Egg Timer

The simplest online egg timer for perfect soft boiled, medium boiled, and hard boiled eggs every time. Pick your preset, press start, and the alarm will tell you exactly when your eggs are ready.

Choose Your Egg Style

Or Set a Custom Time

min
:
sec
Ready
03:00
Soft Boiled

Press Space to start / pause

Egg Boiling Times — Complete Guide

🥚
Soft Boiled
3 min
Runny yolk, barely set white. Best for dipping toast soldiers.
🍳
Medium Boiled
6 min
Jammy, creamy yolk. Perfect for ramen, grain bowls, and salads.
🧆
Hard Boiled
9 min
Fully set yolk, firm white. Great for egg salad and sandwiches.
💪
Extra Hard
12 min
Very firm throughout. Ideal for devilled eggs and meal prep.

Times are for large eggs lowered into already-boiling water. Add 60–90 seconds for cold refrigerator eggs.

How to Use the Egg Timer

1. Pick a preset or custom time

Select Soft, Medium, Hard, or Extra Hard boiled — or enter a custom number of minutes and seconds for any other cooking need.

2. Lower eggs and start the timer

Gently lower eggs into already-boiling water with a spoon, then immediately press Start. The visual ring and egg graphic will track your progress.

3. Ice bath when the alarm rings

When the alarm fires, transfer eggs straight to a bowl of ice water. This stops cooking instantly and makes peeling much easier.

Pro Egg Cooking Tips

🌡️
Room Temp Eggs
Take eggs out of the fridge 10 minutes before boiling for more consistent, even cooking throughout.
🧊
Ice Bath is Essential
Stop residual cooking the moment the timer ends. Keeps yolks at your target doneness and shells peel cleanly.
🥄
Gentle Entry
Lower eggs with a spoon — never drop them in. Cold eggs entering hot water too fast will crack.
🔄
Gentle Simmer
After adding eggs, reduce heat slightly to a gentle rolling boil. A violent boil knocks eggs together and cracks shells.
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The Egg Timer Online That Makes You Get Your Eggs Perfectly.

No cooking operation is easier than the boiling of an egg--and it is one of the poorest-cooked and least-cooked things of all in any kitchen. The gap between a jammy medium yolk and a hard and chalky yolk can be less than ninety seconds. That is an awful gap to leave to conjecture, to a wall clock, or even vague memories of the time when you put the pan on. This is what this free online egg timer is all about, a one-click countdown of the soft boiled, medium boiled, hard boiled and extra hard boiled eggs with the visual ring that tells you exactly how much time you have at any moment.

The timer is designed with the same codebase as our other professional countdown applications - the same ring animation, same audio alarm system, same responsive design that looks good on both desktop web browser, a tablet in your lap on the kitchen counter or a smart phone in your apron pocket. It has no advertisements that disrupted the countdown, no paywalls, and does not require a sign-up. You only need to choose the type of egg, press Start and resume giving your whole attention to your breakfast.

Which is better: Soft Boiled vs Medium Boiled vs Hard Boiled?

The fundamental distinction between the degree of doneness of the eggs is the manner in which the yolk and white are cooked by the moment you take the egg out of the water. An egg boiled three minutes has a white which is only slightly set, and the yolk of the egg is entirely liquid and warmer than ever,--ideal in dipping toast soldiers, or in covering asparagus. The six-minute medium boiled egg is the present favourite of cooks of every kind: the white is quite firm, the yolk is firm on the outside and soft, custard-like and slightly orange on the inside. This is the egg that is placed on a bowl of ramen, on the top of a grain bowl, or on half an avocado toast. Eggs cooked nine minutes are fully cooked, its yolk is a pale yellow with no plush core - the perfect one to use in egg salads, sandwiches, devilled eggs, and high-protein meal planning.

The Reason Why the Ice Bath is Not optional.

