Home cooks are transforming classic scrambled eggs into an aesthetic culinary display, drawing inspiration from the popular tornado-shaped scrambled eggs of Japan and Korea that have been trending for a while now. This new scrambled eggs food hack uses a spatula — a tool found in just about every kitchen — to craft rose-shaped scrambled eggs.  

The process starts with beating eggs, seasoned with salt and pepper or soy sauce for an extra savory touch. After heating butter or oil in a pan over medium heat, you would pour in the beaten eggs. As they start to solidify around the edges, use a spatula to push one edge of the eggs toward the opposite side gently and carefully. Continue this motion clockwise, gently pushing one side of the egg across to the other, creating a swirling pattern. The objective is to create a single, unified scrambled egg piece resembling a rose or flower shape, taking care not to chop or break the egg into pieces.

Once the rose shape forms, give the scrambled eggs a flip in the pan if you'd like, or remove them from the pan and serve immediately. You don't want to overcook this dish; if you do, the insides of the scrambled eggs won't remain velvety. The spatula hack folding technique creates layers of eggs, offering a mix of slightly crispy edges and soft, creamy centers in each bite.

Serving options are plentiful: Pair your rose-shaped scrambled eggs with toast, drizzle it with chili crisp for an added spicy zing, or accompany it with your favorite sides for breakfast. Garnishings can range from chopped chives or scallions to fried garlic or shallots to furikake and pork floss. Consider adding a pop of color with sauces, like Tabasco or ketchup.

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In contrast, the tornado scrambled eggs — a likely precursor to this trend — involve using chopsticks to pull the eggs towards the center while swirling the eggs or the pan itself to create a vortex effect. Once cooked, these eggs are often served over dome-shaped rice, resembling an edible tall tornado, and accompanied with tomato sauce or Japanese curry. The effect is visually stunning. The eggs remained creamy and slightly undercooked.

The chopsticks technique requires more finesse and practice; hence, the spatula hack for rose-shaped eggs appears to be an easier alternative for everyday home cooks. You'll still be able to create a stunning swirl effect with a spatula with a little practice. And while it won't look as refined as the tornado egg, your homemade rose-shaped scrambled egg will still make an impression. 

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The boiled egg may just be one of nature's perfect foods — well, nature in combination with a little bit of culinary art, that is. Unless there's a lost tribe of chickens living in a volcano somewhere, we doubt any of the species are capable of laying eggs that come out pre-cooked. Boiled eggs deliver plenty of protein, lots of vitamins and minerals, and hardly any carbs — all in a neat, compact, and modest 75-calorie package that's easy to crack open (and entirely biodegradable). 

While boiled eggs are perfectly fine with just a sprinkle of salt and pepper, you can add a few additional ingredients and turn them into egg salad, deviled eggs, Scotch eggs, and shoyu tamago (those are the marinated eggs that go perfectly with a bowl of ramen).

Boiling an egg might seem like a pretty straightforward process, but there's always room for improvement. One problem with boiled eggs comes when trying to remove the shells, only to find that large chunks of the cooked egg white come off, too. Some of the hacks on this list are meant to help prevent that from happening, while others include various ways to boil eggs without a pot of water. We've also included tips on how to make sure your eggs are cooked for the proper amount of time along with advice on infusing them with flavor as they boil.

When first you set out to boil an egg, it's best to know just how cooked you want that egg to be. They can range from soft eggs with runny yolks (and still slightly wobbly whites) to hard-cooked ones where both the whites and yolks are completely firm. You may want an egg with a slightly soft yolk to top off a bowl of noodles or a salad, while a much firmer yolk works best for sauce gribiche. Egg Info has provided a handy guide for how long to boil an egg in order for it to reach each different stage. 

In order to time your eggs just right, start with a pan of cold water and begin the timing once the water begins to boil. A cooking time of three minutes makes for an egg with a really soft yolk and semi-soft white. After four minutes, you'll have one where the white is mostly set but the yolk's still runny. At five minutes, the white of the egg will be firm and contain jammy yolk. The yolk of a six-minute egg will still be a bit soft, while seven minutes of cooking leads to a standard hard-boiled egg. After eight to 10 minutes, your eggs will come out extra well-done. The times given are for large eggs, so you'll need to subtract a minute for medium ones and add one on if you're cooking the extra-large kind.

