Water Temperature Is Key When Making Instant Pot Hard Boiled Eggs

If you've got an Instant Pot sitting on your counter waiting to be used, hard-boiled eggs may be the quick recipe you've been waiting for. Perfect on their own, whipped up as deviled eggs, or turned into a sandwich, there are plenty of creative uses for hard-boiled eggs. Once you discover how easy hard-boiled eggs are to make in the Instant Pot, you may start churning out multiple batches at a time, but there's one thing to keep in mind: water temperature.

While hard-boiled eggs are versatile, they're also difficult to get just right. Undercooked eggs don't have the firm yellow center you want, and overcooked hard-boiled eggs start to smell like sulfur and can even turn a pale green. Hard-boiled eggs only take five minutes to cook in the Instant Pot, which means there isn't much room for error if you want to boil the perfect egg.

When adding water to the Instant Pot, make sure you're using cool water instead of hot water. If you use hot water, it's going to heat up much faster, which means your eggs will start to cook quicker than anticipated, resulting in overcooked hard-boiled eggs. By starting with cold water, you'll be following the intended recipe to boil the eggs perfectly. That means if you're making multiple batches, you need to add new water to the Instant Pot before you start the second batch.

Of course, this will be dependent on what recipe you're following. The 5-5-5 method is the best way to cook hard-boiled eggs in the Instant Pot, and it's super easy to follow given that the directions are entirely in the name. Once the Instant Pot has reached pressure, cook for five minutes, let the pressure release for five minutes, and then quickly plunge the eggs into an ice bath for another five minutes to stop them from cooking any longer. It's as simple as that.

There aren't a whole lot of variables you need to keep track of with the 5-5-5 method, but water temperature is an important one. Nothing disastrous will happen if you don't remember, but you'll know that you forgot the minute you crack open the shell and get a big whiff of sulfur rising out of your egg. They'll still be perfectly edible, but why settle for anything less than the best when it's so easy to get it right?