Recipes/Eggs

The 5 most popular ways to cook eggs, ranked by how often they show up in kitchens worldwide. If you can nail all five of these, you're basically set for life.

1. Scrambled Eggs

The GOAT of egg preparations. Soft, custardy curds that come together in under two minutes if you know what you're doing.

There's a whole rabbit hole of technique here - low-and-slow vs. hot-and-fast, butter vs. oil, whether to add milk or not (don't). The French do them in a double boiler which takes like 20 minutes and produces something closer to a savory custard than what most people think of as scrambled eggs.

• Full recipe: Perfect Scrambled Eggs

2. Fried Eggs

Sunny-side up, over easy, over medium, over hard - it's all the same fundamental technique with different cook times on the flip side. A properly fried egg has a crispy, lacy edge (if you're into that - use more fat and higher heat) and a runny yolk that doubles as sauce for whatever you put it on.

The key is fresh eggs. The white spreads less and holds its shape better. And for the love of god, season the white and the yolk separately.

3. Omelette

Two schools of thought here and they're both right:

• French omelette - pale yellow, no browning, rolled into a perfect cylinder, barely set in the middle. Takes technique and a nonstick pan you treat like a family heirloom.
• American/diner omelette - browned on the outside, folded in half around a bunch of fillings. More forgiving but easier to overcook into rubbery sadness.

The fillings rabbit hole is deep. Cheese, herbs, mushrooms, ham, onions, bell peppers - basically clean out your fridge and it'll probably work.

4. Poached Eggs

The one that scares people but shouldn't. A fresh egg dropped into barely-simmering water with a splash of vinegar comes together in about 3 minutes. The white wraps around the yolk into a neat little package, and the yolk stays completely runny.

The vinegar trick works (it helps the white coagulate faster), the whirlpool vortex technique is overrated, and the real secret is just using fresh eggs. An old egg will send wispy strands of white all over the pot no matter what you do.

These are the whole point of Eggs Benedict, and they're incredible on toast, hash, grain bowls, or just with salt and pepper.

5. Boiled Eggs

The workhorse. Meal-prep champion. The difference between soft-boiled and hard-boiled is like 4-5 minutes of cook time, so timers are non-negotiable.

• Soft-boiled (6-7 minutes) - set white, completely runny yolk. Spoon it right out of the shell onto toast soldiers.
• Jammy (7-8 minutes) - the sweet spot where the yolk is spreadable but not runny. Ramen egg territory.
• Hard-boiled (10-12 minutes) - fully set yolk, no green ring (that's overcooking, not a flavor feature).

Pro tip: shock them in ice water immediately after cooking. It stops carryover cooking and makes them way easier to peel. Older eggs peel better than fresh ones for hard boiling - counterintuitive but true.

See Also

• Recipes - the main recipe index
• Recipes/Eggs/Perfect Scrambled Eggs - deep dive on the scrambled method