When it comes to anything food-related, fresh is always best, right? Well, not in every instance. Some things are better with a little age on them, like fine wines, ripe cheeses, and eggs. Yes, eggs! In his classic "On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen," food scientist Harold McGee advises that "the best guarantee of easy peeling is to use old eggs!" (Yes, he uses the exclamation point and everything, so obviously he has strong feelings on the subject.) The reason for this is that the albumen of older eggs has a higher pH, which causes it to cling less tightly to the shell membrane once the egg has been cooked.

This is all very well and good, but as Wired points out, eggs are getting fresher and fresher these days as our food supply chain becomes more efficient. Both artisanal eggs and the plain old factory-farmed supermarket kind are practically whisked right from the nest to store shelves without much ripening time. Luckily, McGee has a simple solution for this: He suggests adding half a teaspoon of baking soda per quart of water used to boil the eggs, although it might make them taste a tad like sulfur. Eggs are already on the sulfurous side, though, so you may not notice much difference in flavor.

The one problem with using older eggs for boiling is that while their higher, more alkaline ph makes them easier to peel, it could also make them more prone to cracking. How can you fix that problem? The Survival Freedom website suggests adding a small amount of vinegar to the cooking water. It is to be noted that the vinegar won't actually prevent the eggshell from developing cracks as it cooks. Instead, it will work on the albumen inside the shell, strengthening it so that if the shell does crack, the egg white will stay inside the sac instead of spilling out into the boiling water. The vinegar also helps the egg whites to congeal more quickly, and a congealed white is not a leaky white.

You can use any type of vinegar for your egg water, and lemon juice will work as well. But distilled white vinegar is bound to be the cheapest option. As for the amount you'll need, they suggest 2 teaspoons per cup or about 3 tablespoons per quart. (2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons if you want to adhere to the exact ratio.) Do not, however, let your eggs sit in the vinegar water after you've finished cooking them, as vinegar will eventually dissolve the shells. Instead, remove the eggs from the hot water (a slotted spoon will help with this) and let them sit in a cold-water bath to help loosen the shells before peeling.

Oil and water do not mix, or so the old saying goes. Although as the Institute of Food Technology Magazine points out, they definitely do mix when it comes to the process of emulsion. Still, that's neither here nor there as far as our next egg hack goes. Here we are relying on adding oil to water — not combining them — to help make the boiled eggs easier to peel.

As per Bowl of Delicious, if you pour a tablespoon or two of any cooking oil into the pot that you're boiling the eggs in, it will manage to penetrate the porous shells and somehow form a layer of lubrication between the membrane and the egg white. This means that when it comes time to peel the eggs, the shells will just slide right off! Well, kind of. It's not quite that easy, but it's allegedly a lot easier to de-shell oiled boiled eggs versus the kind that's been cooked in water alone.

With eggshells being so porous, why not boil eggs in broth or some similar flavoring agent? While you don't see too many recipes calling for this technique, several cooks on Stack Exchange's Seasoned Advice forum swear that it does work and is something they do all the time. As one forum user explains, "while the egg is still uncooked, it will take on the tastes of outside ingredients fairly easily." As the white hardens, it becomes resistant to picking up any flavors in the water. But during those first few minutes of boiling time, it will be receptive to them.

One cook notes that they "can always tell the difference" if they've boiled eggs in water with vinegar or without. Another cook shares that they "routinely throw eggs in seafood boils and sometimes boil only eggs in crab boil or other seasonings (Old Bay, etc.)." Still another person shares how 7-Elevens in Taiwan boil eggs in a slow cooker with tea bags, saying that "the eggs turn out brown all the way through [and] longer cook[ing] results in a deeper brown color." These tea eggs, which are also a popular snack in China and other Asian countries, don't just pick up the color, they also get plenty of flavor from the tea and other seasonings used in their preparation.

Whether you received an Instant Pot for the holidays or bought one on Black Friday, you may be on the lookout for cooking techniques that puts this wonder appliance to work. Some Instant Pot enthusiasts insist that pressure-cooking is the very best way to boil an egg — as per A Mind Full Mom blog, Instant Pot boiled eggs are absolutely "FOOL-PROOF" (shouting intended). They go on to explain that Instant Pot boiled eggs have yolks that never turn green and their shells just slip right off.

