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This easy Egg Salad Recipe is perfect with crackers, lettuce wraps, or straight from the bowl, and makes the best egg salad sandwiches! Made with hard-boiled eggs and a few other simple ingredients, it’s the perfect quick and easy, protein-packed recipe.
The Best Egg Salad Recipe
Inexpensive, easy to make, super delicious, and high in protein, egg salad has the talent of being incredibly basic or extremely complex. Created sometime after the introduction of mayonnaise in the early 1800s, it remains more than two centuries later, a favorite for both sandwiches and salads all across Europe and America.
That said, no two egg salad recipes are completely alike.
Some salads come bare and drowning in mayonnaise. Others prefer a little added crunch from veggies like red onion, celery, bell pepper, or even jicama. In this version, you’ll find hard-boiled eggs mixed with mayonnaise, red onion, chives, dijon mustard, sweet paprika, salt, pepper, and pickle juice!
Everyone has their own favorite version of the “egg salad.” This one is mine.
Making Perfect Hard-Boiled Eggs for Egg Salad
Having perfectly cooked hard-boiled eggs is the most important part of achieving the perfect egg salad. You don’t want eggs that are rubbery and overcooked, have a grey/green ring around the yolk, or are too soft and runny.
Most people have their own favorite way to make hard-boiled eggs. If that’s not you, learn how to make perfect boiled eggs on the stovetop, using 12-minute eggs for egg salad. Or, learn how to cook Instant Pot hard-boiled eggs (my preferred method for cooking hard-boiled eggs).
How to Make Egg Salad
The process varies depending on how you like your salad.
- Somewhat Chunky: Transfer the peeled and chopped eggs (an egg slicer is great for this) to a medium mixing bowl. Add the mayonnaise, pickle juice (optional), red onion, mustard (Dijon or yellow), chives, sweet paprika, salt, and black pepper. Mix until the desired texture and consistency are reached.
- Smooth and Creamy: This method has an extra step. In my opinion, it tastes the same, but some people may disagree. Divide the egg yolks from the egg whites. Add the yolks to a large mixing bowl with the mayonnaise, pickle juice, mustard, paprika, and salt and pepper. Mix well until fully combined and smooth. Finally, add the egg white and the diced red onion to the yolk and mayo mixture. Gently mix to combine.
Once your egg salad is all mixed together, season with additional salt, black pepper, or mustard to taste.
Egg Salad Variations and Additions
- Mayo Substitutions – Greek yogurt, hummus, tahini.
- Crunchy Veggies – celery, jicama, green onion, sweet bell pepper, spicy jalapeño.
- More Protein – garbanzo beans, small cooked shrimp, diced chicken, or bacon.
- Fresh Herbs – fresh parsley, fresh dill, fresh basil, rosemary.
- AVOCADO
- Things that are salty – diced pickles or relish, olives, chopped (well-drained) artichoke hearts, or capers.
Things that I do not recommend adding (unless you plan to enjoy the entire batch of egg salad right away) are things with a lot of water or liquid. For example, tomatoes and cucumber. You’re better off topping your sandwich, salad, or bowl with these veggies.
How to Serve
- Make an Egg salad sandwich: Keep it simple with just the egg salad sandwiched between two pieces of bread, or make it fancy and serve it on a buttery croissant with all of your favorite toppings like,
- Lettuce, sprouts, microgreens
- Sliced tomatoes
- Bacon
- Avocado
- Pickled onions
- Scoop it on a salad: This is my second favorite way to eat egg salad. Low carb and totally delicious, adding a scoop or two of egg salad to a green salad is an easy way to turn a side dish into a complete meal. Perfect for make-ahead lunches or last-minute dinners.
- Serve it as a dip: Why not? Let guests scoop it onto buttery crackers. I’m fairly certain they’ll take the bowl with them.
- Scoop into lettuce cups: Butter lettuce and Romaine work best.
How Long is Egg Salad Good For?
Egg salad is best enjoyed within 3-4 days when stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator. With that said, if it smells off, looks dull, or has turned watery, it’s probably a good time to toss it in the trash.
How to meal prep egg salad for the week? Hard-boil a large batch of eggs – hard-boiled eggs stay fresh, unpeeled, in the refrigerator for one week. This allows you to make a new batch of egg salad whenever the previous/old batch is gone.
Can I Freeze Egg Salad?
Freezing is not recommended as both eggs and mayonnaise do not taste good once thawed from frozen.
