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Nigella Lawson reveals how to cook the perfect poached egg

The Cook, Eat, Repeat star shared her personal method on Instagram

Sophie Hamilton
Parenting Editor
January 15, 2021
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How many of you can cook a great poached egg, and how many feel like they haven't the faintest clue? A lot of us fall into the second camp because the whole poaching method seems pretty tricky.

Well, it's Cook, Eat, Repeat star Nigella Lawson to the rescue because the TV chef has shared her personal technique with her Instagram followers – and she makes it sounds so simple.

Posting a photo of her kale, chorizo and egg dish, Nigella wrote: "#RecipeOfTheDay is an old favourite from How To Eat: Kale with Chorizo and Poached Egg. And if you’re not confident of poaching eggs - and I was fearful for a very long time - the method as explained in the intro will free you from fear!"

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Over on her recipe page (found through bio link) is her egg-poaching method. The mother-of-two reveals:

"Crack a large cold egg into a cup, add a teaspoon of lemon juice (or ½ teaspoon of cider vinegar or white wine vinegar) over the white; bring water to a delicate bubble (not boiling or anywhere near) and then slip in the egg, leaving behind the watery white that has collected in the bottom of the cup."

Nigella then tells us to leave the water on low or switch off and then cook the egg for roughly five minutes. If you prefer a runny yolk, she suggests checking the egg at four minutes, then remove it gently with a spoon.

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The famous cook's followers were thrilled to have Nigella's personal method.

One wrote: "I’ve never been able to poach an egg, the mess I’d get into.... I gave up! Then having a glut of eggs and reading your tip I decided one last go. Trust me everybody it sounds like a lot of fiddle but it really isn’t and you get perfect eggs every time. Thank you @nigellalawson."

Another said: "This is going to be my lunch on Saturday and I’m going to try the egg poaching method!" One more wrote: "How to poach an egg by the one and only Nigella Lawson."

There's going to be a whole lot of egg poaching happening this weekend…

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