If you'd like to give Instant Pot egg cooking a try, just follow the "rule of fives," meaning it should take five minutes for the pot to heat/pressure up (your results may vary), five minutes to cook the eggs, five more minutes to release the steam, and then a final five minutes for the eggs to soak in cold water. (So, about the same amount of time as boiling eggs on the stove.) To get started, pour a cup of cold water into the inner pot, place the eggs on a rack (they make special egg racks if you do this a lot), seal the pot, and set it to cook on high pressure for five minutes. Once the time is up, let the steam release naturally for five minutes, then carefully remove the eggs to a bowl of cold water for the final five-minute increment.

If you haven't succumbed to peer pressure-cooking and are proudly Instant Pot-free, you may be interested to know that the good old slow cooker can make for a perfect egg boiling device. This is a great way to cook them if you want boiled eggs on hand to use in a recipe to be named later, but you don't need them right away. As with most crockpot cookery, this egg cooking method is pretty set-and-forget.

While there are those who claim that eggs can be cooked in the crockpot without using any water, this method has never worked for them. Besides, tap water is basically free, so no need to omit it. Instead, put your eggs in the pot in a single layer, cover them with water, then add some salt. Cook the eggs on high for 2 ½ hours, but don't let the pot switch over to the "keep warm" setting once they're done. After 2 ½ hours, a few more minutes of heat probably won't hurt the eggs too much, but it's best to get them out of hot water and into a cold bath soon after the cooking time is up. After a few minutes of chilling in cold water, these slow-boiled eggs will be ready to peel and eat.

Even if you don't have a slow cooker, you may still be able to get in on the egg-cooking gadgetry as long as you own a 12-cup coffee maker. Even a smaller one might work — LeafTV notes that you should be able to fit two eggs into the mini coffee pots that come as standard equipment in many motel rooms. A standard coffee carafe, however, may fit up to half a dozen eggs.

To commence the coffee pot egg cookery, fill the water reservoir up all the way, put your eggs in the carafe, and then just hit the start button. The coffee maker will heat the water to near-boiling, pour it over the eggs, and then keep the burner warm while they cook. After five or six minutes, you'll have soft-boiled eggs, while 10 to 12 minutes will give you hard-boiled ones. Keep the eggs in the carafe as you carefully pour out the hot water, then fill it up with cold water and let the eggs sit until they are cool enough to peel.

Long before home sous vide machines were readily available, kitchen hackers discovered that you could obtain a similar effect via cooking foods in your dishwasher. If you're firing up the machine solely for the purpose of cooking your eggs, it's neither a time nor energy-efficient method. If you don't mind multitasking, however, you can always boil up a batch of eggs while you use the dishwasher for its intended purpose.

But wait, you may ask, won't the eggs taste all soapy? After all, we just explained how shells are porous and flavors in the water can seep into the egg whites. Well, the secret to dishwasher cooking lies in creating an air (and soap)-tight seal. What you're going to need to do is to find some screw-top glass jars to hold your eggs. Put the eggs in the jars, fill the jars up with water, screw on the lids, and let the dishwasher run. Assuming your water temperature is set to 140 F, an hour-long cycle will provide you with a batch of soft-boiled eggs and plenty of clean dishes to plate them.

Do you boil a bunch of eggs on a regular basis? Maybe you're following the keto diet, or you get invited to a lot of picnics. Perhaps you believe that an egg a day keeps the doctor away — whatever your reasons may be, you just may want to invest in an electric egg cooker. In fact, it's really not that much of an investment. As SF Gate enthuses, their idea of a "perfect" breakfast starts with an egg cooker they purchased for under $12. (Amazon seems to have hiked the price up to $12.75 at the time of publication — darn inflation!)

So what does an electric egg cooker do that make it worth the counter space? This one will boil half a dozen eggs just the way you like them — soft, medium, or hard — and comes with a cup that lets you measure the precise amount of water. It also comes with a tray that the eggs can stay in while you pull them out and douse them with cold water. There are even trays for cooking de-shelled eggs: cook the eggs whole and they're poached; stirred, and they become an omelet. So is this an appliance you can't live without? Maybe. But at any rate, it's cheap enough to give it a go as long as you have room in your kitchen.

