One of the foods I get asked to make for Holidays and get-togethers is my deviled eggs. They taste fantastic, but for the longest time I sort of had a love-hate relationship with deviled eggs.

My love-hate relationship with deviled eggs.

I LOVED to EAT them, but I HATED to MAKE them. Are you with me?

Inevitably, every time I tried to hard boil eggs, half of the eggs were ridiculously difficult to peel. And because the ease of cracking and peeling the eggs felt so unpredictable, I would hold my breath with each egg I peeled, hoping for the best. Sometimes it was worse than other times and I couldn’t figure out why.

There is nothing more annoying than hard-boiling a dozen eggs and finding that ALL 12 of them are hard to peel.

One little trick that took me years to figure out.

I knew to put the eggs in ice cold water after they cooked, but it took me a few years of hard-boiling eggs before I discovered that covering the pot was a necessary step to cracking and peeling eggs easily. Ugh! How did I never try that?

Will the center of the egg be perfectly cooked?

Still, there was the step of waiting for the eggs to cook and hoping they were cooked just enough… not too little leaving the very center of the yolk orange-y and not too much, leaving the outside of the yolk with a green circle around it.

I would always crack a test egg for my moment of truth. This part wasn’t so bad, as they typically would be fully cooked, but it added one more element of unpredictability and the whole guessing game was one that I would have rather not play.

Two fool proof ways to hard-boil perfect eggs.

Today, I am thrilled to tell you that I found two fool-proof ways to hard-boil eggs in 15 minutes. You are going to LOVE hard-boiling eggs once you try making them one of these two ways because it will make your heart sing every time you crack a perfectly cooked egg with with very little effort. Seriously, look at how well this egg peeled: 

I can’t even!

I mentioned that I would be dropping hints about what is coming up in the December on Meal Planning Mommies. Some of you already know what is going on, but for those of you who don’t, here is my next big hint:

This air fryer and instant pot were shipped to me recently and I am so glad I get to share them with you!

Okay, so I am going to tell you how to hard-boil egg in the instant pot first, and then I will share how to make the eggs in the air fryer.

How to hard-boil eggs in an instant pot…

Hard-boiling eggs in the instant pot is insanely easy and you will get perfect eggs every time, but the best part is, by far, how easy it is to peel them. I didn’t even know that you could make hard-boiled eggs in an instant pot until I asked my friends what they did with theirs and my friend said that the eggs peeled in seconds and she said the instant pot was worth it just for that.  I am happy to tell you now, from personal experience, that she was not wrong!

(scroll to the bottom of this post to print off these instructions using our Easy Recipe tool)

Here is what you need:

Eggs (We cooked six, but you can cook as many as you like in a single layer of the bottom of your rack/steamer basket)
1 cup water
Instant Pot electric pressure cooker

Here is what you do:

Pour the water into the pot, and carefully place the eggs in a steamer basket/rack.

Close the lid, set for 3 minutes at high pressure. (You may want to experiment to see what time works best for you. I did mine at 5 minutes and it turned out okay, but another reader said hers turn out perfect at 3 minutes, and I have been doing mine that way ever since.)

It will take the cooker approximately 5 minutes to build to pressure and then 3-5 minutes to cook. Let the pressure naturally reduce for an additional 5 minutes after the cooking cycle completed, and then did a quick pressure release. So, all together is till take about 13-15 minutes total.

Place the hot eggs into ice cold water to stop the cooking process, and keep the eggs from over cooking. Allow to sit for 5-10 minutes. (This is to stop the eggs from cooking more than it is to make them easy to peel. They are easy to peel either way.)

Here is what my egg looked like on the inside after I cooked them for 5 minutes at HIGH pressure and let the steam vent naturally on its own.

How to hard-boil eggs in an air fryer…

This is a seriously no-fuss way of hard-boiling eggs. I love that you don’t have to boil any water and there is hardly any wait time. If you have 15 minutes, you can make perfect eggs! That’s just all there is to it. (scroll to the bottom of this post to print off these instructions using our Easy Recipe tool)

Here is what you need:

6 large eggs
Air fryer

 Here is what you do:

Place eggs in a single layer in the bottom of the air fryer.

Bake for 12-15 minutes at 300°F.

Remove the eggs carefully from the air fryer using tongs and place them in the ice water. Let eggs sit in water for 5-10 minutes. If eating immediately, you can gently crack egg under the water to make it peel more easily.

This is how my eggs looked after cooking them in the air fryer for 12 minutes at 300°F:

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Print Recipe

How to hard boil eggs in an Instant Pot

Makes: 6 -8 eggs

Calories: 72

Author: Alisha Hughes

Ingredients

• Eggs We cooked six, but you can cook as many as you like in a single layer of the bottom of your rack/steamer basket
• 1 cup water
• Instant Pot electric pressure cooker

Instructions

• Pour the water into the pot, and carefully place the eggs in a steamer basket/rack.
• Close the lid, set for 3 minutes at high pressure. (You may want to experiment to see what time works best for you. I did mine at 5 minutes, but another reader said hers turn out perfect at 3 minutes. I have been doing mine for 3 minutes ever since and they come out perfect each time)
• It will take the cooker approximately 5 minutes to build to pressure and then 5 minutes to cook. Let the pressure naturally reduce for an additional 5 minutes after the cooking cycle completed, and then did a quick pressure release. So, all together is till take about 13-15 minutes total.
• Place the hot eggs into ice cold water to stop the cooking process, and keep the eggs from over cooking. Allow to sit for 5-10 minutes.

Print Recipe

How to hard boil eggs in an Air Fryer

Makes: 6 eggs

Calories: 72

Author: Alisha Hughes

Ingredients

• 6 large eggs
• Air fryer

Instructions

• Place eggs in a single layer in the bottom of the air fryer.
• Bake for 12-15 minutes at 300°F.
• Remove the eggs carefully from the air fryer using tongs and place them in the ice water. Let eggs sit in water for 5-10 minutes. If eating immediately, you can gently crack egg under the water to make it peel more easily.