Best Egg Cookers [Tested. Reviewed. Ranked]

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Last Christmas, a cousin who knows I like to cook gave me an electric egg cooker. I wasn’t especially enthused. Is it really so hard to make boiled eggs in a pot that I need a special appliance taking up space on the counter? I put it away and forgot about it until I hit a week where I had come into work early, then had an idea. I brought in a loaf of bread, a dozen eggs, and the electric egg cooker. I am not a morning person, but there’s some small consolation in having fresh soft-boiled eggs at my desk in less time than it takes to make the coffee.

Maybe I don’t need an egg cooker, but it’s a nice little extra.

An electric egg cooker is an easy way to make hard-boiled and soft-boiled eggs without a stove. It doesn’t need much water, so it’s easy to use outside the kitchen, like at an office or a college dorm room. With a little practice calibrating to your environment, it turns out boiled eggs with a minimum of effort and attention that are just as good as those made on the stove. An egg cooker is cheap and compact, and it just might be worth your while.

About Egg Cookers

We’ve brought six of the top-selling electric egg cookers into the test kitchen and put them through their paces. We tried all of their advertised functions and got a feel for each one’s plusses and minuses, including some minor injuries. You’ll see the results of our tests, wrapping up with our final recommendations.

PRODUCT	RATING	COST
1. Copper Chef	★★★★☆	$$$$
2. Dash Rapid	★★★★☆	$$
3.Maxi-Matic	★★★☆☆	$
4. Hamilton Beach	★★☆☆☆	$$
5. Cuisinart Egg Central	★☆☆☆☆	$$$$$
6. Mueller Rapid	★☆☆☆☆	$$

—>> Jump Down to the Test Results

How Egg Cookers Work

All of these cookers do everything with steam. You pour water onto a metal plate with a heating element, then put on an egg holder of some sort, fill it with eggs, cover, and fire it up.

parts to an egg cooker — Notice, there is only one button. The device is either on or off. No custom settings for time, temperature or cooking method. The device works exactly the same each time its fired up. The only difference for each cooking method is time, which is directly related to how much water is present within the cooker prior and during the cook.

The water boils into steam, and the cover holds the steam in, steaming the eggs. Functionally, it’s very similar to boiling. If you like, you can try a stovetop steam by bringing an inch of water to a boil in a pot, then adding a steamer insert filled with eggs. Cover and steam 12 minutes for hard-boiled steamed eggs.

All but one of these cookers has a temperature sensor that detects the temperature rise when most of the water has cooked off, and signals that the eggs are done. You adjust the cooking time and final result by changing the amount of water at the beginning.

The poaching and omelette settings also steam the eggs, but in little plastic holders to hold in the cracked eggs. Steaming is less common for these preparations, at least in Western cooking. They work the same way as the boiled eggs, with the amount of water setting your cooking time. As a result, there are no actual settings, for heat, type of cooking method or time; the cooker works the same each time it is fired up: the amount of water added dictates cook time — cooking is assumed complete once the water has evaporated.

Problems with How They Work

Control

When you cook eggs on the stove, you have two tools for adjusting the final state of your eggs: time and temperature. In the electric egg cooker, the temperature is always the boiling point of water at your altitude, and you adjust the time indirectly by changing the amount of water in the cooker. It’s a fiddly adjustment, since it also depends on the starting temperature of your water and the cooker.

As a result, it’s hard to get perfectly cooked eggs. You’ve got to learn the peculiarities of your cooker and make adjustments.

Poaching at a full boil is especially tough. When I poach in a pot, I start the water boiling, then turn it down to low heat and add the eggs. The gradually cooling water ramps me into an easy landing for the right consistency of yolk and white. No such luck here — you’ve got to have very tight timing with a device that doesn’t really support it. The steamed omelettes suffer from the same problems.

Design

Ergonomically, some of these cookers are disasters. Some of the handles are located right next to where the steam vents, leading to a few scalds. There’ll be more of the injury parade in the individual reviews.

THE TEST KITCHEN — HOW WE TESTED

Our day began with a big stack of cookers and ten dozen eggs, and ended with four people who never want to eat an egg again…

We put these best rated egg cookers through four tests (where possible):

hard-boiled eggs
soft-boiled eggs
poached eggs
and omelettes

Before each test, we made a control group on the stovetop so we had something to which we could compare the eggs from the egg cookers. Along the way, we got a lot of experience with using these machines, and noted down what we found.

All six of the electric egg cookers we tested make boiled eggs, with water measurements for soft-boiled, medium-boiled, and hard-boiled eggs. Five of them also include a poaching tray for poached eggs, and four have an omelette tray. All but one have a temperature sensor that sounds an alarm when cooking is complete.

Everything we tested is relatively inexpensive, ranging from $15 to $35. As we found, though, a higher price does not necessarily point to higher quality.

1.THE HARD-BOILED EGG

A hard-boiled egg should be completely cooked through, but not overcooked. The white should be completely set, but not rubbery; the yolk should be set all the way through, but not dry, crumbly, or chalky.

We also used this test to try the egg cookers at maximum capacity, since hard-boiled eggs are the most useful in large quantities. The manuals for the largest units also recommend that maximum capacity only be used for hard-boiled eggs.

2. THE SOFT-BOILED EGG

A perfect soft-boiled egg should have a white that is opaque and firm all the way through. The yolk should be completely liquid, but warm and thick. We tried these both on their own with a spoon, and then dipped buttered toast into the yolk to get a better feel for the texture. Also that’s the best part. We made two eggs in each egg cooker.

