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Protein Salad · American-inspired

Classic Egg Salad

A mustard-and-lemon egg salad with a choice of texture, built on eggs that are seasoned before the mayonnaise goes in, so the bowl tastes like egg rather than only like dressing.

Prep
20 min
Cook
12 min
Total
55 min
Servings
4 (about 2½ cups (500 g), enough for four sandwiches or four small bowls)

For the eggs

  • 8 large eggs
  • ½ tsp, plus more to taste fine sea salt
  • 2 tsp / 10ml fresh lemon juice
  • freshly ground, to taste black pepper

For the dressing and add-ins

  • 6 tbsp / 85g mayonnaise
  • 2 tsp / 10g Dijon mustard
  • 1 stalk celery, finely diced (optional)
  • 2 tbsp fresh chives, snipped (optional)
  1. Bring a large pot of water to a gentle boil. Lower the eggs in straight from the fridge, using a spoon. Turn the heat down so the water simmers gently, and set a timer for 12 minutes.
  2. While the eggs cook, fill a large bowl with ice and cold water. When the timer goes off, move the eggs into the ice bath and leave them for 10 minutes. The yolks should be fully set, with no wet center.
  3. Crack and peel the eggs under a little cold running water. Set one egg aside if you want a halved egg on top. Cut the rest on a board into rough 1 cm (½ in) pieces for a coarse salad, or mash them with a fork in a bowl for a creamy one.
  4. Put the eggs in a bowl and sprinkle over the salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Toss gently, so the eggs are seasoned before any dressing goes on.
  5. Stir in the mayonnaise and mustard. Fold in the celery, if using, and most of the chives. Taste, and add salt, pepper, or a little more lemon until it tastes bright rather than flat.
  6. Cover and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes. Top with the halved egg and the remaining chives just before serving.

The one real decision in egg salad is texture, and it's worth making before you pick up a knife. Chopped gives you distinct pieces of white and crumbly yolk held together by dressing. Mashed gives you something closer to a spread. Neither is wrong. Chopped suits a bowl, a lettuce cup, or anywhere you want to see the egg. Mashed suits sandwiches, where you need it to stay put.

Season the eggs first

Eggs are mild, and mayonnaise doesn't change that. Salt, pepper, and lemon go onto the chopped eggs before the dressing does, so each piece is seasoned in its own right. That's judgment, not chemistry, and the test is simple: if you taste a plain chopped egg and it's flat, it needs seasoning before the mayo can do any good. The mustard and the lemon are doing the acid work here. Without them, the salad reads as one fat note.

Cooking the eggs

Twelve minutes at a simmer, then straight into ice water, gives a set yolk with no wet center. Hard-cooked is the point: cooked until both yolk and white are firm is what food-safety guidance asks for with a dish like this, and it's also the version that mashes and chops cleanly.

What's essential and what isn't

The eggs, mayonnaise, mustard, and lemon are the salad. Celery adds crunch, and it's the first thing to add if the bowl feels soft. Chives add a mild onion note and nothing else. Skip either without apology. Don't skip the rest in the fridge. Twenty minutes lets the dressing settle in and the salad firm up, and you'll want to taste it again afterward, because it usually wants a little more salt.

Keeping it

Egg salad is a short-lived dish. Refrigerate it within two hours of making it, or within one hour if the room is hot, and eat it within three days. Don't leave a sandwich filling sitting out on a counter for a long lunch. If it's going into a packed lunch, keep it cold until you eat it.

What to swap, what to leave alone

Greek yogurt can replace half the mayonnaise for a tangier, slightly looser salad, so dress closer to serving. Yellow mustard works if that's what's in the house, but it's blunter than Dijon. Vinegar can stand in for lemon. What you shouldn't do is cut the eggs' cooking short for a softer center. That's a different dish, and not one this recipe is written for.

The same mayonnaise-bound approach, with the seasoning done before the dressing, runs through the Classic Chicken Salad and, with these eggs folded in, the Creamy Potato Salad.