wilton decorating set and a swirly tip to pipe the goop out so it was more pretty.

Ingredients
-12 eggs
-1/4 cup (50 mL) light mayonnaise
-1/4 tsp (1 mL) salt
-1/4 tsp (1 mL) pepper
-2 tsp (10 mL) dijon mustard
-1/4 tsp paprika

How to
1) Place all eggs in a layer on the bottom of a large pot (I used a huge deep skillet with lid). Add enough water that there is about 1 inch of water above the eggs
2) On high, wait for water to boil. Once it does, cover the pot with lid and remove from heat. Set a timer for 20 minutes for extra large 18 minutes for large eggs, 16-17 min for medium eggs, 15min for small eggs.
3) Set up an icebath in a large bowl while the eggs sit in their spa. When the timer goes off, drain all the hot water carefully and plunk the eggs into the icebath to cool.
4) Peel eggs as soon as they’re comfortable to touch, fishing them out of the icebath as you go.
5) Cut the eggs in half with a non-serrated knife (you get funny wavy marks otherwise) and with a teaspoon, scoop out the yolk into a separate bowl. Save the intact egg whites “bowls”!
6) With a fork, mash together all the egg yolks, mayo, salt, pepper, mustard and paprika
7) Fill the egg white bowls with a spoon or pop into a icing bag with a decorative tip if you want them looking fancy. Enjoy!