Over Hard Eggs – Why You Should Add Them To A Breakfast Routine
Let's see why you should be adding over hard eggs to all of your breakfast routines going forward. They are a great way to start the day
This article is more than 2 years old
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that eggs are very versatile. They can be cooked a number of different ways, each way being more delicious than the last. But we all have our favorite way of preparing eggs. Sometimes we like them mixed with vegetables, sometimes we liked them in a salad, sometimes we like them all alone. One of the ways people prefer to eat their eggs is over-hard. So, what exactly are over hard eggs, and comparatively speaking, are they the healthiest way to eat an egg?
WHAT ARE OVER HARD EGGS?
When you are cooking eggs solo and not mixing them with anything, there are four main ways to cook them – sunny side up, over easy, over medium, and over hard. When we speak of these ways of cooking an egg, we are talking about how you like the yolk of your egg cooked. On the scale of yolk cooking, over hard eggs are where the yolk is completely and thoroughly cooked.
HOW DO YOU MAKE OVER HARD EGGS?
Sunny side-up eggs are ones you cook in a frying pan. Here you simply crack it and drop it neatly into the pan, careful not to break the yolk. You then cook it until the white of the egg is done but you don’t flip it. Once the white is cooked, your egg is ready to go.
To get an over easy or over medium egg, the process is very similar. You crack the egg and drop it carefully into the frying pan. From there, you let the egg white cook, but instead of removing it when the white is cooked, you flip the egg to give the yolk some time on the heated pan. Now, depending on how well you want the yolk cooked is how you determined an over easy versus an over medium egg. Over easy means the yolk will be warm, but runny. Leaving the yolk on the hot side a bit longer will give your yolk some firmness, but also leave it with a runny texture.
Now, if you are one who does not care for the runniness of the yolk and instead like your egg completely cooked, then you are looking at an over hard egg. You follow the same basic steps as you would with a sunny side up, an over easy, or over medium to get an over hard egg. The difference here is that when you flip your egg, you let the yolk cook all the way through. Most times, to get this effect, you would pop the yolk so it can cook evenly with the egg white. Once one side is cooked, you then flip it over to complete the cooking. Check out a short video on the process below:
ARE OVER HARD EGGS BETTER FOR YOU?
We’ve talked about the specific ways you can fry an egg – sunny side up, over easy, over medium, and over hard – but there are many other ways you can cook them as well. You can boil them, you can poach them, you can make an omelet, and if your omelet-making skills are lacking, you can turn that omelet into scrambled eggs. But what is the healthiest way to eat one? Are over hard eggs even good for you?
First off, cooking eggs makes them much safer to eat. If given a choice, try not to take Rocky Balboa’s advice on eating eggs. Raw is typically not the best route.
So, where do over hard eggs stand on the egg health spectrum? Well, not only is cooking eggs good for you, but it also makes the egg’s nutrients easier to digest. For instance, studies have shown that a cooked egg makes the egg’s proteins more digestible. One National Library of Medicine study showed that a human body could use over 90% of a cooked egg’s protein. By comparison, the human body will only use 51% of the protein in raw eggs.
The massive difference between raw and cooked is believed to occur because it is the heat applied to an egg that causes the structural changes in an egg’s protein. Raw eggs see separate large protein compounds. When heat is applied to them, these weak bonds break, causing them to form new bonds with the proteins surrounding them. Think about it when you are watching an egg while you cook it. You drop the egg into the frying pan and the egg white is gel-like. As it cooks, it turns firm and white. This is the bond they are talking about.
A cooked egg is a great source of biotin. Biotin, which is also known as B7 or vitamin H, is an important nutrient used in sugar and fat metabolism. But when an egg is left raw, the protein in the egg white, called avidin, binds itself to the biotin, making it so your body will not be able to use it. A cooked egg makes it difficult for the avidin to bind to the biotin so your body can better absorb it. Does this mean an over hard egg is the best solution then? Not necessarily.
Cooking eggs at a high temperature and cooking the yolk all the way through, while making some nutrients more digestible, can damage some of the other nutrients in an egg. You shouldn’t be alarmed though if over hard eggs are what you desire since more foods lose some nutrients if they are cooked for long periods of time in high temperatures.
But you should know that one study showed that cooking eggs in such a manner (over hard) reduced their vitamin A content by 17-20%. It has also been shown that cooking an egg can reduce the number of antioxidants in the egg. The bottom line here is, that the longer you cook an egg, the more nutrients you may lose. So, while you may prefer over hard eggs, they may not be the healthiest way to cook them.
WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO PREPARE?
Thankfully, if you are an over hard eggs fan, the health difference between, say, an egg that is sunny side up and your fun-loving over hard egg isn’t detrimental. The key would be what you use to cook the egg. Since we are talking about friend eggs here, then we need to consider what type of oil you use. You want to look for an oil that cooks well in high heat. Perhaps avocado oil or even sunflower oil. Coconut oil is also a nice choice as is an extra-virgin olive oil.
Once you have chosen the oil that best suits your diet or needs, then prepare your over hard eggs as we described earlier. Some leave the yolk whole and cook it through, some prefer to break the yolk. Either way, over hard eggs (eggs of any style), are very nutritious and should remain in your selection of foods.
