You Can Make Perfect Hard-Boiled Eggs in the Air Fryer. Here’s How

There are many techniques for making tasty hard-boiled eggs – and endless debate over which one is best. Some people swear by the cold water start: the eggs go into cold water, the water boils, the timer starts. The downside? You need to hover, watching the exact moment the water boils to avoid rubbery, overcooked yolks.

The hot water method also has its fans: eggs are plunged directly into boiling water for more predictable timing. But this approach falls apart when cooking for a crowd. Adding too many cold eggs at once can prevent the water from boiling, leaving you waiting and guessing again.

Meanwhile, your air fryer quietly makes his points from the counter. It turns out the device excels at “boiling” eggs without any water, handling any quantity with the same reliable results.

If you are someone who has ever owned a countertop egg cooker as a singular device, so listen. Your air fryer is already there, being very useful in its ability to rehabilitate the remainsroast and bake with abandon and produce stellar products grilled cheese. It can also bear this burden of boiling eggs for you.

Why should you make hard boiled eggs in the air fryer

A better question is: why shouldn’t you prepare hard-boiled (or soft-boiled, or cooked in the shell) eggs in the air fryer? It’s not like boiling water adds flavor to dishes, as it would with salted pasta water. Like most tasks you might entrust the air fryer to, cooking eggs this way produces more consistent results with fewer variables, in less time, and with less cleanup involved. I basically wiped it off quickly with a paper towel to show off after I finished the egg cooking experiment.

Case basically closed, but if you need more reason, your eggs are less likely to crack during cooking, which can be caused by jostling during heavy boiling. Even the smallest air fryers can handle at least half a dozen eggs or more. Plus, it’s another check mark on the list of reasons to leave the air fryer on the counter, allowing it to handle as many cooking tasks as possible for you.

Learn more: Here’s How Long Eggs Last in the Fridge and How to Tell When They’re Spoiled

Best Practices for Making Hard Boiled Eggs in the Air Fryer

From runny, jammy or hard yolks, the air fryer can handle it. No waiting for the water to boil, no forgetting to set a timer at the key moment. There’s a lot of voodoo on the internet about the do’s and don’ts of hard-boiling eggs in the air fryer, but in my experience you can ignore most of it. You don’t need to bring the eggs to room temperature first. You don’t need a layer of foil as a nest for your eggs. You don’t even really need to preheat the air fryer. (Who started the rumor that air fryers need to be preheated anyway? They’re not ovens.)

Here’s What You Should Do to Get the Best Air Fryer Hard Boiled Eggs

• Test with a single egg first to determine the best temperature and timing for your air fryer model. (While I wholeheartedly support this method, I wouldn’t use a dozen at once without trying it first.)
• Use a low temperature setting, between 270 and 300 degrees Fahrenheit
• Arrange the eggs in a single layer
• Set the air fryer timer based on the type of yolk you’re looking for:
• Dip the cooked eggs in cold water, removing them from the fryer to prevent residual heat from carrying the yolk away and to ensure easy peeling.

Air Fryer Hard Boiled Egg Cooking Time

• Flowing yellow: 7-8 minutes
• Soft yellow: 9-10 minutes
• Candied yellow: 12-13 minutes
• Hard yellow: 15-17 minutes

Mistakes to avoid when frying hard-boiled eggs

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that increasing the heat of the air fryer will shave a significant number of minutes off the cooking time. Although deep-fryer hard-boiled eggs take a little less time because they don’t require waiting for the water to boil, they are not designed to accomplish the task quickly. In my experience, a higher temperature in the air fryer’s convection environment caused the eggs to cook unevenly. (Consider that boiling water is only 212 degrees Fahrenheit.)

I read a handful of reviews about air fryer hard boiled eggs that suggested they were harder to peel. I didn’t find this to be the case at all when I used a lower temperature setting; however, I found this to be true for the one egg I cooked to around 400 degrees. This also produced an “eggier” smell as the egg cooked.

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