There must be a dozen uses for hard boiled eggs and as many (if not more) theories on how to prepare them! I make large batches of hard boiled eggs for easy, high protein breakfasts and lunch box staples as well as for egg salad and deviled eggs. Before the Instapot, I could never be sure the eggs would peel easily or be fully cooked.
Hard boiled eggs are one of those foods that people perceive as being easy to make, but actually can go wrong in a hundred ways- especially when it’s time to peel them. It’s easy to fail, and sometimes it’s just a mystery as to what went wrong. It’s even more challenging if you are using organic eggs- which I do. For some reason, the organic eggs are notoriously more difficult to peel than non-organic eggs. I think the shells are thicker and firmer. Organic eggs are extra delicious though, and full of lots of extra nutrients if pasture raised, so I’m not going to hold it against them, or stop using them. Organic or not, all eggs could use this super simple method of hard boiling.
This is where the Instapot saved the day! It’s the easiest process ever and I can have hard boiled eggs ready to go in about 20 minutes. The Instapot is kind enough to beep at me when the pressure cook section is over, so I don’t even have to really pay much attention to the timing!
Watch the less than 45 second video to see how it’s done.
- Place the rack in the bottom of the Instapot.
- It will fit up to a dozen eggs in a single layer. You can do less, I haven’t tried more.
- Add 1 cup of water.
- Secure the lid and move the steam vent to closed so it can build pressure.
- Set the pot to 5 minute pressure cook.
- Walk away, day dream, locate half awake children to chide and cajole until they are getting ready for school like you asked 20 minutes ago.
- When the pressure cook is finished, get your bowl of ice water ready.
- After the pressure cooker has naturally released steam for 7 minutes (which will not actually look like steam leaving the machine), manually release the steam, open the Instapot, and get the eggs in the ice bath.
- The shells will practically pop off the eggs if you give them the full five minutes in the ice bath. (I suppose you could dip a kid in the ice bath too if one of them is particularly droopy.)