Jamie Oliver shares how to cook ‘perfect boiled egg’ by adding 1 ingredient

If you cook boiled eggs regularly you probably have your own way of doing it. But if you’ve never attempted it before, it can be confusing to know exactly how long you should cook it so it’ll have the consistency you’re looking for.

If you’re looking for a method to try, why not try Jamie Oliver’s method? The celebrity chef and cookbook author has several recipes involving eggs, from poached eggs with fajita-spiced yoghurt to dippy eggs and cornbread soldiers.

But sometimes all you want is a boiled egg – and he’s found the secret to creating the ‘perfect’ one. In a clip posted to YouTube, Jamie talked through the method, which he says sometimes confuses people, for cooking a “perfect egg, every time”.

According to the 49-year-old, the secret to cooking the “perfect boiled egg every single time” is using the same sized egg. For this specific method, the chef used a large, free-range egg. And he also adds one extra ingredient.

First, he made sure he had a pan of boiling water, which he added a “tiny pinch of salt”, which he said would help avoid it cracking. Jamie explained that one of the theories suggests because there’s a “tiny bit” of salt inside the egg too, and if you put it in the water it “balances out”.

According to Jamie, leaving them out of the fridge will also help this. 

With a slotted spoon, the chef gently lowered the egg into the water, and dipped it in and out “two or three times”, before letting it settle on the bottom of the pan.

Jamie explained: “So from room temperature they go into boiling water. I’m going to put three eggs in and one for luck – that’s for soft-boiled, semi-soft boiled and hard-boiled”.

How long to cook boiled eggs for

For soft-boiled eggs, Jamie suggested “five and a half minutes” exactly. For semi soft-boiled, it’s seven and a half minutes, and for hard-boiled it’s 11 to 12 minutes.

It’s important to remember that the shell is like a “mini oven”, and will carry on cooking when you take it out of the water. So you don’t want to leave it too long before eating – or put it in cold water if you want it to cool down.