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Double fried, egg salad, deviled….oh my!

 

 

Hard Boiled Eggs – When To Toss And When To Eat

I love me some eggs. A regular staple in my breakfast routine in frying four eggs for fried egg sandwiches. My wife makes a mean batch of deviled eggs (I have tried making them and they were acceptable, but just not as good as her’s). Heck, I have eaten egg salad sandwiches from the gas station, in the past month. That is why having a happy flock in the backyard just makin’ me eggs is perfect.

Have you tried hard boiling eggs in an Instant Pot? I love how the shell just falls off. Anyway…

So back to the question, should you toss that hard boiled egg or eat it? I would say the answer is….Yes! Before you roll your eyes and write me off forever, let me go back a couple steps and explain my position.

 

 

To Wash Or Not

This is great example of how perfectly things happen in nature. When a hen lays an egg, it receives an outer coating called a bloom. It is a thin protective layer that covers the entire egg and fills in the pores on the surface of the egg to keep bacteria and chemicals on the outside. This keeps moisture trapped inside the egg. It is a perfect environment for growing a baby chick.

Did you know you can actually keep freshly laid and unwashed eggs unrefrigerated for several weeks? Before we had chickens, I did not know that and it kinda blew my mind, to be honest. Anyway…

For anyone who has ever collected eggs from a chicken coop, eggs don’t always look nice and shiny like you see in the store. Keeping your coop and nesting boxes clean and collecting often help keep the eggs clean. But inevitably you will have eggs with poop and feathers stuck to it. So what does a responsible chicken keeper do? A lot of people with backyard chickens will tell you don’t wash them and I tend to agree.

You can do a quick wipe down and get rid of most dirt and other…contaminants. Once you wash that egg though, you have removed the bloom and the egg is no longer protected. The nutrients start to be slowly released and the egg needs to be refrigerated. Making it so you can’t have Pinterest perfect eggs stored on your countertop. There are eggs washes available that claim to not remove the bloom. So you have several options to choose from.

 

 

Now It’s Time To Boil Them

 

You have decided to hard boil some eggs. That is a great decision, in my opinion at least. You now have several options. The number one obvious answer is to make deviled eggs and eat them all. Possibly share with a friend or family member. But, most likely, that is not what your intention is set at. Hard boiled eggs are actually very versatile. A lot of people will hard boil eggs on Sunday when they meal prep for the week, which is also a great decision. Hard boiled eggs can be eaten essentially whole (Not the whole thing in one bite, come on. I like eggs but let’s be reasonable), sliced and put on top of a salad, cut and deviled, turned into egg salad, etc.

The USDA recommends a seven day shelf life, once the egg has been hard boiled. This is assuming that it is still in the shell and refrigerated. You only have about two hours if the egg is sitting at room temperature. Once the shell has been removed, you are looking at more like three to five days, with five days for a whole egg with shell removed and three if its been sliced or added to other food items.

So this works perfectly if you are meal prepping on Sunday for your lunches during the week. If you are wanting a whole hard boiled egg, I would recommend leaving the shell on and putting it in your lunch as is and taking the shell off before you eat. This will help prevent any cross smells or tastes from your refrigerator. Another great option is to take the shells off of enough eggs for two or three days and leave the rest.

 

 

 

Egg Storage

How should you store your eggs? Make sure you store your eggs in an airtight container. A plastic bag works great. Glass or plastic containers with locking lids work as well. It is probably helpful to write the date on the container as well. If you can, try and keep them in the main compartment of your refrigerator instead of the door. Temperatures in these slots can be warmer because of all the opening and closing. Between the seven people in my house, I can only imagine how often the doors to our refrigerator are opened and closed every day.

A couple tricks or hacks to try is to individually wrap each egg in something like plastic wrap or tin foil. Some people swear by then covering them in cold water and then changing that water daily. I haven’t tried it myself, but I can see the logic. You can also put a wet paper towel over the top of eggs in your container. Most of the time, eggs dry out before going bad. So these tricks try and keep them from drying out.

 

 

Finale

Once again, we come back to our main question. Should you toss that hard boiled egg or eat it? If it looks like that egg in the picture, toss it! Go back in time a few days and throw it away then! Just get rid of it.

Ok, the picture isn’t really a rotten egg, it was created for Halloween, but still!

But in all seriousness, I understand the predicament. You hard boiled a batch of eggs. Maybe you forgot to add some to your lunch one day, or even two. Or you overslept and didn’t get a lunch made. Maybe someone else in the house hard boiled the eggs and you are not sure exactly when. If the eggs weren’t washed, they could easily be 5 weeks old or more. The easiest and most obvious way to tell if a hard boiled egg is still good is by the smell.

Don’t let just any ol’ smell fool you though. Hard boiled eggs do have a slight smell normally. But if you open the container and you feel like vomiting right into it, that is a good sign they have gone bad. If they smell fine, cut them open. Look at them. Sometimes a green ring forms around the yolk area, that is fine. But does it look normal? Are there any funky colors or spots? Is the yolk still intact and firm? If so, that is a great sign. The final test, is to sample. Take a nibble. I would not recommend eating half the egg, but try a small piece. If it tastes fine, then dig in I say.

If you are not exactly sure, it’s probably best if you toss the eggs and hard boil fresh ones. As much as I love living in the bathroom above my toilet, I would rather not.

 

 

Pro Tip

I learned about the spin test. You will inevitably come across the situation where you aren’t sure if you are holding a hard boiled egg or a raw egg. Oh the conundrum. You crack that egg on an edge. Is it going to get raw egg everywhere or will you be safe? Next time, try the spin test.

Since a hard boiled egg is cooked, the whites and the yolk are united and in a raw egg, they are separate. So when you spin a raw egg, it wobbles but when you spin a hard boiled egg, it spins smoothly. Try it out.

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