The ice bath is a well-known technique of every experienced cook, and it is excluded by many amateur cooks - and the one most frequent cause of a well-timed egg being overcooked. After taking an egg out of boiling water, the remaining heat in the egg will cook the yolk one to two minutes more. Cooking a medium egg in six minutes, the yolk is going to be perfectly jammy, but once you peel it nearly hard. Before you even begin the timer, fill a bowl of cold water and a lot of ice in it. And the first thing to do as soon as the alarm fires is to take the eggs, with a slotted spoon, and put them into that bowl. It only takes two minutes in the ice bath to arrest cooking and lower the temperature of the shell to a level where it is easily peeled.

The Cold Eggs vs Room Temperature Eggs - Does It Matter?

Yes; and more than many of you know. A high temperature egg out of a refrigerator at 4degC in boiling water cools the water slightly, and requires more time before it heats completely through the shell to the yolk centre than an egg at room temperature does. The gap may be 60-90s at each level of doneness. The fixed timings of this timer are adjusted to large eggs at room temperature at water already boiling - the procedure that produces the most predictable, repeatable result. When your eggs are chilled out of the fridge, either add 60 seconds to the time you have selected in your preset, or locate your own time inputs and use them to adjust to the very time you have discovered to be the best in your kitchen with your eggs and your pot. Other kitchen countdown applications Our Kitchen Timer will deal with any cooking task and will provide full custom countdown.

Egg Timer Online – Free Soft, Medium and Hard Boiled Countdown

Everything You Have to Know to Boil Eggs to Perfection.

It is so boiling-an-egg-easy until you have boiled five eggs and are not quite sure that five minutes was enough or that the yolk had a grey-ring or that you are attempting to peel a shell and take half the white away with it. All these are preventable issues. Using a reliable timer, a little trick, and a handful of fundamental principles, it is entirely possible to make perfectly cooked boiled eggs and make them reproducible, reliable, every single morning, every single batch.

The Grey-Green Yolk Ring - What and How To Avoid it.

The distasteful grey-green ring that ensues round an overcooked yolk is a medicinal reaction of hydrogen sulphide discharged by the egg white and iron in the yolk - it develops when eggs are overcooked or not cooled correctly after cooking. There is nothing wrong with eating, and is a good indication that the egg is overcooked and will have a gritty dry consistency as opposed to creamy. The solution is two-fold: 1) the use of a timer in order to take the eggs out at the correct time, and 2) the use of an ice bath right after that in order to prevent the further development of the reaction by any leftover heat. These two steps combined will produce a clean bright yellow yolk every time.

The Secret of Peeling Eggs: Why they are so difficult to do.

Fresh eggs are very infamously tough to peel, the inner membrane of the egg is tightly attached to the shell, as long as the egg is very fresh. The pH of fresh egg white is less and thus it is more likely to bond to the membrane. The aging of eggs in the refrigerator, during a week or two, causes the increase in pH of the white, the separation of the membrane to a small extent, and the peeling process becomes easier cataclysatically. To obtain the most pleasant peeling experience: boil eggs of at least one week old, put them into an ice bath to cool and then peel under a thin flow of cold running water and begin by peeling at a wide end where a tiny air pocket provides an initial entry point.

Value of Altitude, Egg Size and Other Variables that influence Boiling Time.

The boiling point of water is lower in high altitude due to low pressure of air i.e. at an altitude of 1,500 metres above sea level, water boils at about 95degC instead of 100 deg C and at 3,000 metres, boils at about 90degC. This reduces boiling point, thus causing eggs to cook at a slower rate at high altitude; add 30 to 60 seconds per 500 metres of height above sea level in case you have found your eggs persistently undercooked with the usual timings. The size of eggs also counts: the presets in this case are adjusted to large eggs (about 55-60g). Medium eggs require approximately 30 seconds less and jumbo or extra-large eggs require an addition of 60 up to 90 seconds.

