How To Boil The Perfect Easter Eggs Without Cracking Them

With Easter Sunday just a few days away, families are getting ready to celebrate the traditional holiday anyway they can right now—and one of the best ways may be the annual coloring and decorating of Easter eggs for all celebrations.

Egg decorating can be one of the highlights of holiday celebrations and prep, especially for children who get to be creative and play with colors, stickers and other elements from kits. However, for parents, this task can actually prove to be more difficult than expected, solely because of the process that comes prior to the decorating—properly hard boiling the eggs without getting a single crack in the shells.

Surprisingly, boiling eggs without them cracking is a trickier task than one might think, but those willing to make it work are in luck. Check out these tips for making the perfect eggs that will be ready for any dye party.

According to Martha Stewart, the best recipe for hard-boiled eggs is a classic one. By putting room temperature eggs into cool water and bringing them to a boil, then letting them sit for 12 minutes after removing from heat works wonders. To keep the process working and those shells intact, place them under cool running water to stop the cooking.

However, Stewart’s method isn’t a universal one, and others would suggest other methods as well. According to This Grandma Is Fun, the most surefire way to guarantee eggs that won’t crack (and ones that easier to peel for eating post dye party) is to actually not only use eggs that are one week old but to boil eggs in a pot with a clean white towel. The blog also suggests adding ¼ tsp baking soda to the water, bringing it to a rolling boil and cooking for one minute—then leave the eggs in the pot until cooled.

Of course, once the eggs are successfully cooked and not cracked, the headache of dying the egg without staining is another issue—especially since the ability to keep the color sticking to the eggs can be an additional challenge.

However, McCormick, known for its colorful dyes, has its own suggestions for making sure your Easter eggs come out correctly.