Hard-boiled eggs are one of those foods that is a go-to for many people. Not only can we eat them with a little salt, but we can also make them into anything from deviled eggs to egg salad. The problem is, we sometimes end up with that gross green ring around the yoke.
The good news is, the green ring does not have to happen. In fact, it’s your fault that it is happening in the first place, but once you know how to boil an egg properly, you can get rid of it right away.
It all starts before you cut open the egg to see that green or black ring that is around the egg yolk. Once that happens, it is really too late to correct things. It all starts with cooking the egg properly. Quite simply, if you see the discoloration, it means that the egg was cooked for too long. Just like overcooking any type of food will spoil it in some way or another, eggs show the fact that they were overcooked with that unwanted ring.
It may be that you want to actually understand what the ring is. When you see the green or gray color around the yolk of the egg, it means that iron sulfide is forming. The egg yolk begins to react with hydrogen sulfide that comes from the white of the egg once the overcooking takes place. It’s harmless but definitely unwanted.
There’s a simple way to avoid the problem. You just need to cook the eggs properly. Boiling the egg for the proper amount of time will get rid of the issue because it only happens when the egg is overcooked. That being said, there’s more than one way to boil an egg, but you might want to consider using this method:
1. Cook your eggs in a saucepan that’s large enough to hold the eggs in a single layer.
2. Cover the eggs with water, bring to a boil, then turn off the heat. Put a lid on the saucepan.
Let the eggs sit in the boiled water for 15 minutes.
3. Run cold water on them to stop them from cooking any further.
That’s all there is to it!