Deviled eggs are the Rodney Dangerfield of party foods: they get no respect. But bring a plate of them and they’ll all disappear. You can add all kinds of extras to them, make them look fancy if you want. As long as you get the basics right you’ll have a winner.
Ingredients
1 dozen large eggs
1 cup mayonnaise
Mayonnaise
3 egg yolks
3 tablespoons white vinegar
3 teaspoons mustard powder
1 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 cups olive pomace oil
3 tablespoons secret ingredient
Directions
Start by hard-boiling the eggs. Put the eggs in a pot that’s large enough for all of them to be in a single layer with some room to spare. Add a couple of tablespoons of salt. Don’t bother measuring, it’s just to raise the boiling temperature of the water a little bit.
Fill the pot with cold water so the eggs are covered by at least a half-inch.
Turn the heat on high until the water boils. If any of the eggs are cracked, you’ll end up with a little egg drop soup. Don’t worry about it, you can clean it out when you’re done.
After the water boils remove the pot from the heat, put a lid on, and set a timer for 20 minutes.
After the 20 minutes, rinse the eggs in cold water until they’re cool enough to handle.
Peel all the eggs, and rinse them with cold water to make sure there are no pieces of shell left on them.
I’ve never done a dozen eggs without a least one or two falling apart a little bit when I peel them. That’s why I always cook a couple more than I think I’m going to need. Worst case is I have some extras.
Slice each egg lengthwise. The one on the left is what you want them to look like. The one on the right is the one that was cracked. Some of the white leaked out in the water, but it’s still perfectly edible.
Pop the yolks out. This one had the yolk a little bit off center, so the cavity in one side is really shallow.
If you can see that the yolk is close to one side, slice through that side. That way both halves will have the same amount of space.
Separate the “pretty” halves from the “rejects”. Don’t worry, we’ll use them later. Keep all the yolks in a separate bowl.
Making the mayo
Put the egg yolks and vinegar in the narrowest cup your stick blender will fit in. Blend for a couple of seconds until they form an emulsion. Add the salt and mustard powder and half the oil. Blend again until it is thick. Pour the rest of the oil in slowly, mixing constantly.
Add a cup of the mayonnaise to the yolks and start breaking them up with a fork.
If you made your own mayo with the mustard powder, or if you like your deviled eggs mild, that’s it for the ingredients. I like a little zing, so I add two or three tablespoons of my secret ingredient. I hope you can’t guess from this picture what it is.
Keep mixing the yolks and mayo until smooth and creamy. Add more mayo if you need it to get the right consistency.
You can put the filling in a pastry bag with a star tip to fill the whites. I like the rustic look. (I also like not having to clean little nozzles.)
Don’t forget to fill the rejects. Deviled eggs don’t all make it out of the kitchen anyway, you might as well eat the ones that you can’t serve to guests.
Arrange the filled eggs and refrigerate until you’re ready to serve them.
And that’s it.
Okay, that’s not it. Some people think you have to add the paprika.
You can’t really taste it, but it looks kind of nice I suppose.
So do you spell it “deviled egg” with one “l” or “devilled egg” with two? My spellchecker says it’s one “l” but according to Google it’s more common with two.
Since Fiona suggested deviled eggs when I asked for ideas, she’ll be getting an eBook version of my cookbook. (Fiona, send me an email so I can send it.)
Stay tuned to see who else is getting a copy. If you want one, send me a suggestion at requests@cooklikeyourgrandmother.com. If I make it I’ll send you a copy of the book.
79 Comments
Leftover deviled eggs? Huh? Kathy, you must have gotten a plate of them from my mother in law because I’ve never heard of leftover deviled eggs from any other source ever! Her jalapeno cornbread stuffing is to die for, however, don’t want to talk too bad about her and jinx myself against ever getting the stuffing recipe.
Genie, I expect you to share when you get that recipe. I don’t believe in keeping secret recipes. Would you rather be known as the person who makes the greatest cookies in the neighborhood, or as the person who invented chocolate chip cookies?
I promise. But the mother-in-law is huge on recipe secrets. I got mad because she wouldn’t share her wine cake recipe and so I finally Googled it. I made several (that tasted exactly like hers) before I started feeling too guilty and stopped making them. I was afraid she’d catch me at it!
How ironic that a dietitian invented chocolate chip cookies.
Just add Tuna fish to the mix, that’s the way we prepare it in Spain and put in the top a black olive
I make the best Deviled Eggs ever! I use mayo, French’s Mustard, apple cider vinegar (just a touch), lemon juice (just a touch), pickle relish, a little salt and pepper, and of course the hard boiled eggs. You should try it, you’ll never go back. Then sprinkle a touch of paprika over the top of them when you’re done.
Are you from the south? The only people I’ve heard from who do the pickles are from the south.
Finally a deviled egg recipe that almost matches the one i grew up on, of course, we used store bought mayo instead and yellow mustard. No pickles, pimento, olives or any other “wierd” stuff for me. And foe pete’s sake they should not be sweet!
Amy, I was starting to think I was the only one.
The double -l appears to have to do with the stress of the final syllable, based on your examples.
Yes, picle juice is a southern thing. My granny was a proper southern lady, and she always added pickle juice (homemade lime-water pickle juice) to her deviled eggs. Bread-and-butter pickle juice would do in a pinch.
