Copyright CNET
Hard-boiled eggs spark endless debate over cooking technique. Some swear by a cold-water start: eggs go in cold water, water comes to a boil, timer begins. The drawback? You need to hover, watching for that exact moment the water boils to avoid rubbery, overcooked yolks. The hot-water method has its devotees, too -- eggs dropped straight 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 cause the water to stop boiling, leaving you waiting and guessing again. Meanwhile, your air fryer is quietly making its case from the counter. It turns out the appliance excels at "boiling" eggs without any water at all, handling any quantity with the same reliable results. If you're someone who has ever owned a countertop egg cooker as a singular appliance, then listen up. Your air fryer is already there, being all sorts of useful in its ability to rehabilitate leftovers, roast and bake with abandon and produce stellar grilled cheese. It can also carry this egg-boiling burden for you. Why you should make hard-boiled eggs in the air fryer A better question is, why shouldn't you make hard-boiled (or soft-boiled, or any cooked-in-shell) eggs in the air fryer? It's not like boiling water is adding any flavor to the proceedings, as it would with salted pasta water. Like most tasks you might put the air fryer to, cooking eggs this way yields more consistent results with fewer variables, in less time and with less cleanup involved. I basically gave it a quick wipe out with a paper towel for show once I was finished with the egg cooking experiment. Read more: This Is How Long Eggs Last in the Fridge and How to Tell When They've Spoiled The case is basically closed, but if you need more reasons, your eggs have a decreased risk of cracking during cooking, which can be caused by being jostled around during a rolling boil. Even the smallest air fryers can manage at least a half-dozen eggs or more. Plus, it's another tick on the list of reasons to leave the air fryer out on the counter, letting it handle as many kitchen tasks as possible for you. Best practices for making "boiled" eggs in the air fryer From yolks between runny to jammy to hard-cooked, the air fryer can handle it. No waiting for water to boil, no forgetting to set a timer at the key moment. There's a lot of internet voodoo about dos and don'ts when it comes to boiled eggs in the air fryer, but in my experience, you can disregard most of it. You don't need to bring eggs to room temperature first. You don't need a layer of foil as a nest for your eggs. You don't really even need to preheat the air fryer. (Who started the rumor that air fryers need to preheat anyway? They're not ovens.) Here's what you should do for the best air fryer boiled eggs Test with a single egg first to determine the best temperature and timing for your air fryer model. (While I wholeheartedly stand by this method, I wouldn't go in with a dozen all at once without having tried it out first.) Use a low temperature setting, between 270 and 300 degrees Fahrenheit Arrange eggs in a single layer Set the air fryer timer according to the kind of yolk you seek: Plunge cooked eggs in cold water, removing from the air fryer to stop residual heat from taking the yolk any further and to ensure easy peeling Cooking times for air fryer boiled eggs Runny yolk: 7-8 minutes Soft yolk: 9-10 minutes Jammy yolk: 12-13 minutes Hard-cooked yolk: 15-17 minutes Mistakes to avoid for air-fryer "boiled" eggs Don't fall into the trap of thinking that cranking the heat on the air fryer will allow you to shave a significant number of minutes off the cooking time. While air fryer-boiled eggs take a little less time, as they don't require waiting for water to boil, they aren't designed to complete the task quickly. In my experience, a higher temperature in the convection environment of the air fryer caused the eggs to cook unevenly. (Consider that boiling water is only 212 degrees Fahrenheit.) I read a handful of comments on air fryer boiled eggs that suggested they were harder to peel. I didn't find that to be the case at all when using a lower temperature setting; however, I did find that to be true for the one egg I cooked at about 400 degrees. It also produced an "eggier" smell while the egg was cooking.
