How to Make Instant Pot Easy-Peel Hard Boiled Eggs
How to Make Instant Pot Easy-Peel Hard Boiled Eggs
- Total Time: 19 minutes
Description
Like many of you, I abandoned the dream of finding one surefire method for making consistently perfect hard boiled eggs some time ago. After trying a few too many “foolproof” tricks with spotty results, I relegated easy-peel eggs to the same category as unicorns and cheap airfare: nice to fantasize about, but if they were truly real, you’d think we’d have heard about it by now.
But that’s the thing about myths—just when you’ve thrown your hands in the air and walked away, something new comes along to rekindle your hope. Like Fox Mulder, we want to believe.
For me, that something new was my pressure cooker and a friend’s improbable suggestion that I try using it to make a batch of eggs. Just like that, the dream was alive again.
Why the Pressure Cooker Works
I’ve actually been sitting on this revelation for a few months now, just because I didn’t trust the evidence I saw with my own eyes: Two eggs or a dozen, fresh eggs or weeks old, white eggs or brown eggs, it didn’t matter. The shells slipped easily off each time, leaving a smooth and pristine hard boiled egg.
There are a few theories for why this is. Some say that, similar to steaming eggs, the pressure cooker forces steam inside the egg’s shell during cooking, causing it to separate from the egg white. Alton Brown’s theory is that it’s more about the rapid temperature change inside the sealed pot.
Whatever the reason, it works! Making hard-cooked eggs in the pressure cooker is the only method I’ve found that has worked for me every single time.
How to Cooks Eggs in the Instant Pot
I based my eggs on the popular “5-5-5” method for hard-cooked eggs in the Instant Pot. The idea is to put your eggs into a steamer basket and seal them inside your pressure cooker along with a cup or so of water. It takes about 5 minutes for the cooker to come up to high pressure, 5 minutes to cook the eggs, and then 5 minutes of natural pressure release before removing the eggs from the cooker—hence the “5-5-5” method.
Ingredients
Large eggs, cold from the fridge—at least 1 egg or as many as will fit in a single layer in your pressure cooker
Instructions
Prepare the pressure cooker:
Place a steamer basket in the bottom of your Instant Pot. Add 1/2 to 1 inch of water (1 to 2 cups) to the pressure cooker (check your pressure cooker manual for minimal liquid amounts). The water level should be just below the steamer basket.
Add all the eggs:
Use cold eggs, straight from the fridge. You can cook as many eggs as you like at one time, but be careful of wedging eggs too firmly against one another or stacking eggs on top of each other since these can cause eggs to crack.
Bring the pot up to pressure:
Close the lid on the pressure cooker and make sure the steam valve is set to the “sealed” position. Set the pressure to high and set the timer for 4 minutes for electric pressure cookers (3 minutes for stovetop).
The pressure cooker will take 5 to 10 minutes to come to full pressure and then begin cooking. Cooking time begins once the cooker has come to pressure.
Let the pressure release naturally for 5 minutes:
After cooking is done, let the pressure cooker sit for 5 minutes with the lid on and the steam vent “sealed” to allow steam to begin releasing naturally. (If you’re using a stovetop pressure cooker, remove it from heat.)
Quick-release the remaining pressure:
After 5 minutes of natural release, carefully flip the steam valve to “venting” and quick-release any remaining pressure.
Cool the eggs:
Transfer the eggs to a bowl of cold water to cool (add ice for more rapid cooling, but ice isn’t necessarily for making easy-peel eggs). Change out the water as it warms until the eggs are cool, then refrigerate the eggs until needed.
Notes
N/A
- Prep Time: 4 mins
- Cook Time: 15 mins
