This easy Egg Salad Sandwich recipe is my unique take on the indulgent lunchtime treat. Fresh garlic, scallions, and cilantro come together with perfectly boiled eggs, on soft and fluffy bread.
It’s rooted in our Chinese recipes, but it’s ultimately just plain old delicious! We figured that with Easter coming up, many of you will need recipes to use up all those hard-boiled eggs. If you’re tired of the same ol’ egg salad, give this one a try!
Egg Salad with Plenty of Garlicky Herby Goodness
This Egg Salad recipe was a happy accident. If you’ve ever followed our recipe for an at-home Hot Pot spread, you know that a key part of a quality experience is having the trifecta of fresh chopped garlic, cilantro, and scallions to mix into your hot pot dipping sauce.
After a New Year’s Eve hot pot dinner this past January, my mom casually consolidated the garlic, cilantro and scallion into one container, tossed it into the fridge, and headed upstairs for her regular 10:45 bedtime, notwithstanding the impending New Year’s Eve ball drop.
The next day, my dad had grand plans for a New Year’s Day egg salad. Not only did he have a hankering, he could also repurpose the leftover scallions.
He reached into the fridge and huffed about my mom mixing everything all up together instead of storing the garlic, scallions, and cilantro separately. (Sometimes, my dad’s time in restaurant kitchens really shows.)
Why not toss it all in, I said, looking to avoid a parental squabble. After a big fatherly “HmMmmMmm” we sat down to our unorthodox egg salad sandwiches and took tentative bites. They were unexpectedly and uniquely delicious!
The fresh garlic really adds an extra something, and the scallion—a usual suspect in egg salads—was really amplified by the zing of cilantro.
Call it a classic moment from The Woks of Life—one family member riffing on another’s moves in the kitchen. For that, I love this egg salad, and it’s earned a spot in my regular rotation. This recipe is a much needed jazzification of the standard mayo ‘n mustard combination that I’ve long relied on!
The Best Bread for Egg Salad Sandwiches
The platonic ideal of the egg salad sandwich involves soft, pillowy white sandwich bread. This is true.
That said, we were lucky to stumble on a white sourdough sandwich loaf at our local Wegmans, which is delicious and feels healthier than a Wonder Bread situation. The prebiotics in sourdough bread make it easier to digest and nourish healthy gut bacteria.
Another really delicious option that we love is Portuguese rolls. We get these at the grocery store and toast them lightly so there’s a gentle warm cronch that is so delicious, but the bread isn’t so toasted that it squidges the egg salad out of the sandwich.
You can use any soft sandwich loaf you’re comfortable with! Or even some sturdy crunchy lettuce greens like romaine, radicchio, or endive to make egg salad “cups,” a low carb option.
The Best Method for Hard Boiling Eggs
If you’re into food and cooking, you probably know that J. Kenji Lopez-Alt has spent an inordinate amount of time testing and perfecting the hard-boiled egg.
Like many others, we eagerly followed his experiment and have adopted his method: Bring a large pot of water a rolling boil, gently add the eggs, boil for 30 seconds, then lower the heat, cover, and simmer for 11 minutes, followed by a rinse under cool water and an easy peel.
Kenji’s most recent egg research suggests that steaming the eggs is actually the best method (11 minutes for egg salad yolk consistency), so if you’re comfortable with steaming, you can do that too!
Our Egg Salad Sandwich Recipe
Grab your sandwich bread of choice (we also like this with our crusty homemade artisan sourdough!)
Bring a pot of water to a boil. Gently lower the eggs into the boiling water with a spoon.
Boil over high heat for 30 seconds, then cover tightly, reduce the heat to low, and simmer for 11 minutes.
Rinse the eggs under cold running water. Peel the eggs, and add to a medium bowl. Using a fork, mash the eggs into coarse chunks. If you like a finer texture in your egg salad, you can mash the eggs to a finer texture. We prefer it chunky! You can also dice the eggs if you like.
Set aside to let cool further while you prepare the garlic, cilantro, and scallions. Add the garlic and herbs to the eggs, along with the mayonnaise, yellow mustard, salt, pepper, and paprika. Taste and adjust seasonings to your liking.
Spread on lightly toasted sandwich bread, and serve. You can also top it with crunchy lettuce, watercress, microgreens, or some thinly sliced shallot if desired!
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Recipe
Egg Salad Sandwich
Ingredients
- 6 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic
- 2 teaspoons cilantro (finely chopped)
- 2 teaspoons scallion (finely chopped)
- ¼ cup mayonnaise
- 1 teaspoon yellow mustard
- ¼ teaspoon salt (or to taste)
- ⅛ teaspoon black pepper
- ⅛ teaspoon paprika
- sandwich bread of choice we also like this with our crusty homemade artisan sourdough!
Instructions
- Bring a pot of water to a boil. Gently lower the eggs into the boiling water with a spoon. Boil over high heat for 30 seconds, then cover tightly, reduce the heat to low, and simmer for 11 minutes.
- Rinse the eggs under cold running water. Peel the eggs, and add to a medium bowl. Using a fork, mash the eggs into coarse chunks. If you like a finer texture in your egg salad, you can mash the eggs to a finer texture. We prefer it chunky! You can also dice the eggs if you like.
- Set aside to let cool further while you prepare the garlic, cilantro, and scallions. Add the garlic and herbs to the eggs, along with the mayonnaise, yellow mustard, salt, pepper, and paprika. Taste and adjust seasonings to your liking.
- Spread on lightly toasted sandwich bread, and serve. You can also top it with crunchy lettuce, watercress, microgreens, or some thinly sliced shallot if desired!
