Hard-boiled eggs form the backbone of some of our favorite Southern dishes. From deviled eggs to egg salad, we always keep a batch of hard-boiled eggs on hand for last-minute appetizers—or simply for snacking. Full of protein and low in calories, hard-boiled eggs are a wholesome, nutritious snack.
As much as we love hard boiled eggs, we'll be the first to admit that they can be finicky—if not downright frustrating—to make. The timing has to be perfect to achieve set whites and a fully-cooked, but not dry yolk. (Luckily, we have a recipe for Perfect Hard-Boiled Eggs to help you along.)
Over the years, we're brought you plenty of hacks to make the hard-boiling process smoother. We have tips on how to make hard-boiled eggs easier to peel, from letting your eggs come to room temperature before boiling to using older eggs. We even have a technique for hard-boiling in your air fryer (yes, really!).
Recently, a new hard-boiled egg trend exploded on TikTok—grating your eggs. That's right: the next generation of Internet creators is using a microplane to grate hard-boiled eggs right over their avocado toast. But before there was TikTok, there was Facebook, which is how we discovered an age-old hard-boiled egg hack that is about to change the egg salad game.
When you're making a large batch of egg salad—say, for an Easter celebration—it's easy to make a lot of hard-boiled eggs in one fowl swoop (just get out your biggest pot). What's not so easy is chopping up all those peeled, hard-boiled eggs. This step can be time-consuming, but our friend Ree Drummond—also known as the Pioneer Woman—is here with a time-saving solution.
In anticipation of Easter leftovers, Drummond posted her hard-boiled egg chopping hack on Facebook—and we'll admit, it's pure genius. Drummond writes, "If you have a cookie cooling rack, just set it over a bowl, set the peeled egg on top, and smush it right through! Takes less than a minute to do a dozen eggs. Handy!"
As it turns out, the metal grid of your cooling rack is the unsuspecting tool that makes chopping large quantities of hard-boiled eggs a breeze. Drummond instructs to press your hard-boiled eggs through the wire cooling rack to achieve a uniform dice on your eggs—perfect for egg salad. It really is that simple.
The next time you're making a batch of Mama's famous egg salad, give this technique a try. And if you're in the market for a fantastic egg salad recipe, might we suggest the Masters Egg Salad recipe?