The Cooking Technique That Ina Garten Swears By For Scrambled Eggs

When it comes to scrambled eggs, it's all about preferences. All you have to do is survey some of those recipes from everyone's favorite celebrity chefs and you can see how varied the preparation can be. Per Insider, Alton Brown likes to use simple ingredients when he makes this dish. Brown sticks to "eggs, salt, pepper, milk, and butter" and shared with Food Network that he gets his scrambled eggs out of the pan before they are done because they continue to cook on the plate. 

Martha Stewart is even more minimal than Brown with her ingredients for scrambled eggs, keeping it to just eggs, unsalted butter, and pepper, with her signature touch being continuous movement of the eggs as they cook. And Pop Sugar shares Paula Dean's scrambled eggs are incredibly unique, using Vidalia onions, water instead of milk, and bacon fat to cook them in. There is a lot of variation with this egg favorite.

Well, add Ina Garten to that list because on top of adding a decadent ingredient to her scrambled eggs, the Barefoot Contessa has a scrambled egg technique she swears by that she says will create soft and fluffy scrambled eggs every time.

Before naysayers can do their thing, Ina Garten shares in a Food Network video on Youtube that her scrambled eggs will "impress even your mother-in-law." To start, Garten uses her favorite extra large eggs and whisks them with some half and half, and salt and pepper. She goes on to explain that she cooks her scrambled eggs low and slow because "protein gets tough when it's on a high heat." 

But it's Garten's technique of leaving the eggs to warm-up in the pan and set for three to five minutes before she takes a spatula to them that will keep you talking. The cookbook author explains this is key to getting the texture soft and fluffy. Even as you begin to fold the eggs over and over with your spatula, Garten stresses patience is essential. So, don't turn up the heat to try and hurry your scrambled eggs.  

Garten's method may seem unconventional, but a home cook told Kitchn she too likes to let the eggs set in the pan before she starts scrambling them because this method creates a larger curd that is a bit runny.