All the methods of egg boiling we've covered so far have one thing in common — they involve hot water. Actually, by definition, a boiled egg pretty much requires that water be used in the cooking process. Otherwise, it's not truly boiled. Technically, then, these oven-boiled eggs are a bit of an oxymoron, but the fact that they're baked in the shells does result in an end product that's pretty darn close to the water-cooked kind. Plus, you don't need to worry about splashing yourself while pouring the boiling water down the drain.

To make these baked-boiled eggs, you'll need a muffin pan. Put an egg in each cup, then put the pan in a preheated 325 F oven. According to a handy chart put together by Wholesome Yum, after 20 minutes of cooking time, your eggs will be soft-boiled but still very runny. At 25 minutes, the eggs will be medium-boiled with soft yolks, while at 30 minutes you'll have a fully-set hard-boiled egg. Once you take the baked eggs out of the oven, you'll still need to plunge them into cold water to stop the cooking process and prepare them for peeling.

TikTok cooking hacks can be pretty hit-or-miss, but some of them are fairly legit — at least if you know what you're getting. With this viral TikTok video about making no-peel-boiled eggs, the no-peel part is true, but describing it as "boiled" is a bit of a stretch. In fact, these are just baked eggs —pure and simple. The same ones you'd get if you cracked eggs into muffin cups, ramekins, or avocado halves.

The twist here seems to be that the eggs are cooked not in individual servings, but in a loaf pan. The TikTok creator just cracks the eggs into a greased pan, and places that pan into a larger one that's been half-filled with water (this is called a bain-marie if you want the proper terminology). She cooks the pan at 350 F for half an hour, and the result is a solid rectangle of unembellished eggs that can be chopped up and used in egg salads or similar preparations.

Perhaps you've looked over this list and decided that you'll be sticking to the tried and true method of boiling your eggs the Merriam-Webster way, or, "subject[ing them] to the action of a boiling liquid." After all, you really can't beat a cooking method that's been serving humankind for the past 30 millennia. Still, there's one last egg-boiling hack you really ought to try, courtesy of Julia Child's BFF, Jacques Pepin. In order to perform it, all you'll need is a thumbtack (clean, of course) as well as an uncooked egg.

Once you've got the thumbtack in one hand and the egg in the other, locate the larger end of the egg then use the tack to poke a tiny hole in the shell. Now, boil your egg as usual. What you've just done is to (maybe) allow some of the gasses to escape from inside the egg and/or let a tiny bit of the cooking water seep inside. Either or both of these events are said to help make your egg easier to peel, while the former may also keep the egg from cracking while it cooks. We may not be exactly how the thumbtack trick works, but the Pepin endorsement alone is good enough for us.

Who doesn't love Giada De Laurentiis? The sweetheart of onscreen Italian cooking offers an image of perfection, with her impeccable manicures and 1000-watt smile. And it's no surprise! Giada is descended from a famous Hollywood family: Her maternal grandfather, Dino De Laurentiis, is credited with exporting Italian cinema not just to the U.S. but to theaters around the world, according to Nicki Swift. Her mother Veronica took up the Hollywood torch, working as an actress, while her dad and brother worked as producers. Even though Giada has told outlets like Food & Wine that she never intended to follow in the footsteps of her famous family, it seems like Giada was destined for the screen!

But her culinary persona isn't just smoke and mirrors. According to her bio on the Food Network, she trained at the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris before gaining acclaim on the small screen. Her bestselling cookbooks are beloved by home cooks across the country and worldwide, with both "Giada at Home" and "Weeknights with Giada" gracing the coveted number one spot on The New York Times' list of bestsellers, according to Kitchn.

And as it turns out, her beautiful Italian dishes and charismatic, relaxed allure are totally attainable for the home cook! She's shared countless tips and tricks to help you reach culinary perfection — or, as she would say, perfezione.

Any good chef knows that a great dish starts not in the kitchen but the grocery store. And this holds particularly true for Italian cuisine, which is built on a bedrock of phenomenal ingredients. These ingredients are usually simply assembled to show off their innate qualities, Simone Scipioni, a "MasterChef" Italy winner, tells Italics Magazine.

