Making an egg salad is one of the best ways to use up eggs and to pack some protein into your meals. I often find myself with eggs about to expire, either because I didn’t get around to baking or because my kids didn’t ask for scrambled eggs breakfasts. When eggs ‘pile up’ in the fridge, I boil a dozen and make an egg salad. We eat the egg salad for dinner and have leftovers for breakfast on toast, or as a snack.

There are so many ways to make egg salad! I’ve seen the simplest of recipes, like eggs mashed with a fork, with added salt and pepper. And, I’ve seen eggs dressed with lots of mayonnaise, and egg salads made with curry powder.

In our house, we like our egg salad with celery, green onions, whole celery seeds, mayonnaise, and dijon mustard. I usually use 6 whole boiled eggs, and 6 boiled egg whites. The reason I don’t use all 12 yolks is because I want to cut down on the taste of too many yolks as well as cut down the cholesterol levels.

Adding dijon mustard to the egg salad adds a slight bit of heat to the salad, and using celery seeds adds some crunch and a bit of heat as well. I use just a small amount of mayonnaise to let the taste of the eggs shine through.

One trick to making this egg salad is to boil the eggs and wash the vegetables in advance. Because there’s a lot of chopping involved, I find it easier to have all the ingredients prepared in advance. Then, on the day I want to serve this egg salad, I chop everything up and make the salad. It’s more fresh that way.

One of the things I’ve heard people mention is how frustrated they are when it comes to peeling boiled eggs. I’ve tried many methods over the years, but I recently learned how to peel eggs in the most efficient fashion! I learned this trick by watching a busy restaurant server prepare take-out orders.

Here’s the server’s trick for peeling a boiled egg: take the egg and bang it on a plate with enough force to crack the shell. Without lifting the egg and using pressure, roll the egg back and forth enough to crack the egg shell all the way around. Then start peeling the egg: the peel should come off easily! Here’s a video I made on how to peel an egg.

And, here’s the recipe for my egg salad.

Egg Salad With Celery Seed
Ingredients:

1 dozen boiled eggs
3 celery stalks, peeled and chopped into small pieces
4 green onions, chopped
1/4 c mayonnaise
2 tsp dijon mustard
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp celery seed
1/4 finely chopped parsley (optional)

Method:

• Coarsely chop 6 whole eggs
• Take the other 6 eggs, slice them in half, and remove the yolks. Coarsely chop
• Place the chopped eggs in a large bowl, and add all the other ingredients.
• Mix gently
• Chill or serve warm
• Serve on baguette bread, toast, melba toast, or enjoy plain

So, how do you make your egg salad? There are so many variations!