How To Make Smoked Eggs
On April 05, 2022 (Updated April 15, 2022)
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy.
Smoked eggs are incredibly simple to make. Once you get the hand of the process, you’ll be cooking and smoking these a dozen at a time for breakfast, snacks, salads, and everything in between. This post will teach you the best way to cook smoked eggs, tips for peeling them, and the best info for smoking and serving them.
Can You Smoke Eggs?
You can indeed smoke eggs, my friends!
If you’re a fan of hard-boiled eggs, you MUST try smoked eggs. They have a smooth texture and taste incredible in a variety of foods.
The eggs are a pretty blank canvas and will easily take on the flavors of smoke in a short period of time. If you want a really bold smoke flavor, go with something like mesquite. If you want things a bit more mellow and mild, choose an alder or maple wood.
Smoked Eggs
These smoked eggs are cooked completely on the smoker, but you can split the process up and begin by boiling them first prior to cooking them on the smoker.
The first step to making the best-smoked eggs is cooking them in the shell. This can be done the traditional way by boiling them, but I’ve never been much of a traditionalist. I’ve found the best method is to bake the eggs directly on the grill grates of my smoker (using indirect heat). I love the texture of baked eggs; they seem a little bit softer than hard-boiled eggs. That will make a big difference once we peel the eggs and get them on the smoker.
How to Smoke Eggs
Here’s how to smoke eggs. The process is easy, and all you need is a dozen eggs, wood, and the smoker of your choice.
- Cook the eggs. Preheat the smoker to 325 degrees F. Place the eggs directly on the grill grates. You will notice small brown spots from where the eggs were touching the grates. They are harmless and don’t affect the quality of the eggs. I have found the perfect time for eggs cooked in the smoker is 30 minutes.
- Cool and peel. Once they are baked, submerge your eggs in ice water to stop the cooking process. When the eggs are fully cooled, peel them carefully. My favorite way to ensure an easy peel is to shake each egg gently in a sealed glass jar with about 2 Tablespoons of cool water. The shells should slide right off! Now you’re ready to get smoking!
- Smoke the eggs. Reduce the heat in your smoker to low. We’re talking 175-180 degrees F. The lower you can get the temperatures the better. If you’ve got a cold smoker that will let you run it at 150 degrees F or lower, use it! Use whatever flavor of wood you like. I smoked these eggs on the low smoke setting of my Camp Chef SG pellet grill. Place the eggs directly on the grill grates again and smoke for at least 30 minutes, or up to an hour.
- Enjoy. Remove the eggs and enjoy however you like. You can slice them and eat them with salt and pepper like a traditional hard-boiled egg, or chop them up into a salad. They’ll add the most amazing flavor to an egg salad, too!
How Long to Smoke Eggs
Smoking eggs is s 2-step process. Begin by cooking the eggs in the shell on the smoker for 30 minutes. Remove, chill, and peel, then return the eggs to the smoker for another 30 minutes to 1 hour, depending on how much smoke flavor you want to impart on your eggs.
In total, it will take 1 to 1 1/2 hours to fully cook and smoke eggs.
Beyond that, I think the smoke flavor can get acrid and the eggs can overcook. However, I do know people who prefer a really strong smoke flavor and keep theirs on for 2 hours or more, but be aware that this can dry out the exterior of the egg and make them rubbery.
Quick note: Your eggs will turn yellow. This is TOTALLY NORMAL. How light or dark the yellow color is will indicate how smoky your eggs are. Like I said, I feel like 30 minutes is enough to get a good smoke flavor and the eggs will still be fairly light yellow. The eggs in the picture below smoked for 1 hour and the yellow color is a little darker, almost light brown. Don’t be afraid of the color, it’s just flavor!
More Smoked Eggs Recipes
Now that you know how easy (and delicious!) it is to cook eggs on the smoker, check out these other tasty smoked eggs recipes from Hey Grill Hey.
Smoked Eggs Recipe
Once your eggs are smoked and fully chilled, you can enjoy them however you like! My personal preference is to make them into Smoked Deviled Eggs, but they are delicious as-is or sprinkled with a little Homemade Sweet Rub. You can also purchase Sweet Rub from the Hey Grill Hey Store and have it delivered straight to your door.