To help home cooks cultivate this sense of elevated simplicity, Giada offers loads of tips for stocking your pantry with only the best essentials. On her site, Giadzy, she offers her take on Italian staples from balsamic vinegar (including a guide to her all-time favorite brands and bottles) to spicy Calabrian chili paste, which she puts on everything from pizza to eggs to a vinaigrette.

Unsurprisingly, given Giada's attention to detail regarding ingredients, she has a lot to say about tomatoes, AKA a stalwart staple of many Italian favorites, from soups to sauces. Not only did she produce a video taking viewers on a step-by-step tour through the tomato aisle of her local Italian grocer, she even crafted an easy-to-use shopping guide of her favorite tomato brands and products.

Growing up, if you were a "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" fan, you've probably got the phrase "hold the anchovies" seared into your brain. And we get it! Not only is Michelangelo a charismatic sort of guy, but anchovies boast a strong flavor and a slightly odd texture, described by some as hairy, furry, smelly, and oily, as per Good Food. We get it if they're just not your thing.

But — and hear us out — what if they were?

According to WebMD, the humble anchovy is a nutritional powerhouse, rich in essential, heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids, not to mention calcium, thanks to the presence of the tiny bones that give them their unique texture. A veritable superfood, they're also far more approachable if you use them not as the recipe's star but as a supporting act (via Giadzy). Giada extols the virtues of the little fish, which, she notes, are rich in umami and offer a sharp, salty taste that bumps up the flavor of a dish. Chopping them up super fine or even puréeing them can reduce any textural woes. So, too, can buying them in a paste form or as an oil known as colatura, which allows you to add only their essence to dishes. Maybe even the turtles would be on board!

If you want to piss off an Italian on Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook ... show them a video of you breaking spaghetti. Lionfield is just one pair of content creators that have made a name for themselves by reacting to videos of spaghetti torture, and it seems no torture is more, uh, torturous than someone breaking spaghetti in half.

Look, we get it. It can be hard to fit the stiff strands into one pot. This is why Giada offered the ideal solution: cooking spaghetti (and, for that matter, other long noodles like linguine and bucatini — the oddest of pandemic shortages) in a tall pot of generously seasoned boiling water. It's an investment, for sure, to add another pot to your kitchen arsenal, but the payoff is worth it, according to the chef. No more standing in wait, prodding at the noodles until they're wholly submerged. Instead, you get a perfect al dente pasta every time — and have no more fear of retribution from angry Internet Italians.

One thing that makes Giada so wonderfully approachable is that she knows that folks don't always have the time, energy, or, frankly, the desire to cook from scratch every night. She's awesome at providing easy recipes kids will love on her website (inspired by her daughter, Jade) or shortcuts that take store-bought essentials to the next level.

Case in point? Her approach to store-bought marinara sauce. On her site, Giadzy, she approaches the conundrum with no snobbery, instead choosing to embrace the ease with which a store-bought marinara can help you get dinner on the table in a snap. Offering an easy-to-follow list of possible tweaks — including adding garlic, onion, reserved Parmesan rinds, fresh herbs, Calabrian chili paste, or even butter — she crafts a guide to help you turn the ho-hum store-bought sauce into something extraordinary. And above all, she recommends that cooks at home taste their sauce and decide which, if any, tweaks are best for them.

(And if you want to make your pasta that much better, here's one last trick straight from Giada herself: Toss the cooked pasta with Parmesan before adding the sauce. It'll really kick it up to the next level.)

Cooking steak at home can certainly feel a bit overwhelming, but Giada has the perfect tips to ensure success every time. Chief among them? Choosing the right pan. Giada recommends cooking steak in cast irons, which, Organic Authority reports, gets and stays hotter than many other materials. The result, according to Giada, is that picture-perfect, crusty sear on the outside of your steak and a beautiful, juicy rare or medium-rare within.

On her website Giadzy, she recommends treating the cast iron pan "like a grill." She points out that we usually coat the protein in oil and not the grill racks when we grill meat. The same concept applies while searing in cast iron. You want to brush oil onto your steak and then put it into the hot pan. And since cast irons retain much more heat than nonstick pans, you will be able to get that nice sear.

