This salted egg recipe made with fresh duck eggs using the brine method (salt water) is a great way to preserve eggs and super easy to make. Salted eggs are great as part of many Asian savory dishes and desserts. Before the cooling and curing steps, they take less than 20 minutes to make and the results are definitely worth the wait!
Why This Recipe Works
Homemade salted duck eggs are amazing because they are so easy to make and also part of many other awesome recipes. To make it you only need two ingredients which are eggs and salt and just a bit of patience.
Salted eggs work great as part of a meal. In Thailand, the boiled ones are often enjoyed with rice soup (khao tom – ข้าวต้ม) whereas the fried ones are usually eaten with steam rice and another spicy dish. So, for example, you could have rice soup with a salted egg, along with stir-fried water spinach and/or Thai garlic pork as a meal. We love this combo for breakfast or dinner here.
Apart from that, you can use boiled salted eggs in dishes like my awesome Thai egg salad (just replace the boiled eggs with boiled salted eggs) and stir-fried squid with salted egg (recipe coming soon!). As far as desserts go, we use the yolks to make salted egg yolk sauce (for topping shaved ice and even bubble tea) and salted egg yolk lava custard/cream (for filling Chinese steamed buns, Chinese pastry, baked buns and more).
Ways To Cook Salted Eggs
Boiling: Simply place salted duck eggs and water over medium heat and boil for about 8-10 minutes. Boiled salted eggs can be enjoyed with rice as mentioned before. But salted eggs are usually boiled before they get incorporated into other recipes. In other words, you don’t normally crack an uncooked salted eggs into something.
Frying: Frying is another great way to enjoy salted eggs. You can just fry them as you would normal eggs. Add a bit of oil to your frying pan, crack the egg in and fry until done. Note that the yolks will stay hard. Fried salted eggs are really good when paired with steamed rice and a curry like Thai Chicken Panang or a spicy stir-fry like Thai Basil Chicken.
Ingredients
Here is a visual overview of the ingredients in the recipe. Yes, just water and butterfly pea flowers! Scroll down to the recipe at the bottom for quantities.
Ingredient Notes
Salt: I use rock salt here because it’s more like a family thing. A lot of Thai people use rock salt to make the salt water for making salted eggs. However, you can use fine table salt to make the brine too.
Eggs: In Asia, mostly we use fresh duck eggs to make salted eggs. I’ve never seen salted eggs made with chicken eggs in my entire life, but sure you can use them. We prefer duck eggs because their shells are hard and less likely to break (if you break one egg in your glass container, the the whole thing is going to go bad). Also, their yolks are much bigger and much richer compared to chicken eggs.
Step-by-step Instructions
Step 1: Rinse the eggs under running water and dry with a kitchen towel. Make sure there’s no dirt left on them.
Step 2: Add the water and salt to a sauce pan, bring to a boil and cook until the salt is fully dissolved. After that, let it cool down completely.
Quip Tips:
- If there’s a lot of dirt on the eggshells, you might want to use a kitchen sponge to help remove it. This is going to help prevent the brine from going bad.
- To make the process faster, you could make the brine in advance.
Step 3: Place the egg and a glass jar and pour the cooled brine over the eggs, making sure the brine covers all the eggs when they are not afloat. You should have some brine left in this step.
Step 4: Put the leftover brine in a plastic bag and secure it with an elastic band.
Step 5: Place the bag of brine on top of the eggs to stop them from floating. This will ensure that every egg gets cured and becomes equally salty.
Step 6: Close the lid of the jar and store at room temperature for two weeks.
Quick Tip: If you’re not sure whether 14 days is going to make the eggs too salty for you, you can take out one egg before then and cook it to try. Basically, the longer you cure the eggs, the saltier they become.
Storing
After two weeks of curing, you should discard the brine, wash the egg and keep the in the fridge for about a week. You want to have them as soon as possible, especially if you’re going to fry them. But if you make a large batch, and you want to store them longer, you can boiled them. Boiled salted eggs will keep in the fridge for about one month.
