This No-Peel Hard-Boiled Egg Hack from TikTok Will Change the Way You Make Egg Salad

We've all been there—standing at the kitchen sink, flicking bits and shards of eggshell from our fingers as we try to peel a hard-boiled egg as gently and carefully as possible. Maybe you run the water, hoping it will somehow rinse the shell from the egg. Sheaths of perfectly good egg white come off along with shell fragments. You go for a big piece of shell only to have it crumble, leaving the incredible edible egg looking kinda gnarly. Will I need to boil more eggs? Do I need to run to the store, again, you may think as you exhale, exasperated. Eleven more eggs to go. The cycle of hope and defeat can be tiresome.

Try these: Healthy Egg Salad Recipes

Peeling hard-boiled eggs is just one of those tasks: mundane, simple and still it can be amazingly difficult. There are a million ways to cook and peel hard-boiled eggs, from the Julia Child way to the EatingWell way. But, TikTokker Jamie Fielding (@jamiefielding_), who specializes in mindful nutrition and kitchen hacks and has amassed a following of more than 72,000, may have come up with the most resourceful, least aggravating eggshell-removal method of them all. (Note: This hack is for egg salad, breakfast sandwiches and other chopped salad and poached egg preparations, and not for deviled eggs.)

3 Easy Steps for No-Peel Hard-Boiled Eggs

1. Using a paper towel and 2 teaspoons of oil, grease a nonstick loaf pan.

2. Crack eggs into the pan.

3. Place the pan into a baking dish filled about one-third of the way with water and put the whole thing in a 350°F oven for 30 minutes.

That's right! You just eliminate the egg shells altogether before cooking the eggs. The whites come out tender and the yolks are firm—no green ring or off-putting sulfuric smell, just a delicious loaf of eggs.

We tested the method out ourselves and it is as easy as it looks! Using a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan, eight eggs fit nicely in one single layer. Cracking fewer than seven eggs may cause some of the batch to fry or over cook, and using 10 or more eggs may take longer to cook or cook the eggs unevenly.

In the video, avocado oil is used when greasing the loaf pan, but you can use whatever oil you prefer, or nonstick spray. (Even if some of the eggs stick, it won't affect the look of your egg salad anyway.) If you scoop or cut out the individual eggs, they're also the perfect size for English muffin breakfast sandwiches or an excellent workaround for eggs Benedict.

Although you could use a round pan, a loaf pan works best because the high sides help the eggs cook more gently, so the surface doesn't become crispy. Plus, a loaf pan will fit nicely in most baking dishes. The water in the dish should rise to about the level of the eggs in the pan. The water also helps gently cook the eggs, creating an atmosphere of moist heat, rather than dry.

After you slide the egg loaf from the pan to the cutting board, chopping couldn't be easier and you've skipped the labor-intensive step of peeling! Thank you, Jamie!