Method. The baseline is the widely used test-kitchen figure for a large fridge-cold egg lowered into boiling water: about 6½ minutes for soft, 7–8 for jammy, 11 for hard. Medium and extra-large eggs shift that by roughly ¾–1 minute (a gram of egg is a gram of egg — bigger simply heats through more slowly), room-temperature eggs need about ¾ minute less, and a cold-water start adds time for the pan to return to the boil, which is why that method is more variable between stoves.

Altitude. Water boils about 1 °C cooler for every 285 m you climb, so at 1,000 m it barely reaches 97 °C and eggs set more slowly. The estimate adds roughly 7% of time per 1,000 m — treat it as a starting point, do a test egg, and adjust. Above 3,000 m expect to experiment.

Peeling. Three things genuinely make eggs peel cleanly: use eggs a week or more old (very fresh whites cling to the shell membrane), dunk them in iced water for at least 2 minutes so the egg contracts away from the shell, and peel under a trickle of water starting from the wide end where the air pocket lives.

Edge cases. Timing assumes the water stays at a lively boil and the eggs are not stacked three deep. Cooking more than six at once? Give the water 30 seconds to recover after the eggs go in.

Last reviewed 2026-09-21. Times are kitchen guidance, not food-safety advice; run eggs fully if serving anyone pregnant, elderly or immunocompromised.