3. POACHED EGGS

A poached egg should be like a soft-boiled egg, minus the shell. Opaque and firm white, viscous and warm yolk.

eating perfiect poached eggs — *Testing the yolks of the poached eggs from our control group, including with buttered toast with these as well. Y’know, for science.*

4. OMELETTES

There are a lot of omelette variations out there. Since the manuals had instructions for fillings, our control group was a diner-style folded omelette with ham and cheese. We wanted some browning on the outside transitioning to a fluffy and tender interior with nicely melted cheese.

5. ERGONOMICS

Throughout the tests, we commented on the experience of working with these egg cookers. We wanted a cooker that was safe, easy to use, sturdy, and easy to clean.

BEST EGG COOKERS

1. Copper Chef Perfect Egg Maker ZDQ-206

Overall Star Rating

★★★★☆

Price: $$$$

Buy from Amazon

SPECS:

Maximum Eggs : 14

Features: Hard-Boiled, Medium-Boiled, Soft-Boiled, Poaching, Omelettes

TEST RAITINGS:

Hard-Boiled Eggs -: ★★★★☆

Soft-Boiled Eggs –: ★★★★☆

Poached Eggs–: ★★★★☆

Omelettes: ★★★☆☆

Ergonomics -: ★★☆☆☆

RECOMMENDED w/ RESERVATIONS

Why It Was Included in Our Roundup

Copper Chef is a a top selling cookware brand and their egg cooker is among the top most searched for on Google. With millions of dollars spent in adverting, including popular informercials for their egg cooker, it was a no brainer to include the Copper Chef in our roundup.

Watch the Testing & Review on the Copper Chef

Copper Chef Review

Hard-Boiled Eggs ★★★★☆

We loaded up two tiers totaling 14 eggs and decided to use the high end of the range in the manual since we were maxing it out. The eggs were harder to peel than most, but they came out almost right, with the yolks just a smidge overdone.

Soft-Boiled Eggs ★★★★☆

For this test, we went with the manual’s recommended 6 minutes, and were rewarded with good eggs. The whites were a little loose, but the yolks were just right.

Poached Eggs ★★★★☆

This unit poaches two eggs in half-circle shapes. The manual is completely vague here, and does not list a time at all. So, we eyeballed these as done at about 9 minutes. They were the best poached eggs that came out of one of these egg cookers, but not up to the control group. Specifically, the whites at the outside corners were rubbery and the very inside of the white was liquidy and undercooked. The odd shape of the poaching tray seems to lend itself to this sort of thing since the yolk is so isolated from the ends.

Omelettes ★★★☆☆

The manual has the same issue here where it doesn’t show a time, so we pulled the omelette when it looked done. Still more like scrambled eggs, but they’re acceptable scrambled eggs. I’d eat them, especially in an egg sandwich.

Ergonomics ★★☆☆☆

This might be the oddest entry in our lineup. Starting with the good, all of the parts stay pretty cool, and are easy to handle. It’s got the biggest capacity in our test, with a second tier expansion rack, for a total of 14 hard-boiled eggs, or 7 soft-boiled. The measuring cup is reasonably good, and it includes markings in milliliters so you have more insight when dialing in the right amount of water.

The bad is a big one, though. This unit does not have an automatic shutoff. You have to set a timer and shut it off manually. Worse, the times in the manual are very vague. For example, hard-boiled eggs have a range of 18-23 minutes. That’s a huge spread, and it’s not like you can look at an egg and see if it’s hard-boiled.

cook times for copper chef — There’s no timer on the Copper Chef, instead you have a manual with recommended cook times.

Overall ★★★★☆

So here’s the most vexing balance of the test. All of the results were at the top of the table, but we had to time it out ourselves, and in the case of the poached eggs and omelette, make up our own timings.

What does that add up to? Would some of the other units have fared better if we watched the food and timed it ourselves too?

I come back to the question of why you would buy an electric egg cooker. If you’ve got to stand there and monitor your omelette, you’d be well-served to make a better omelette in a pan.

I think the best use of these electric egg cookers is to make boiled eggs, and setting a timer isn’t too big a burden.

The Copper Chef Perfect Egg Maker is our Best Egg Cooker WINNER, it is recommended with reservations, specifically that it requires monitoring and finesse that the others don’t.
What We Liked

Ability to cook 14 eggs as close to perfection as we witnessed from any of the other cookers
Performed the best overall at each one of our four tests, producing a final product that was as close to our control group
Didn’t harm us in testing, like several of the other cookers
Measuring cup is clearly marked

What We Didn’t Like

No alarm
There’s some guesswork when it comes to cook-times
Hard-boiled eggs were more difficult to peel then some of the other cookers

2. Dash Rapid Egg Cooker

Overall Star Rating

★★★★☆

Price: $$

Buy from Amazon

SPECS:

Maximum Eggs : 6

Features: Hard-Boiled, Medium-Boiled, Soft-Boiled, Poaching, Omelettes

TEST RAITINGS:

Hard-Boiled Eggs -: ★★★★☆

Soft-Boiled Eggs –: ★★★★★

Poached Eggs–: ★★★☆☆

Omelettes: ★☆☆☆☆

Ergonomics -: ★★★★☆

RECOMMENDED w/ RESERVATIONS

Dash Rapid Review

Ergonomics ★★★★☆

The Dash is the smallest cooker in our roundup, and it makes some sacrifices to get there. The capacity is the smallest at six eggs. The tray has a removable handle that sits up at the highest part of the steamer, so it gets very hot when it’s time to remove the eggs. Beyond that, everything is fine. It’s easy to see what’s going on, and the finish signal is clear.

The measuring cup is average, with relatively readable markings. There are only four marks for hard, medium, soft, and poached/omelette, so you have to just eyeball adjustments. The piercer on the bottom has a cap for safe storage.