Instant Pot Hard-Boiled Eggs Might Just Change Your Life

We’ve all heard how helpful the Instant Pot can be in the kitchen. If you’re wondering: It's worth the hype — we've done the legwork and tested the multi-cooker extensively. It's a solid option if you’re in need of either a new slow cooker, pressure cooker or both. But one of its less sexy functions, steaming eggs, only seemed useful for bulk cooking. (After all, eggs are easily cooked on the stovetop.) But testing all latest model's functions led us to a revelation.

Instant Pot Eggs Are The Best Eggs (For Peeling)

When testing out the Duo Plus, the newest version of the brand's popular Duo series, we spent a lot time cooking with the pressure settings. In addition to discovering that the sauté function heats up faster (a pet peeve we had with previous models) and the appliance is capable of a higher pressure overall, we stumbled upon a few more conveniences. The most exciting one? It turns out that a pressure-cooked egg is the easiest egg you’ll ever peel.

Why Are Pressure Cooked Eggs Easier To Peel?

It’s a bit of a debate on why. Chef and TV Host Alton Brown speculates that fast-cooking the egg prevents the egg white from bonding with the shell membrane — the cause of all our egg-peeling woes. Others are certain that the internal pressure of the egg changes, causing the air pocket within the egg to expand and create a pocket between the shell and the egg, allowing for an easy peel.

Theories aside (we’ll wait on the science for a definitive answer), what we know for sure is that after 17 to 18 minutes (start to finish) in the Instant Pot, all our eggs practically jumped out of the shell. Just sit them in ice water until they're cool enough to handle (up to five minutes), then peel.

The Instant Pot is also capable of cooking 12 eggs in one batch (score), so you can easily prepare them as salad toppers, sandwich fillers and more for the week ahead, put together a large potato salad or whip up a platter of devilled eggs for company.

Watch: How To Make Nordic Potato Salad