Write the Boil Date on Hard-Boiled Eggs

## Why It Works There is no visual difference between a raw egg and a hard-boiled egg sitting in a carton. None. The only reliable tests — the spin test (hard-boiled spins smoothly; raw wobbles), the light test, the crack test — all require doing something to the egg first. Writing the date eliminates the guessing game entirely before it starts. ## How to Do It 1. Hard-boil your eggs and let them cool in the ice bath. 2. While they're still wet, don't try to write — pat dry first or let them air dry for a minute. 3. Use a regular pencil (not a pen — ink runs on cold shells) and write the date directly on the shell. Keep it short: "HB 4/18" works fine. 4. Store in the carton or a covered container. 5. If you mixed boiled and raw in the same carton by mistake, use the spin test to sort them: spin each egg on a flat surface. Hard-boiled spins fast and smooth. Raw spins slowly and wobbles. ## Pro Tips - If you're meal-prepping for the week, write the day you want to eat the egg, not the boil date — "eat by Friday" is more actionable than "boiled Monday." - A small dot of nail polish or a rubber band around the shell are alternative marking methods if you're out of pencils. - The spin test is genuinely reliable: a hard-boiled egg's solid interior rotates with the shell; a raw egg's liquid interior lags behind, causing the wobble. ## When to Use This Any time you hard-boil more than one or two eggs and plan to store them alongside raw eggs. Which is most meal-prep situations. The two minutes this takes prevents one very unpleasant kitchen moment per week.