My family always dyed dozens of hard-cooked eggs for Easter. The perfect way to use the decorated, hunted, and gathered eggs was for mom to make egg salad. This is a great way to enjoy your Easter eggs or a half-dozen hard-boiled eggs any other day of the year.
In the world of sandwiches, there are two types of people: Those who love egg salad and those who loathe it. Too many egg salad sandwiches swim in mayo, smell sulfurous, taste bland, and are served on soggy white bread. Done well, egg salad is creamy and chunky, studded with piquant bits of add-in ingredients. If you know how to properly hard-cook eggs and get the mayonnaise ratio right (less is better), the rest of the recipe is up to you, and there are plenty of ways to make it your own.
Cooking for Success
Great egg salad starts with properly cooked eggs. You want the yolk to be firm, yellow, and moist with no greenish-gray tint and sulfur smell – a sign that the egg has spent too long in hot water and is most likely overcooked.
My foolproof method goes like this: Place room-temperature eggs in a medium saucepan. Add enough tap water to cover 1½ inch. When the water reaches a low boil, pull the pan off the heat, cover it, and set the timer for 15 minutes (20 minutes if you want the yolk to be a little more crumbly). The time will vary due to your altitude. Drain off the hot water and shake the pan a bit to give the eggs small cracks; this helps them peel more easily. Transfer the eggs to a bowl of ice water. When the eggs are completely cool, remove them from the pan and store them in the refrigerator, or peel them under running water and use them immediately.
Salad Preparation
How you cut up your eggs is up to you – sliced, coarsely chopped, finely diced, mashed, etc. Mashing them with a fork will work, too. If you want to go lighter on fat and calories, leave out a few of the yolks. Mayonnaise is what binds egg salad together, but you do not need much. For six large eggs, start by mixing in 3 tablespoons of mayo, gently mashing it into the cooked eggs with a fork. Add more as needed if you want a moister texture. Alternatively, skip the mayo altogether and substitute plain Greek-style yogurt.
Add-Ins
You’ll get a pretty boring egg salad with just eggs, mayo, and salt. The list of what you can add to an egg salad sandwich is only limited by your imagination and taste buds. Instead, make your egg salad come alive by mixing and matching these add-ins:
- Binder: First, pick your binder. Beyond mayonnaise, there’s aïoli (garlic mayonnaise), flavored mayonnaise, a mayonnaise/Dijon or honey mustard blend, Russian dressing, Greek yogurt, and a variety of sandwich spreads.
- Raw Vegetables: Add crunch and flavor with two of the following: bell pepper, carrot, celery, cucumber, minced jalapeno, onion (green, red, Spanish, or sweet), shallots, and radishes.
- Pickles: Capers, sliced pickled vegetables, pickle relish, and their “cousin” on the relish tray – pimento-stuffed olives and/or black olives.
- Fruit: Add apple slices, diced avocado, grapes halves, or raisins
- Herbs: Try a different herb each time to see which you like best: basil, chives, dill, prepared horseradish, marjoram, parsley, tarragon, and other favorites.
- Spices: Celery seed, Chinese mustard, curry, cumin, mustard, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, salt and pepper add personality.
- Add-Ons: Crumbled bacon, diced ham, tuna, sliced almonds, poppy seeds, sunflower seeds, and cheeses.
- Garniture: Arugula, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, roasted red peppers, and sundried tomatoes in olive oil.
- Bread: Egg salad and whole-grain bread are a natural pairing, but a bagel, croissant, pita, wrap, and artisan loaves also make great sandwiches. Toast the bread to add some character.
- Bread Alternative: Serve the egg salad in a scooped-out tomato or red bell pepper or in lettuce leaf cups.
Soggy Sandwich?
As for the sog factor, I can offer a few fixes, the first being to assemble the sandwich right before you eat it or serve it on toasted bread. The egg salad itself can counter this tendency; make sure the eggs are not overcooked, chill them well before chopping, and add a tablespoon of very fine bread crumbs to the salad. Cut celery releases a lot of water, so if you want to avoid this, eliminate the celery and substitute a pinch of celery seed for flavor or just chop up some celery leaves instead. You can also sprinkle it on just before eating.
Layer bread, condiment, well-dried arugula, watercress, or spinach, and then the egg salad. Top with more lettuce (avoid iceberg) or a slice of cheese, and then the remaining slice of bread.
Storage
Refrigerated boiled eggs will be kept for about a week. Egg salad should be kept chilled at all times. Store egg salad in an air-tight container in a refrigerator for one to two days. If you are using egg salad on a buffet table, keep it on ice. If that is not an option, discard leftovers that have been sitting out for more than two hours.
Once you have the basic egg salad recipe down, the sky’s the limit!
Written by Vicki Hayman, MS, University of Wyoming Extension Nutrition and Food Safety Educator
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