Kitchen Tip: Fluffy Scrambled Eggs

July 17, 2008

Just two weeks after I wrote this post on egg proteins, Cook’s Illustrated answered a letter about salting scrambled eggs. The reader wrote in asking if salting the eggs before cooking will make them watery. Cook’s Illustrated tested this and found that eggs salted before cooking created a more tender product, while eggs salted after were rubbery and not as good.

Apparently, most egg proteins are negatively charged, and therefore repel each other. When salt is added before cooking, the ions separate and the positive ions neutralize the negative proteins. This allows the proteins to get closer together and therefore set sooner and at a lower temperature when cooking. As McGee explains, when these neutral proteins bond and set more quickly, they stay balled up and can’t bind as tightly, hence the more tender scrambled eggs.

Acids (like lemon juice) have the same effect on egg proteins, but are even more effective.

The moral of the story is that if you want fluffy scrambled eggs, you should salt or acidify them before cooking.

Posted in Food Science, Kitchen Tips |