Genius Recipes
My New Favorite Eggs—in 5 Minutes Flat
Aki and Alex at Ideas in Food have gone and changed how we cook forever (again). This time: egg salad without peeling a single egg.
Every week in Genius Recipes—often with your help!—Food52 Founding Editor and lifelong Genius-hunter Kristen Miglore is unearthing recipes that will change the way you cook.
This recipe started as a fix for faster—much, much faster—egg salad, without having to boil and peel and cool and, with maddening unpredictability, tweeze bits of eggshell.
As a happy result, we all get egg salad in even better, more customizable form—warm, with crispy bits of ham and buttery-soft yolks, if that’s your thing. One former egg salad-phobe ate it for dinner four nights in a week. (Hi. I’m the phobe.)
All because, one night, Alex Talbot—half of the team behind Ideas in Food and Curiosity Doughnuts—didn’t feel like asking his wife Aki Kamozawa (the other half, who has more patience for peeling), to make their egg salad again. I’ll let them explain:
Alex: I really like egg salad.
Aki: He loves egg salad, and he doesn’t get it enough.
Alex: I do not get it enough. And part of it is because—
Aki: He won’t make it himself.
Alex: I won’t make it for myself. I don’t like peeling eggs, and everyone’s got a thousand ways to peel an egg, right?
Aki: Even we do, right? We have the steamed eggs.
Alex: Yeah, we have a thousand ways to peel an egg, but guess what? None of the ways actually work 100 percent...Here, you crack an egg, you cook it, and you cut it up and you dress it up, and you’ve got awesome egg salad. The other cool thing is you get warm egg salad—and warm egg salad is delicious.
Like all of their posts at Ideas in Food, the process is written to be flexible and whim-accommodating. Do you have a forgotten tuft of dill or wedge of lemon in your fridge? Not anymore. Or maybe some capers or bacon to sizzle in the pan first? Or nothing but eggs, mayo, and heels of bread? This will work too (trust me).
But even in its most elaborate form, it takes moments and is often ready before the toast. You don’t even need to chase eggs around a cutting board: Slashing with scissors makes quick work of them, much as they’re used in other parts of the world, from steak and noodles in Korean homes to pizza a taglio in Rome.
And best of all, by frying the eggs, you get to make egg salad exactly as you want it. Aki likes her eggs really tender with runny yolks, with pops of crunchy onion and celery, on soft bread. Alex goes for a more traditional egg salad texture: firmer-but-not-chalky yolks, on toasted bread. He’ll also happily eat it however Aki will cook it.
How will you make yours?
| Butter or olive oil | |
| Sliced onions, chopped ham, or other tasty mix-ins (optional) | |
| Eggs | |
| Mayonnaise | |
| Finely chopped onions and celery, or other cold, crunchy vegetables (optional) | |
| Salt and freshly ground black pepper, plus any other spices, herbs, or seasonings | |
| Toast |
| Butter or olive oil | |
| Sliced onions, chopped ham, or other tasty mix-ins (optional) | |
| Eggs | |
| Mayonnaise |
| Finely chopped onions and celery, or other cold, crunchy vegetables (optional) | |
| Salt and freshly ground black pepper, plus any other spices, herbs, or seasonings | |
| Toast |
From our new podcast network, The Genius Recipe Tapes is lifelong Genius hunter Kristen Miglore’s 10-year-strong column in audio form, featuring all the uncut gems from the weekly column and video series. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss out.
Listen & Subscribe
Written by: Kristen Miglore
Popular on Food52
85 Comments
I tried the same ingredients with this technique and it was sublime. Reminded me a bit of Ina's chopped soft boiled eggs on toast from her new cook book that I make a couple of times a week.
My typical adds are Dijon mustard, dill (usually dried), and occasionally capers and/or a dash of vinegar (rice wine, white balsamic, etc) if I'm in the mood. I'll use more Dijon when the egg salad is going on bread with avocado, as I think mustard is a great addition to anything avocado.
Also, this recipe is a prime opportunity for pickles, in place of the ham. The mustard idea sounds tasty too.
Join The Conversation