Cheater Deviled Eggs

By Catherine Newman 

Makes 6 servings  

Total carbohydrates: less than 1 gram per serving

Hands-on time: 5 minutes  


Total time: 15 minutes 

If true deviled eggs were a practical snack, I would eat them every day. But they don’t actually keep well enough to be a go-to, and they’re too fiddly to make fresh daily. These, however, are entirely practical, and I do eat one most days. The idea is that you hard-boil some eggs (perfectly) and whisk up some deviled-egg-style dressing, and then you keep both in the fridge. Come snack time, you simply cut open an egg and top each half with a spoonful of dressing (you can also pack some up this way to take to work or school). So delicious and satisfying that you will almost not notice that you cheated. (The eggs shown here are made with curry powder and yellow mustard, which is one of my favorite combinations of add-ins.)

Ingredients

¼ cup Hellman’s or Best Foods real mayonnaise

½ teaspoon kosher salt—or more to taste

1 teaspoon white vinegar

6 Perfect Hard-Boiled Eggs (see below)

Paprika

Optional add-ins:

½ teaspoon curry powder, celery seed, or smoked paprika

1 teaspoon hot sauce, horseradish, or yellow, Dijon, or grainy mustard

1 tablespoon capers or finely chopped dill pickles or pickled jalapenos

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh dill, celery leaves, or parsley, or snipped chives

Instructions

1. In a small, lidded container, whisk together the ingredients and any optional add-ins you like.

2. For each Cheater Deviled Egg, peel a boiled egg, cut it in half, and drizzle each half with a spoonful of the dressing mixture. Garnish with a sprinkle of paprika to disguise the fact that you cheated.

Perfect Hard-Boiled Eggs

I used to think I didn’t like hard-boiled eggs, but it turned out I just didn’t like badly hard-boiled eggs – the kind with rubbery whites separated from chalky yolks by a creepy green ring. These, however, come out perfect every time (unless you’re at a high altitude, and then I think you need to boil them).

Put some number of eggs in a pot where they fit in a single layer, then cover them with water by an inch or so. Bring them to a boil over high heat (I put a stone or glass marble in the pot if I’m likely to forget them; it will rattle when the water starts to boil), then cover the pot, turn off the burner, and let the eggs sit for exactly 9 minutes. Now dump the eggs into a colander and run cold water over them until they are no longer warm to the touch – this prevents that green ring from forming – then, if you’re planning to use them right away, peel them. Very fresh eggs are notoriously difficult to peel: if yours are, then try cracking them all over and returning them to a bowl full of ice and cold water for a few minutes before peeling. 

About Catherine

Catherine loves to write about food and feeding people. In addition to her recipe and parenting blog Ben & Birdy (which has about 15,000 weekly readers), she edits the ChopChop series of mission-driven cooking magazines. This kids’ cooking magazine won the James Beard Publication of the Year award in 2013 – the first non-profit ever to win it – and a Parents’ Choice Gold Award. Last year they started the WIC version of the magazine for families enrolled in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and are currently developing Seasoned, their senior version, commissioned by the AARP. They distribute over a million magazines annually, through paid subscriptions, doctor’s offices, schools, and hospitals. Their mission started with obesity as its explicit focus – and has shifted, over the years, to a more holistic one, with health and happiness at its core. That’s the same vibe Catherine brings to the diaTribe column.

[Photo Credit: Catherine Newman]