Egg salad

I prefer eating my egg salad the classic way, like my mum used to serve it to me. But since classic egg salad is made with far too much mayonaise I replaced part of it with crème fraîche. That makes the egg salad more digestible but leaves it at least as creamy and delicious as recipes that only use mayonnaise for the dressing.

The recipe for my egg salad is very simple and does not require a long preparation time. In about 20 minutes egg salad is ready to be eaten. Eggs that have already been boiled reduce the prep time by about 5 minutes.

Tips and information for handling eggs

Instructions with all the steps and the list of ingredients for your egg salad can be found in the recipe card below. For tips and more informations just keep reading.

How do I know if the eggs are still fresh?

I think everyone has experienced this before. You just finished your grocery shopping and put your eggs into the fridge. Unfortunately, you threw away the egg carton what leaves you with no the best before date. But don’t panic. It’s easy to find out if you can still use the eggs for your salad or if you should throw them away. Get a large glass and fill it with water. Now put the egg in the glass. If it sinks and stays lengthwise at the bottom of the glass the egg is still fresh and can be used for all dishes without hesitation. If the egg stands up but stays on the ground it’s still reasonably fresh. It can still be used but in this case it should definitely be hard-boiled or completely cooked through. If the egg floats on the surface of the water you better dump it.

After cooking the eggs have a greenish-grey border between yolk and egg white. Are they still edible?

Don’t worry. The eggs are still edible. You just overcooked them. If the cooking time is exceeded iron sulphide can be formed leading to that kind of discoloration. They just don’t look very tasty but it doesn’t harm you in any way if you still eat them.

Some eggs burst while cooking. What have I done wrong?

You really didn’t do anything wrong. Even pricking the egg would most likely would have lead to a bursted egg. Some time ago a TV channel at my place conducted a test in which 3,000 eggs were boiled. Half of the eggs were pierced the other half remained unharmed. Regardless of whether it was pierced or not about 1 egg at of 10 did burst during cooking. Just make sure to handle the eggs very gently as even small hairline cracks in the eggshell can lead to a damage during the cooking process.

My eggs are difficult to peel. What did I do wrong?

You didn’t do anything wrong here either. Whether you chill your egg or not will not affect how easily the shell can be removed. How easy it is to peel your eggs depends on the storage time. Fresh eggs are more difficult to peel while eggs that have been stored for at least 10 days are easier to peel.

What ingredients do you need for the egg salad?

My egg salad recipe is very classic and only needs a few other ingredients. In addition to the eggs, you only need mayonnaise, crème fraîche, a teaspoon of medium-hot mustard and fresh herbs. I like my egg salad best with chives and a few sprigs of parsley.

How is the egg salad prepared?

Bring enough water to a boil in a saucepan. Then add a pinch of salt and let the eggs cook for about 10 minutes. While the eggs are cooking you can take care of the dressing. After you have washed half a bunch of chives and 4 sprigs of parsley all you have to do is cut them into rings or chop them finely. Then mix the herbs with ½ cup of crème fraîche (about 100g), ¼ cup of mayonnaise (about 50g) and 1 tablespoon medium hot mustard.

Drain the cooked eggs and let them cool down a bit. After you have peeled the eggs you can cut them into fine cubes. Now mix the eggs with the dressing and season to taste with salt and pepper.

How long can the egg salad be stored?

You should always store your egg salad in a well-sealed container in the fridge and eat it the next day. Make sure you only take the egg salad out of the fridge to portion it. Storage outside fridge can cause the egg salad to go bad in no time. This is especially true in summer and also if you didn’t buy the mayo for the salad but made it fresh from raw eggs. If the egg salad was on the table for several hours like when having a barbecue party you should no longer eat the egg salad for health reasons. Just get rid of it.

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