I never really thought I would be pickling anything, let alone eggs! But along came an intriguing German-style recipe for pickled eggs from allrecipes.com (one of my favorite recipe sites) as I was searching for deviled egg recipes. They had me at “German”! So I changed directions from deviled to pickled and I’m so glad I did. In fact, I can now take these pickled eggs and devil them up whenever I please, maybe even with some German sauerkraut and sausage. Wow, marrying in to a German family has really changed my taste buds!
Pickled Egg Ingredients
2 cups cider vinegar
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
2 Tbsp prepared honey mustard
1 Tbsp salt
1 Tbsp celery seed
1 Tbsp mustard seed
6 whole garlic cloves
2 medium onions, sliced thin
12 hard-cooked eggs, peeled
The first thing I did was hard-boil the eggs. You might be wondering what the eggs are sitting in and I am so excited to tell you! I am obsessed with my Nordic Ware Microwave Egg Cooker and I think every household should have one. I might sound like an infomercial, but why cook your eggs on the stove where you can forget all about them and then end up with overcooked yolks?!? Seriously, when you use this microwave egg cooker, you can control the timing and end up with a perfect egg every time. Click on this link and it will take you directly to the egg cooker. Trust me! You want this in your house. Nordic Ware 64802 Microwave Egg Cooker
Now back to the cooking! Once all of the eggs were hard-cooked, I set them aside to cool and worked on the brine. In a large saucepan, I combined the vinegar, sugar, water, mustard, salt, celery seed, mustard seed and garlic cloves.
I brought the mixture to a boil, reduced the heat, covered and let it simmer for 10 minutes. I let it cool completely. Isn’t it amazing how dark the mixture gets after boiling?!? I love that part.
 Once the eggs and vinegar mixture were cool, I added the eggs and sliced onions to a large jar. There is no wrong way to add everything in to the jar. Just drop it all in there.
I added the vinegar mixture to completely cover the eggs. I then covered the jar and placed it in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours.
And then I waited! I seem to be doing that a lot lately. I am learning to have patience when it comes to food, and it has always been worth it. 8 hours later, I can now confirm with you that it was worth the wait for these eggs. The outside of the egg actually turned the color of the yolk and had a savory and briney flavor. The yolk just tasted like yolk, but I’m sure with more time in the brine, it will gain a stronger flavor. And the greatest part is that you can keep the eggs in your fridge for a full week, so there is still time for more flavor to develop! I can’t wait to try one tomorrow…and maybe the next day…and the next day.
