The Best Classic Egg Salad Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why does my egg salad taste bland? ›

Spices can elevate a dull, bland egg salad to extraordinary, and many seasonings can be used to spice up egg salad. Let's start with an obvious one: salt. It's an essential seasoning in cooking, especially for egg-based dishes, as salt intensifies an egg's rich, savory flavor.

Recipe developer and cookbook author Sheri Castle suggests that "for a salad with hearty texture that won't turn gummy or pasty, use your hands to crumble the eggs instead of chopping the whites and mashing the yolks with a fork." You will, of course, want to wait until the boiled eggs are cool enough to handle, but ...

Prevent Watery Egg Salad By Understanding Your Ingredients

That's why the simple swap of green onions or chives for onions is a better way to cut down on the water that can be drawn out without losing flavor. And while chopped celery is popular in egg salad, it is loaded with water -- 95% water to be exact.

Serve the egg salad immediately or refrigerate it until ready to use. Egg salad will keep for up to 4 days in the fridge.

Food intolerance happens when the body is unable to digest certain components in food. People who have an egg intolerance may not be able to digest the egg whites or yolks, or both. With an intolerance, a person may experience digestive problems hours after consuming the offending food item.

I've found the best tool for mashing up eggs for egg salad is a grid-style potato masher.

What Makes Egg Salad Watery? Every ingredient that goes into egg salad has water in it. Salt and sugar in the dressing draw the water out of the ingredients as they sit, and they make your egg salad watery regardless of whether it's in the fridge or in a sandwich.

The reason is simply that instead of binding your eggs together with oil and egg yolks — the components of regular mayonnaise — you're instead doing so with a diluted version. Adding more water in the form of light or fat-free mayonnaise necessarily means that more water will seep out of your egg salad.

If your egg salad looks good but has a sour or bitter taste, it's best to throw it away. In some cases, you might notice small bubbles or fizzing when stirring the salad. These are telltale signs of microbial growth. Refrain from tasting the salad, and discard it immediately.

Egg salad is a classic sandwich stuffer, but with gobs of mayo mixed in, it can be high in unhealthy fats, sodium and calories. An average deli egg salad sandwich can have more than 550 calories, 30 grams of fat and 600 milligrams of sodium.

Can you use old eggs for egg salad? ›

So, save your freshest eggs for frying (one more reason: the yolks of more alkaline eggs are more prone to breaking as soon as they hit the pan) and put your older eggs towards egg salad, deviled eggs, and the like.

Never leave cooked eggs or egg dishes out of the refrigerator for more than 2 hours or for more than 1 hour when temperatures are above 90° F. Bacteria that can cause illness grow quickly at warm temperatures (between 40° F and 140° F).

We don't recommend freezing egg salad, as it will change the texture and flavor.

It's also important to note that seasoning your eggs is key for maximizing flavor, but don't season your eggs as soon as they hit the pan. Instead, once your eggs are nearly cooked, sprinkle some flaky sea salt and add some fresh cracked pepper throughout.

Herbs, fruits, peppers, change your olive oil or try sesame, hazelnut or other traditional nut oils. Also try our variety of basils: Large Green, lemon-basil, spicy Thai, etc.