More Salad Recipes
- Easy Fruit Salad Recipe
- Easy Three-Bean Salad Recipe
- Chicken Salad Recipe
- Balsamic Tomato Basil Salad
- 7 Layer Salad Recipe
- Ham Salad Recipe
Did you try making this Egg Salad Recipe? Please leave me a comment and let me know! I always love to hear your thoughts.
Egg Salad Recipe
Ingredients
- 8 large eggs, hard-boiled and cooled
- ⅓ cup mayonnaise, plus more as needed
- 2 teaspoon pickle juice, (optional)
- ¼ red onion, minced
- 1 teaspoon mustard, yellow or dijon
- ¼ cup chives, chopped
- ¼ teaspoon sweet paprika
- salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Hard boil the eggs (stovetop) – Add eggs to a large saucepan and cover with 1-2 inches of water. Bring to a boil and immediately remove from heat. Cover and let eggs rest in the hot water for 10-12 minutes before transferring to an ice bath to cool. Remove eggs from the ice bath, peel, and chop.
- Hard boil the eggs (pressure cooker) – Add 1 cup water to the inner pot of your Instant Pot and insert egg or steam rack. Place eggs on the rack and securely fasten the lid. Set the cooking time for 5 minutes on high pressure. Allow pressure to release naturally for 5 minutes before doing a quick release. Transfer eggs to an ice water bath to stop cooling. Once cool, remove eggs from the ice bath and carefully peel and chop.
- Mix – Transfer peeled and chopped eggs to a medium mixing bowl. Add the mayonnaise, pickle juice (optional), red onion, mustard (Dijon or yellow), chives, sweet paprika, salt, and pepper. Mix well to combine.
- Season to taste – Season with additional salt, pepper, or mustard, to taste.
- Serve – Serve on your favorite bread, crackers, or on your favorite salad, if desired. Enjoy!
Notes
- Mayonnaise: Classic egg salad calls for mayonnaise. Whether you add homemade mayonnaise, full-fat or low-fat, that’s completely up to you, but you will need some sort of creamy base. A healthy alternative is Greek yogurt, or simply cutting back on the total amount used.
- Pickle Juice: Pickle juice is a fabulous way to add some salty, vinegary flavor. If you’re worried that your egg salad will taste like pickles, don’t…because it won’t. However, feel free to leave it out if it’s not your thing.
- Mustard: This recipe is great with yellow, whole grain, or dijon mustard.
- Fresh Chives: Chives are there to add a little fresh bite to the egg salad and help bring out different flavors. Some thinly sliced green onion would also work well.
- Paprika: Paprika is more for color and decoration than it is for taste. Add it in, leave it out, completely up to you.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I will skip the onion, but can’t wait to make this. I was so intrigued by the info on hard boiling in the InstantPot, I went online and ordered the steamer rack. And I may try adding a handful of crispy bacon. Mmmmm, a bacon & egg salad sandwich!
Thanks so much for the advice.
That sounds great, Connie. Let me know how it turns out 🙂
This is my go-to egg salad recipe. It is so good, and we love the bite of the red onion!
Thanks, Danielle 🙂
I also love that red onion bite!
I loved the recipe , I don’t have red onion. Do you think white onion would be too much ?
I think adding a white onion instead of a red onion will be fine Stormi 🙂
Thank you for your fantastic recipes
Thank you so much for sharing your delicious recipes….
On the 5 and 1lean and green meal plan how many lean, leaner or leanest and how many Green’s and healthy fat and condiments does this recipe equal. Really want to try because it sounds delicious but don’t want to get off program.
Sorry Tina, I am not an expert on that program.
Looks great. I want to use pickle juice but not a fan of dill. I wonder if Pepperoncini juice would work. What do you think?
That is a great question, Andy, and it should work fine. I want to try this substitution now 🙂
I loved it
How can I not give 5 stars?! This is as simple as delicious. I didn’t have mustard (finished! shame on me😒), but it was delish!
Thanks for the kind feedback Roberta 🙂
Gotta leave another comment. This became a weekly meal 🤪 it’s too delicious
Made this for my husband today, we both loved it! Thanks for sharing your recuoe!
2nd time making egg salad ever…. this recipe is great!! My MIL makes everything sweet, and I’ve grown accustom… so I added a tiny bit of sugar. But, the egg cooking direction is just as amazing! Never seen these times, but they were PERFECT on the stovetop
Thanks for the kind feedback Natalie 🙂