One of the first things many people try is hard-cooked eggs. They say it's fast, brainless, consistent, and the eggs are always easy to peel. Boiling eggs on the stove always worked fine for me - until I started buying super-fresh organic eggs from my church's chickens.
There are several tricks to make sure they peel relatively easily, but what a pain to jump through those stupid hoops, and which ones to use? Don't try to hard-cook them until they're at least 3 or 4 weeks old; add salt to the water; add baking soda to the water; add vinegar to the water; bring the water to a boil before putting the eggs in; put the eggs in the water before heating it up. It's enough to drive you nuts!!!
An experiment was in order!
I got out the Instant Pot and six eggs - three white jumbo, and three brown of assorted sizes. According to many sites on the internet, the standard method for hard cooking eggs in the Instant Pot is 5-5-5, which means you set the pot to cook at pressure for 5 minutes, let the pressure release naturally for 5 minutes, then open the pressure valve to release the rest of the pressure, remove the eggs and place them in ice water for 5 minutes.
That was what I'd INTENDED to do, but I got distracted during the second 5 - the natural pressure release - and so it ended up as 9 minutes instead. Well, I keep my refrigerator just above freezing because I like my drinks COLD and I want to keep the food in there fresh as long as possible, so I figured I didn't goof up too much.
When I opened the IP, one of the organic brown eggs had cracked, but unlike a cracked egg in boiling water, the white hadn't oozed out and made an ugly egg. Rather, the egg was still egg-shaped, but with just a little ridge where the shell had cracked, and half of the shell slipped off when I put it into the ice water bath.
After 5 minutes in the ice water, I pulled out one of each kind of egg and peeled them - perfectly! No special procedures - just cracked them, rolled them on the counter, and peeled from the larger end. The brown egg peeled as cleanly as the white egg.
But did I overcook them? Here's the picture - perfection! I guess I'm ready to make deviled eggs - YUM!!!
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| Notice how yellow the organic egg yolk is compared to the white egg's! |
Hard-Cooked Eggs in the Instant Pot (Basic 5-5-5 Method)
Eggs (whatever number you want to cook)
Water (the minimum amount required by your Instant Pot - 1 1/2 c for a 6-quart, 2 c for an 8-quart)
Pour the water into the inner pot. Place a trivet or steamer basket inside the inner pot. Stack the eggs on the trivet or in the steamer basket. Close the lid, set the pressure release valve to sealing.
Press the Pressure Cook button, making sure the pressure is set to "High." Set the cook time to 5 minutes. The Instant Pot will beep and start heating up. Prepare an ice water bath for cooling the eggs after they have finished cooking. When it gets up to pressure, the Instant Pot will beep again and start counting down.
When the cooking time is finished, the Instant Pot will beep again and start counting up. When it reaches 5 minutes, turn the pressure release valve to "Venting." When the pressure has completely released, open the Instant Pot lid, remove the eggs and put them in the ice bath for 5 minutes.
