Hard-Cooked Eggs, All Dressed Up for the Egg Salad Party
I’m an egg fanatic. I can’t in any way, shape, or form explain it, but after I had to begin eating gluten free, my love of eggs (and potatoes as well, for that matter) grew from a loving relationship to an almost embarrassing obsession.
Foods rarely find themselves in the special mental penthouse I reserve for chocolate, cheese, Chai tea lattes, and sweet tea – but eggs and potatoes moved right in, unpacked and took up residence.
I’ve always been a huge fan of egg salad, but I recently added a special ingredient (something else I’ve become obsessed with) and kicked my egg salad up to a whole new level.
What’s this magical ingredient? Whole grain mustard. About a year ago, I began experimenting with whole grain mustard in my potato salad and deviled egg recipes. I fell in love with both the looks and the flavor whole grain mustard gave to these dishes, so I started putting it in as many things as I thought I could get away with.
Egg salad just made perfect sense.
While I’m confessing obsessions and fixations, I have something else I’d like to confess…
I absolutely, positively, one hundred and twenty percent HATE making hard boiled eggs. It’s not the actual cooking I mind – heck, I live for cooking – it’s the peeling process that shreds my nerves.
I detest it.
I get entirely too picky about the process and if a chunk is torn from the egg, it crushes my soul.
Eggland’s Best has come to my rescue – and to the rescue of anyone else who finds this chore to be a form or torture. Their bags of Hard Cooked Peeled Eggs are the very thing my poor shredded nerves have needed for years. Open the bag, roll out the perfect eggs…. done.
They are more than worth the money – whatever it is they cost… honestly, I just throw them into the cart because I can’t put a price on my sanity.
The Best Egg Salad You’ll Ever Eat
12 hard-cooked eggs, chopped
1 very large sweet onion, finely chopped or grated
1/2 cup Hellman’s (or Duke’s) Mayonnaise
1 tablespoon whole-grain mustard
plenty of salt and freshly ground pepper
Optional: 1 tsp diced pickled jalapeno peppers
As you can see from the picture at the top, before I even chop my hard-cooked eggs, I salt and pepper them (I usually use good old-fashioned black peppercorns but this particular time it was a 3 pepper blend). Whenever I’m pulling something together in the kitchen, I like for each component to be flavorful – so they all come together with their A game. I’m also kind of convinced that chopping the seasonings “into” the eggs makes a little extra magic happen.
When the onion takes its turn on the chopping block, the magic continues.
Don’t even try to confuse me with logic, I will never believe that this arrangement isn’t the greatest thing since gluten free bread.
- Chop the eggs.
- Finely chop the onion. If you’d prefer to mince the onion – have at it. Personally, I like for the onions to provide a little bit of crunch, so I go with more of a fine chop than an actual mincing. But as always, I encourage you to follow your own preferences. Your kitchen, your rules.
- Stir in the mayonnaise and whole grain mustard.
- Taste and add more salt and pepper.
- Place in the refrigerator to chill.
A word about adding extras: Sometimes I add a little diced jalapeno peppers or (as the bag of Eggland’s suggests) a little dill. However, I firmly believe that the absolute best approach is the one given above – eggs, onion, mayo, salt, pepper, and whole-grain mustard. Each of these work together in such a way that’s just beautiful.
A few more words:
- Needless to say, half the recipe if you’d like. For our house, we need 12 eggs in the recipe, but you may not have as many egg fanatics under your roof as I do.
- I use Hellman’s, but feel free to use the mayo of your choice. I simply only use products that say “Gluten Free” on them and Hellman’s is such a product – and it’s perfectly delicious to boot.
- If you have to eat to, choose to, or get to (pick one, pick all) eat gluten free, you can, of course, use gluten free bread or gluten free English Muffins as your sandwich vehicle. You could also make sure you chop the eggs into larger chunks and simply eat the egg salad as that… a salad! Add some cherry tomatoes and a little lettuce and you’ve got a delicious summer salad. You’ll never miss the bread.
It’s the best egg salad of all time, in my egg-loving opinion – and the sweet onion and whole-grain mustard make it all happen.
Just look at the picture below…. gorgeous! I am completely in love with what whole-grain mustard does for the appearance and flavor of just about everything – but especially egg and potato dishes. Try it, you’ll become totally smitten, too.
