How Ree Drummond Speeds Up Egg Salad Prep With A Cookie Cooling Rack

Of all the dishes there are to make with eggs — and they can feel almost infinite — one of our very favorite recipes to stir up is a simple egg salad. An old standby that's usually a basic mix of chopped hard-boiled eggs bound with mayonnaise and seasoned with salt, pepper, and other add-ins, including chopped pickles and soft avocado, egg salad is simple, satisfying, and versatile. At home, of course, piled high atop toast or inside a sandwich, egg salad is also lovely folded into a wrap, mounded atop a fresh salad, or even stuffed inside veggies like tomatoes and avocados.

If you know how to boil and chop an egg, egg salad is incredibly easy to make — but it can be a bit time consuming to cook, cool, peel, and chop all those eggs, especially if you're whipping up a quantity for a crowd. That's why we love this clever egg salad preparation tip from Food Network star Ree Drummond, which is sure to make your next batch a quick and easy affair.

If you regularly make egg salad, then you know that although the recipe couldn't be easier, it can be a bit tiresome to dice up lots of cooled, peeled eggs. Various hacks exist for plowing through this task more quickly — such as using an egg slicer, pastry cutter, or potato masher (via Southern Living) — but one we spied on Food Network star Ree Drummond's Facebook page struck us as an excellent idea.

Drummond takes a wire cookie cooling rack with a fairly tight mesh, sets it over a mixing bowl, and then, one by one, selects a hard-boiled egg and pushes it right through the cooling rack into the bowl underneath. The cooling rack quickly "dices" the eggs, which are then ready to be mixed with mayonnaise and other flavorings. In the post, Drummond notes that using this method, it takes less than a minute to chop a dozen eggs. The next time we make egg salad, we'll be reaching for our cooling rack.