Tempo de Cozimento do Ovo

Egg cooking time: soft, medium, hard

Here are the standard times for a medium egg taken straight from the fridge and lowered into water that's already boiling. A soft (gema mole) egg runs 4–5 min and leaves the yolk runny. A medium egg at 6–7 min gives you that jammy, creamy yolk. Hard-boiled sits at 9–12 min, with the yolk fully set. Pull an egg at 6 minutes and the white is firm while the yolk still flows, which is exactly what you want on ramen or toast. A few things shift the numbers. If you start from cold water, tack on 2–3 min to each time. Extra-large eggs want roughly +1 min. The mollet (5–6 min) is the French version: firm white, with a warm creamy yolk. When you need it dead-on, go sous-vide at 63–64 °C for 60 minutes for the famous "63° egg", whose yolk turns out almost custard-like. Once they're boiled, drop them straight into ice water; that stops the cooking and makes them far easier to peel.

Applications and context

Professional chefs rely on these times, and so do contestants in MasterChef challenges. They show up across breakfast and brunch menus and in classics like the Niçoise salad, ramen tamago, eggs benedict, scotch eggs and devilled eggs. Getting the timing right is what separates a perfect yolk from a chalky letdown.

FAQ

Cold water or boiling water? With boiling water your timing is tighter, since the clock starts the moment the egg goes in. A cold start treats the egg more gently, but it's harder to repeat reliably.

Why ice bath at the end? It stops the leftover heat from cooking the egg further and makes it contract, which pulls it away from the membrane so peeling goes much easier.

Does altitude affect time? It does. Up high, water boils below 100 °C, so everything cooks slower. Figure on roughly 1 min more for every 500 m above sea level.