The Perfect Egg Yolk

By Christie Vanover | Published August 24, 2014 | Last Updated October 10, 2020

The perfect egg yolk oozes when you puncture its membrane, creating a rich, natural dipping sauce. It’s so luxurious the sad egg white becomes an afterthought.

There are many ways to cook a nice egg yolk. Fried sunny side up, poached and soft boiled are a few ways that come to mind. But have you ever had an egg yolk that you could gently hold like a water balloon waiting to burst?

I watch cooking shows regularly to learn new cooking techniques, but when I want to learn what restaurant chefs are creating, I tune into Top Chef. While it’s more fast-paced, it always teaches me new cooking terms that I can google, and from there, I get exposed to blogs and cooking sites designed for professional chefs.

My latest discovery is the 63-degree egg. Like me, you’re probably asking how any egg can cook at 63 degrees (that’s less than room temperature). Think abroad. It’s the 63-degree Celsius egg.

There is a chef secret to this perfect egg yolk – a sous vide immersion circulator. A what? Basically, it’s a thermos-shaped appliance you place in a pot of water. You plug it in, set the temperature and let the water heat and circulate. The cooking method is slow and low. You can use it to cook meat, veggies and yes, the perfect yolk.

I picked up a Sansaire sous vide immersion circulator at Sur La Table. They offer 10-percent military discount, and they have $20-off coupons every now and then.

Some recipes suggest cooking the eggs for 45 minutes, while others go up to 1 hour and 15 minutes. And of course, other chefs go with different temperatures. The Sansaire website suggests 65.5 degrees for 45 minutes.

I tested four eggs at 63 degrees. I cooked two for 45 minutes and two for one hour.

The whites were a little runny for both, but the yolks were glorious.

The 45-minute yolk was a little more fragile; while the one-hour egg was a little firmer, but still had the ooze I wanted.

So what do you do with a perfect egg yolk? I put it on a burger and loved every bite, especially since I didn’t have to eat around the egg white to get to the good stuff.

I just added the top bun and let the perfect yolk pop.