Storing Boiled Eggs Safely

Fridge life Eggs in shells may be stored up to one week in the refrigerator in their hard boiled state. Peeled ones need to be placed in a bowl of cold water (replaced every day) or in a closed container and consumed in five days. Do not keep peeled or unpeeled hard boiled eggs in the room at higher than 2 hours, bacteria multiply rapidly in the 4degC to 60degC range of the so-called danger zone. Eggs that are soft and medium boiled, and have a runny yolk should be consumed as soon as possible and should not be stored especially by young children, pregnant women, elderly people or by persons who are immunocompromised.

Using This Timer Beyond Eggs

This timer has a custom time input, which makes it applicable to any short time kitchen countdown, including steaming vegetables, blanching green beans, cooking pasta, a caramel in a hurry, or keeping track of a bread proof. Our special Kitchen Timer is the appropriate choice in the case of longer cooking sessions during several stages. To use during timed work when cook, the Pomodoro Timer is the best choice in any kitchen activity that requires attention in short intervals.

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Frequently Asked Questions — Egg Timer & Boiled Eggs

What is the duration of boiling eggs to soft boiled eggs?

Soft boiled boil eggs between 3-4 minutes. The white will merely be placed and the yolk remain entirely runny and warm. Begin the time when the water is boiled to full rolling and your eggs are already in the water.

What is the boiling time of medium boiled eggs?

Boil eggs of medium boiled 6 to 7 minutes. The white will be quite firm and the yolk will be jammy and creamy in the middle--a little soft and orange and not dry and yellow. This is the most adaptable ramen, salad and toast doneness.

What is the boiling time of eggs to hard boiled?

Hard boiled boiled eggs will take 9 -10 minutes to boil with a completely firm and set yolk. To have extra firm and no hard centre whatsoever, cook to 12 minutes - but do not cook much longer than 1314 min since the yolk will have the grey-green ring of overcooking.

In what water should I be starting eggs; cold or boiling?

To achieve the best and most consistent results, boil the eggs at room temperature into already-boiling water. This provides you with the precise control of the timing and makes peeling less difficult. The cold-method (placing eggs into cold water and boiling) is also milder on the shells and makes the eggs more difficult to predict as the time in the boiler differs depending on the stove and the pot.

What is the rationale of putting an ice bath on boiled eggs?

The heat trapped in the egg keeps cooking the yolk between 1 to 2 minutes once the egg is removed out of the boiling water. In the absence of an ice bath, even a medium egg that has been cooked perfectly soft will be overcooked before you can even begin the peeling of an egg. The shell also contracts slightly in an ice bath relative to the white making it much easier to peel.

Is the size of eggs a determinant of the boiling time?

Yes. These presets are adjusted to large eggs (around 55-60g). Little eggs are cooked nearly 30-60 seconds quicker. Extra-large or jumbo eggs require 60 to 90 seconds additional at each setting. Room temperature eggs are also cooked a little bit quicker than cold fridge eggs.

Is this egg timer compatible with fridge-cold eggs?

Yes - use 60-90 seconds more preset when fresh refrigerator eggs are used. When cold eggs are added to the water, they cause the temperature of the water to decrease a bit slowing down the cooking process. To achieve the best results, it is recommended to leave eggs at the room temperature and then boil them within 10 minutes, or to dial in the time which can be used in your kitchen, using the custom time inputs.

Is this egg timer free to use?

Completely free. No account, no download and no subscription. The timer is compatible with any contemporary desktop, tablet and phone browsers. The alarm will cure you to know when your eggs are ready as all one has to do is choose your preset and press Start.

How then should one peel a hard boiled egg?

Following ice bath, gently rock the egg everywhere on a hard surface so as to form a net of tiny cracks, and roll it under palm. Begin peeling at the broader end where the air pocket will be, it will be the most accessible point to peel. To remove any tiny particles, rinse under a thin layer of cold running water that will assist in getting the shell to come off.

Why does the yolk become grey-green when over cooked?

The formation of the grey-green ring is due to the reactions of hydrogen sulphide in the egg white to iron in the yolk under extensive high temperatures.