Smoked Eggs
Ingredients
- 12 eggs
Instructions
- Preheat. Fire up the smoker and preheat to 325 degrees F.
- Smoke. Place the eggs directly on the grill grates, close the lid, and cook for 30 minutes.
- Chill. Remove the cooked eggs and place immediately into an ice bath. Chill completely.
- Peel and reduce temperature. Peel the eggs and reduce the heat on your smoker to 175 degrees F.
- Finish smoking. Return the cooled and peeled eggs to the grill. Smoke for at least 30 minutes, or up to 1 hour if you want more smoke flavor.
- Enjoy. Eat the eggs as is, season with BBQ seasoning, or make into smoked deviled eggs (link in recipe notes).
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Very fresh eggs are hard to peel as the egg air cell is very small and the inner shell membrane is tightly attached. Using older eggs will facilitate peeling. I have found steaming very fresh eggs is best for easier peeling but not foolproof. To determine age of eggs, do a float test, easy to look up. A good reference is the Eggcyclopedia (Published by the Egg Board).
After I smoke my eggs I inject them with Frank’s Red Hot Sauce. They are so good. I use a gas smoker to do mine.
Correct! 5 -5-5 5minutes in instant pot let set in instant pot for 5 minutes and put in ice water for 5 minutes and the easiest eggs you will ever peel!
4-4-4 I instant pot 4 min. Release pressure after 4 min. Then 4 min.in ice bath. Peel perfect evert time.
How long can you store them after smoked? If I give them as a gift I want to be able to make sure they store them safely.
I’d go a week refrigerated maximum.
If your doing devil eggs do you take the yoke out and mix everything like regular or what the best way
https://heygrillhey.com/smoked-deviled-eggs/
I didn’t smoke the eggs as directed – I went about 110 minutes in the smoker at 225 and they came out perfect. I did follow the recipe for the filling. Word of advice for the BBQ spice: I used the blend I put on pulled pork which is 1 part salt to 2 parts other ingredients and the eggs came out too salty. However, the rest of the flavors were on point. I went a little light on the pickled jalapeños by 1/4 of the amount and I didn’t need too, the jalapeños bring so much. I am going to make my same run with 1/3 the salt and do this again, and I can’t wait. This recipe is the starting point to the best deviled eggs I have ever had.
Just wondering, does this produce a slightly runny yolk? I’ve had some amazing smoked eggs in ramen and the egg is a nice soft texture. I don’t want the firmness of hard boiled. Will this recipe give me that?
The timing in this recipe will give you a hard egg. The time will definitely need to be adjusted to produce the texture you’re looking for.
Susie,
Using your peeling technique (and others), I had a devil of a time (haha) getting a good peel. Eggs were done perfectly. Completely destroyed 3 of the eggs and the rest looked pretty beat up when I finally got all of the shell removed.
Anything I might be missing?
That said, the survivors made for a crowd-pleasing appetizer!
That’s just the nature of the beast. I’ve found the easiest way to make eggs peel really easy is by cooking them in an instant pot or pressure cooker!
I put eggs and salt in water, bring to boil and turn heat off, cover and let set for 13 mins. Run cold water over them, I let them set in the cold water and peel immediately. I might have one stubborn one if that
BINGO!! This is the best and easiest way to boil and shell an egg.
Now try this after the boil and peel, pickle the eggs then smoke them,,,,,,,,,,, OH MY!!!
Up next,,,,,,,,, smoked cabbage for my pulled pork samis.
Hi Susie. Could you use a smoking tube for the smoking part of the recipe? Thanks so much. I love your website, it is my go to site for all my smoking/bbq recipes.
Absolutely! I do these in my Weber Kettle all the time just using a tube. I’ll pre-boil the eggs and then run them on the kettle with no fire except the smoke tube.
I’m going to make smoked potato and egg salad. Smoke the potatoes, onions, and now I know how to smoke the eggs. Thanks so much!
Planning on making these in the near future, im sure this question has been answered but im just curious, Boil peel smoke? or can you put the fresh cold eggs on the smoker without boiling? then peel, and back on the smoker?
You can just put them on the smoker cold, but the easiest way I’ve found is to boil them first or cook them in an instant pot if you have one, then peel and smoke!