Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has shared his method for cooking the "perfect boiled egg every single time," and it involves adding just one cupboard staple to the water: salt. The 51-year-old chef says his reliably "perfect" boiled egg comes down to this simple tweak, using a large free-range egg boiled in water with a "tiny" pinch of salt.
Why a pinch of salt helps
While many assume the salt is there to add flavour, its real benefit is practical. Lightly salting the water can help the egg white set a little more neatly at the surface, and it may make it easier for water to work its way under the shell if a fine crack appears.
It can also help if an egg splits as it cooks. The salted water encourages the leaking white to firm up more quickly around the break, which can reduce the cloudy "wisps" in the pan and limit how much escapes. In other words, a pinch of salt can help keep things tidier, improve consistency, and make peeling less of a battle.
Jamie Oliver's boiled egg timings
When people talk about how they like their boiled eggs, it's usually about the texture – runny, jammy, or fully set – and getting that right is largely down to timing. The awkward part is you can't see what's happening inside the shell, so a timer is your best friend.
Jamie Oliver suggests: soft-boiled at 5 minutes 30 seconds, medium or semi-soft at 7 minutes 30 seconds, and hard-boiled at 11–12 minutes. It's also worth remembering that eggs continue cooking for a short while after you lift them out, because the shell acts like a mini oven.
If you want to stop them going past your ideal point, plunge them into cold water straight away, which can also make them easier to peel.
