Eggs are a huge part of most peoples’ diets. Cheap, easy to cook, and nutritious, few other foods give us as much bang for our buck as an egg. There are so many different cooking techniques, and some people go their entire lives seeking the perfect egg dish. From scrambled to poached and everything in between, it’s always a good idea to have a few different egg recipes up your sleeve.
The nice thing is, if you burn an egg or two practicing, they are cheap and easy to replace!
Boiling eggs is one of the most popular cooking methods since it’s easy and they can keep for a while in the fridge after they are boiled, making them a great snack or addition to a lunch salad.
Arguably the biggest problem with boiling an egg is that everyone likes them boiled a little differently. From hard boiled to a little runny, there are different ways to boil an egg. Maybe you boiled some eggs one way, but then you want to cook them differently for a certain recipe, can you do it?
While reboiling an egg might sound a difficult concept, it really isn’t.
Can you reboil eggs? Yes, you can easily and safely reboil an egg without too much trouble. If the eggs were already soft boiled, you don’t want them cooking in hot water for longer than 5-10 minutes or you run the risk of overcooking them and drying them out.
There are a few tips you can follow to help boil your eggs perfectly whether it is the first time you boil them or not.
What is the Best way to Boil an Egg?
Depending on how hard or soft you like your eggs, you will typically boil them from 4-12 minutes. The longer the time, the harder the egg, so if you like a runny egg err on the 4 minute side.
The easiest way to boil an egg whether it’s the first time or not is in a boiling pot of water on the stove. Be careful cooking an egg longer than 12 minutes as it will become dried up and crumbly.
If you aren’t sure how you will want to enjoy your egg, the best bet is to soft boil it the first time, boiling for only 4-6 minutes. You can always go back and reboil for longer, but you can never go back and boil for softer. In other words, you can’t change a hardboiled egg and make it soft, but you can turn a soft boiled egg into a hard boiled egg.
The bottom line is, if you think you are ever going to want to boil your egg again, or eat the egg in a different form than its first boil, you want to boil on the less side. Don’t boil more than 5 minutes if you think you are going to one day want to reboil it or consume it in a different form than your first boil.
How to ReBoil an Egg?
How you boil your egg the first time is key. As long as it is a soft boil, you can cook it again the same way you cooked it the first time, essentially just adding more time to the original boil.
You will want to fill a pot of water up high enough that the eggs are covered with water, and then keep it on the stove long enough for the water to start boiling. The key is to monitor the time. You want to start your cooking time when the water starts boiling. After the water starts boiling, you actually remove them from heat and cover them with a lid on. Remove from the heat but let them cook in the hot water.
After the water cools down, test one egg. If it’s still a little too runny, cook them for longer. Try not to reboil the egg for longer than 10-12 minutes total.
How to Enjoy Boiled Eggs
The first part is answering the question – how do you get the eggs out of their shells if they are still hot? Try giving them a bath in ice or ice water. Cooling them down will make them easy to handle. Then, tap a hardboiled egg on the counter in one place. You will have some small pieces at the place where you hit it, but in general you should be able to break off the shells in large chunks keep your eggs free of eggshells.
Once they are peeled, there are so many ways to enjoy them from making egg salad sandwiches to slicing them up and putting them onto a chef salad. Hardboiled eggs are also great for picnics and road trips where you want to take a quick, cheap, and easy source of protein with you.
So, is are eggs easy and safe to reboil? Yes, as long as the first time you cooked the egg you cooked it softly, the egg still has room to boil some more before it gets hard.
Final Thoughts
- The first time you boil the egg boil it on the low side, the soft side, which gives you more flexibility for reboiling later on if you decide on a different way of consuming the egg
- Hardboiled eggs are great for a variety of recipes, so if you over boil them and cook them hard, rest assured you can still find a lot of different ways to consume eggs
- You can also reboil just part of an egg. If you peel the egg and find it has not cooked all the way through, take off the soft boiled piece and put it back in the water without the shell, it will cook more
- It’s not a good idea to try to reboil or cook eggs in the microwave. It might work in a pinch, but you run the risk of a big mess and egg that is cooked differently throughout
- Don’t fret too much about boiling eggs, they are cheap enough that you can experiment until you find exactly what you like