I think she’d agree with you that people add too much pickle juice — it can’t overwhelm the other flavors!
Fine recipe! I hard boil eggs the same way you do. An easy way to peel them, and to avoid the missing chunks of white: tap the egg on the side wall of the sink, roll it around against the sink wall a bit (you’ll feel the shell cracking finely as you do, so you’ll know when you’ve cracked it all over), then hold it under running cold water and gently push a bit of the shell with your thumb. The whole shebang will slide off, and the water will flush off any stray bits. Lori
Anony, believe me I’ve tried. I’m convinced that it’s all about having the right eggs and how you cook them. Once those two steps are done right any method will work. Do them wrong and you’re screwed.
I only read about 2/3 of the comments, so perhaps someone has already made my suggestion, but another way to give your devilled (I prefer the “ll” spelling) eggs some zip is to add a couple of tablespoons (or more, depending upon your taste and how runny the filling is getting)of horseradish–it’s the perfect complement to the mayonnaise.
Jan, nope, no one else mentioned that yet. Sounds like something I’d like and my family would hate. Maybe I’ll sneak a little in, then keep making another batch every weekend all summer, by August I’ll have them nice and spicy.
I’m from Wisconsin and wouldn’t like them without the pickle relish juice……the best is the juice from my home made refrigerator pickle (which is a bread and butter pickle that is not cooked)….. i like the tartness of the added vinegar
Eydie, when did you start using the pickle juice? What I mean is, who did you first hear it from? I find that seemingly-odd combinations like this tend to come from a region or a time with unusual circumstances. And there tend to be a lot of other unusual recipes that may not have become as popular. I love finding those old recipes.
Drew:
I think it just made sense to me that if vinegar was a good addition, why not try the vinegar from the bread and butter refrigerator pickle I just made recently…..it would have the subtleness of the marinated fresh onion and cucumber and dill besides…..:)
Cool. I thought you started from adding pickles and ended up with just the juice. You started with the vinegar and ended up with pickle vinegar. I guess I’ve heard of more people adding relish to their deviled eggs than adding vinegar, so it didn’t occur to me you’d be coming from that direction.
I LOVE deviled eggs. Oh, those pictures make me feel so hungry.
I have a tip!
If you don’t have pastry bag:
Can put mayo/yolk/mustard mixture into sandwich sized ziplock bag and snip a little hole at one corner, and then squeeze mix out.
(I so badly wish I had eggs in the house right now!! Must go get some.)
I am LAZY! So to save a sloppy mess and an extra bowl to clean up I put the eggs yolks, vinegar, etc. into a ziploc bag and mush it all together. Then cut a small hole in one of the bottom corners and presto! you have yourself a disposable pastry bag! hope this helps!
Nicola, that’s awesome! I’m the king of saving bowls so I don’t have to clean them. I don’t know why I never though to just mix it right in the bag.
Here’s the art of hard-boiled eggs as given to me by my grandmother. Make sure the eggs are at least 4 days old. If not the whites won’t set up right. (We used to keep chickens.) Put them in a pot with cold water to cover and a little bit more with some room to spare around the eggs; never more than 8 eggs at a time. Use cold water so you can time the cooking more accurately than with warm or hot. Put on the stove on high. Just when it starts to boil set the timer for 10 minutes. When the 10 minutes are up as fast as you can get the hot water out of the pan and let the cold water run hard on them for as long as you can stand to listen to it. I was told the secret to getting the eggs to peel without getting ripped up is getting them all cold as fast as possible, and not over-cooking them, which is why the yolks can go greenish. Have you tried the tiniest bit of sweet pickle relish in the deviled part?
melanieo, I’ve read lots of people saying to cool them down quickly, but it was always for general food safety reasons. This is the first I’ve heard that it helps with the peeling. Next batch I’ll try some with the running water and some I’ll just leave out, see if I notice a difference.
As for the relish, no I haven’t but a few people mentioned it up above. Are you (or your grandmother) from the south? That seems to be where the sweet relish in deviled eggs comes from.
Have you ever tried putting horseradish in your deviled eggs? It’s amazing.
Someone else mentioned that. I’ve got a few boiled eggs in the fridge, and some horesradish sauce. Think I’ll give this a try.
To L or LL:
A long time ago,I learned that if the the emphasis is on the syllable before the “L”, the “L” is doubled. If not, the “L” remains single.
my mom in law passed away last month and she was the develled egg guru. This kind of looks like the way she does it but i don't remember her using oil, is the oil required or recommended?
Ginger, the oil is only in there if you're making your own mayonnaise. Otherwise, the only ingredients are the eggs, mayo and mustard.
Mmm, devil(l)ed eggs. My sister-in-law made some at Thanksgiving with Miracle Whip (against my strenuous objections…gag), so now I want some that aren't totally nauseating. Your blog has been good to me, so I figured this was a good place to start for a recipe! I'm looking forward to these.
A note on the application of the yolk mixture back into the whites–my mom always put the yolks in a plastic baggie and nipped off one of the corners. Works like the pastry bag, but without the mess
I've done the Ziploc too. Only thing is it has to be very smooth, and I usually start filling them before I get there.
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