Here’s my recipe for scrambled eggs. To add the ricotta And cook them low and slow in a little butter until just creamy. Sounds pretty foolproof, right? It is, but sadly, as the mother of a new baby with a very sensitive tummy, I’ve recently had to cut back on dairy. My days of using butter and cheese to avoid rubbery eggs are now on hold.
That said, my need for protein has never been greater. I’m still craving fluffy scrambled eggs! What’s a hungry mother to do? It turns out the answer is already sitting on my kitchen counter: salt.
To be honest, the secret ingredient is sitting in a salt well on my counter, but the idea comes from a cookbook sitting on my bookshelf. Food Lab In an extensive chapter called “Eggs, Dairy, and the Science of Breakfast” by J. Kenji López-Alt, Kenji goes into great detail about how to achieve tender scrambled eggs without adding dairy.
It turns out that like many wonders of the food world (prosciutto, I’m looking at you!), all you need is salt and a little patience. Of course, I’ve always salted my eggs before I put them in the pan, or while they cook, but I’ve never salted them. in advance And this is where the trick lies.
How I Make the Best Scrambled Eggs (No Dairy Required)
The Kenji recipe goes something like this: Crack your eggs into a bowl, add as much salt as you normally would to your eggs, beat the eggs, and let them sit out on the counter for 15 minutes. After that, cook them as you normally would. Easy!
The Science of Salting Your Eggs
Salting and beating the eggs 15 minutes before cooking changes the texture of the eggs. Kenji comprehensively explains the scientific reasoning behind this in the cookbook, and what I quickly gathered is that the salt breaks down the proteins in the yolks as they sit, preventing them from clumping together too tightly when cooking. stops This also helps avoid getting “weeping” scrambled eggs that leave the water.
What I love most about this tip is that my kids and I saw science at work. As my salted scrambled eggs sat, we could see them go from a buttery opaque yellow to a translucent orange. Kenji explains that this color change is the salt in the work. When cooked, scrambled eggs should have a soft, runny curd that is not rubbery or watery.
Although my kids still aren’t the biggest fans of scrambled eggs, they loved watching this real science experiment. My eggs were so light and fluffy that I almost (almost!) missed the cheese.