This Brilliant Hack Will Make Peeling Your Eggs So Much Easier

Boiled eggs are one of the most versatile food items in the world. You can eat them alone with salt and pepper. You can halve a soft boiled egg and serve it with souped-up instant ramen. Or, hard-boil an egg to add it to your chopped salad. But, as versatile as they are, boiled eggs are a pain to peel, which can turn a person off from eating them altogether. Luckily, we stumbled upon a hack that will make peeling your eggs so easy, you’ll swear there’s no other way to cook an egg.

According to Wonder How To, a single ingredient is the key to getting easy-to-peel eggs — and it’s probably already in your pantry.

Before boiling your eggs, sprinkle about a teaspoon of baking soda into your boiling water. The baking soda increases the alkalinity of the egg, therefore making the peel easier to remove.

There’s some serious science behind this hack, people. The alkalinity of eggs changes throughout their aging process, Wonder How To explains. The older the egg, the less acidic they become, and they are therefore easier to peel. As an egg ages, it becomes more alkaline and the white clings less to the shell and membrane layer. In fact, the ideal time to boil is when an egg is about 7 to 10 days old.

If you raise chickens or buy farm-fresh eggs, you may have noticed that the whites of fresh eggs are much more likely to stick to the shell. The baking soda sort of speeds up the aging process while the eggs cook.

The alkaline properties of baking soda seep through the shell, detaching the whites from the outer layer.

The next time you’re craving a boiled egg, hard or soft, test out this hack to help prevent a peeling nightmare.