If you've been feeling major FOMO as you scroll through plates of pristine, perfect pasta on Instagram, never fear: Giada has got a tip for you. While shorter kinds of pasta are a bit easier to plate with grace, it's unsurprising that merely tipping long, cooked strands of spaghetti into a bowl result in a slightly haphazard look. And it turns out it's easy to make order in the pasta chaos as long as you arm yourself with Giada's secret weapon: a meat-carving fork.

According to a video produced for Giada's site, Giadzy, the double prong of this particular fork makes it perfect for plating pasta. All you have to do is twirl the pasta around the tines of the fork, and then use a spoon (or, if you're not yet that practiced, a ladle!) to transfer the pasta to your serving dish. It may take a bit of practice to perfect, but once you do, you'll be serving up 'gram-worthy portions of pasta for sure.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, food waste is a pervasive problem worldwide, with about 1/3 of the world's food lost or wasted every year. It's no surprise that every little step in cutting back on food waste counts. And Giada certainly does her part! 

In addition to saving Parmesan rinds, which she tells EatingWell she loves to use to amp up the flavor of sauces, broths, and soups, she also offers quite a few time-tested solutions to the problem of stale bread. Indeed, the Italian cuisine of her background naturally provides quite a few delicious recipes, ranging from Panzanella salad, which turns stale toasted bread into massive croutons primed for soaking up the vinaigrettes, to warming ribollita, a traditional Tuscan soup that uses stale bread as a thickener. Thanks to these and other tips ranging from croutons to breadcrumbs, you'll never throw out stale bread again!

When it comes to entertaining a crowd, things can quickly go from fun to frantic. But Giada knows how to help. First on her list of entertaining tips is perhaps the most important — and it happens long before guests arrive at your house. "My tip for taking the stress out of holiday cooking would be plan, plan, plan," she tells Today. It's a tip intended for the holidays, but it applies to any gathering, big or small. "Plan your menu, prep in advance, and make as much as you can two days in advance."

Picking the menu, doing all of the shopping, and crafting a list of things to accomplish in the days leading up to your dinner (think: marinades, make-ahead desserts, and more) is sure to help. You could decide which serving platters you're using for which dishes in advance, marking them with Post-Its so you're not grasping at straws (or, uh, takeout containers) the day of.

Giada's second entertaining tip is just as important as her first: don't do it alone. When you have friends over for dinner, chances are they're all going to ask some version of the same question. This includes "What can I do?", "What can I bring?" and "How can I help?". Instead of refusing their offer, embrace it!

Giada doesn't just ask for help; she actually assigns tasks to those in attendance so that she knows what parts of the meal or gathering are covered. "I tell people what to make in my family," she tells People. "I sort of know what their strengths are." This holds just as true for friends who don't know a sauté pan from a crockpot. Those who use their ovens as extra shoe storage can be counted on to supply other things, like great store-bought bread (which Giada always asks her brother to supply,) a cheese or crudité platter, wine, or even flowers. And feel free to get creative with your requests. Do you have a friend who has their favorite takeout spot on speed dial but makes a mean margarita? Ask them to shake cocktails for a pre-dinner tipple! Asking people to contribute something they're proud of, Giada says, "empowers everybody."

When Giada first started on the Food Network, she got a lot of flack for her petite frame and the fact that she never really seemed to be eating her food. But according to an interview with Health, the secret to her svelte silhouette is moderation. "I eat a little bit of everything and not a lot of anything," she says. "I know that's really hard for people to understand, but I grew up in an Italian family where we didn't overdo anything. We ate pasta, yes, but not a lot of it. Pasta doesn't make you fat. How much pasta you eat makes you fat."

Her most recent book, "Eat Better, Feel Better," delves into this philosophy, particularly at a time when years of on-set snacking has begun taking a toll on her well-being and body image (via People). In a conversation with Today following the release of her book, she admitted that she was "snacking on all the wrong foods — lots of sugar, caffeine, pre-packaged snacks — basically anything that I thought would give me energy to get through the day." But she felt unwell because of it.

When trying to eat healthily, Giada recommends paying attention to your digestion, eating loads of veggies (and even eating vegetarian once or twice a week), and limiting things like desserts and simple carbs.