The humble hard-boiled egg is already an ideal snack. Plucked from its bath after 10 minutes or so (do you leave the pot boiling or shut off the heat after it simmers? start from cold water or boiling?), you need not do much else. Sprinkle that creamy yolk with a pinch of flaky salt and you’re good to go.
But there’s much more to be done with hard-boiled eggs, which are as much an individual ingredient as their raw counterparts. Once you consider hard-boiled eggs an ingredient rather than a dish, the possibilities are endless.
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Scoop out those yolks to whip with mayo and devil (you probably already know about that one, but have you ever added avocado to the puree?), or pickle them any color of the rainbow. A hard-boiled egg can only dream to grow up into a butter-yellow egg salad sandwich in the style of a Japanese 7-Eleven, smashed with Kewpie mayonnaise on fluffy milk bread, or gently nestled in a creamy South Indian curry. Maybe you want to transform them into something else entirely, like this Genius Kelly-green sauce from Silver Palate?
Fire up the water and boil hard—let’s cook.
Egg Salads (and Salads withEggs)
1. Aselila, or Georgian Egg Salad with Walnuts
This isn’t elementary school cafeteria egg salad, and that’s a very, very good thing. Swap the mayo for butter, add walnuts, lime, and sage for good measure.
2. Radicchio Salad with Toasted Hazelnuts and Capers
Top bitter radicchio with gently toasted nuts and crumbled hard-boiled egg for the most un-salad bar-ish salad you’ve ever seen.
3. White Bean and Tuna Salad with Eggs and Dukkah
A recipe tester called this white bean and tuna number “a Spanish play on a Niçoise salad,” and if that doesn’t sound like a good use of your time, I don’t know what is.
4. Green Green Dressing with a Little Salad
If Caesar (salty, fatty) and Green Goddess (creamy, bright) dressings had a love child, it would be this mint-green concoction. Dunk hard-boiled eggs and other veg you have lying around for a luxurious lunch.
5. Low-Key Nicoise Salad
Nicoise seems like a dish that requires far too much time, but in reality you can achieve the whole dang thing with no more than a can of tuna, an avocado, a handful of olives, and hard-boiled eggs.
6. Nancy Silverton’s Egg Salad with Bagna Cauda Toast
When you make your own garlic mayonnaise for egg salad, you know you’re treating your hard-boiled eggs with respect. Smear over buttery, garlicky, anchovy-y toast.
7. A Tale of Two Egg Salads
California vs. Tennessee, egg salad edition. One is made with an egg-slicer and only a portion of the yolks, plus celery, dill, chives, and capers; the other chops eggs willy-nilly, and tosses with yellow mustard and apple cider vinegar. Choose your fighter!
Sandwiches
8. Deviled Egg Salad on Toast
You know what’s good? Deviled eggs. You know what’s better? Turning deviled eggs into a spread for toast. It’s not not egg salad.
9. Crumbled Bacon and Hard-Boiled Egg Sandwiches
BLTs are great, but BLHBEs (that’s bacon, lettuce, hard-boiled eggs, duh) are out of this world—plus, it’s only peak tomato season for part of the year. Swap in eggs during 'mater off-season.
10. Japanese 7-Eleven Egg Salad Sandwich
If all egg salad was made with Kewpie mayo and served on pillowy milk bread, egg salad probably wouldn’t get such a bad rap. Try it, you’ll see.
11. Curried Egg Salad Smorrebrod
Add curry powder, cumin, and nigella seeds to your favorite egg salad, then serve with pickled onions on rye for a Scandinavian egg salad sammie.
12. Bagna Cauda Toasts with Egg and Raddichio
Hard-boiled eggs love anchovies, so spread garlicky anchovy butter over thick slabs of toast, then add radicchio, celery, avocado, and sliced eggs.
13.
A classic Levantine dish, this version layers roasted eggplant with sliced eggs, parsley, cucumber, yogurt, and hummus into a pita. Pickles: not optional.
DeviledEggs
14. Pickled Deviled Eggs with Smoked Salmon
Transform leftover pickled eggs into Sunday brunch—super-smooth deviled eggs topped with smoked salmon.
15. Nori Deviled Eggs
Classic deviled eggs have been missing the salty, briny hit of soy sauce and nori.
16. Virginia Willis’ Classic Deviled Eggs
Virginia Willis' deviled eggs have a secret ingredient: butter. Just a pat makes the filling silky smooth.
17. Smoked Trout Deviled Eggs
Puree smoked trout in with the usual deviled egg ingredients and pipe into tender egg whites.
18. Avocado Deviled Eggs With Smoked Salmon and Fried Capers
Amp up the creamy factor in a deviled egg by pureeing with buttery avocado. For texture and flavor, fold in diced smoked salmon (or experiment with other options, like prosciutto) and top with crispy fried capers.
19. Deviled Eggs With Spicy Tomato Jam and Pistachio Dukkah
Devil these eggs with Greek yogurt and olive oil instead of mayo, then top each with a blot of spicy harissa-spiked tomato jam.
Pickles, Dips, Soups, and More Places to Use Hard-BoiledEggs
20. How to Make Naturally Dyed Pickled Eggs
Turn turmeric, beets, and red cabbage into your medium for these rainbow pickled eggs. Infinitely more fun (and flavor-packed) than your usual Easter dyeing routine.
21. Huevos Haminados con Spinaci, or Long-Cooked Hard-Boiled Eggs with Spinach
It’s no typo: These hard-boiled eggs cook (slowly, gently) for two whole hours. Serve with just-barely cooked spinach.
22. Pan-Roasted Asparagus with Brown Butter, Lemon, and Eggs Mimosa
Here, hard-boiled egg is pushed through a sieve over lemony, brown butter-tossed asparagus. Suddenly, your kitchen is a classic French restaurant.
23. My Mother’s Potato Salad
This potato salad is ready for a fancy picnic: tarragon, cornichons, radishes, and hard-boiled egg all join the party.
24. Gehakte Leber, or Chopped Liver
Some chopped liver recipes are, well, just chopped liver (onions, too). But many, like this one, smashes in hard-boiled egg for some added creaminess.
25. Dad’s South Indian Egg Curry
This vegetarian dish is super creamy with coconut milk, but packed with flavor thanks to whole peppercorns, garam masala, and fried curry leaves.
26. Ethiopian-Inspired Spicy Chicken Stew
Though the hard-boiled egg here is more garnish than ingredient, you’d certainly miss that creamy yolk and bouncy white as you slurp down this spicy stew.
27. Salad e Oliveh, or Iranian Potato Salad)
This chicken, pea, and egg-flooded potato salad won a Food52 contest for the best lettuce-free salad, and after a bite you’ll definitely see why.
28. The Silver Palate’s Green Sauce
For when you just can’t eat another egg, make it sauce. This vibrant sauce (green with parsley and dill, salty with anchovies and capers, just barely spicy with raw garlic) will liven up any sad salad or protein.
