We Made Microwave Poached Eggs to See If This Viral Shortcut Really Works
Updated: Aug. 30, 2023
This TikTok hack for microwave poached eggs is surprisingly effective. Here are two foolproof methods!
If you’re like me, you adore eggs Benedict but hesitate to make it often because poaching eggs and making Hollandaise sauce seems like a huge hassle. Hollandaise sauce still requires some careful doing, but a TikTok hack shared by numerous accounts reveals just how easy it is to make microwave poached eggs.
Can you microwave poached eggs?
Yes! You really can. And you don’t need any special tools to do it. There are plenty of TikTok videos out there if you want to watch a video demonstration first.
How to microwave poached eggs
There are a couple of methods for microwave poached eggs. Basically, one involves heating water, then adding the raw egg and heating the water again, while another involves submerging the egg and cooking it that way.
Here’s a clear and easy video showing the first method, from TikTok creator Elise Brulotte:
@eliseseatsmicrowaved poached eggs are my fav time saving hack — i promise, try it !!!♬ original sound – elise
And here’s an equally useful version from chef Erica Wides:
@thechefsmartypants How to poach an egg in the microwave. #eggs #poachedegg #poached #cookingvideos #cookingskills #cooking ♬ original sound – Chefsmartypants
Two methods for microwave poached eggs
I’m neither a chef nor an influencer, just a person with a microwave and a bunch of eggs. So I tried both versions!
Partially submerged in water
Brulotte’s version requires heating a 1/4 cup of water in the microwave for a minute, then adding the egg, poking but not breaking the yolk with a toothpick, covering it and cooking it again for 30 seconds.
This method worked every time! But I was a bit unnerved, because even though I poked the yolk as instructed, the egg still made a big POP as if it were exploding. I guess that’s why you cover it—and it didn’t really explode either time. (But eggs can explode in the microwave, so be sure to poke and cover.)
The resulting eggs were cooked a little closer to soft-boiled than poached to me, but I didn’t mind that.
Fully submerged in water
Then, I tried chef Wides’s version, where she submerges the egg in water and then cooks it all at once (warning of an “egg-plosion” if the egg isn’t submerged). The only problem with this method was the chef’s vague timing. She said her current microwave took 44 seconds, but her old microwave took only 36 seconds, suggesting a 35–50 second range. She didn’t say what wattage her microwave had, so the timing was left up to me.
I tested both the 36- and the 44-second methods and found the egg almost raw the first time and only slightly more cooked the second time. So then I went for the longest part of Wides’s range, 50 seconds. This, in my 1100-watt microwave, turned out to be egg-xactly right. Firm white, runny yolk, delicious—especially when topped with a shake of Everything Bagel seasoning.
How else can you poach eggs?
Of course, you can poach eggs using the traditional stovetop method. You can follow our guide to make perfect poached eggs, though some cooks still struggle with this method. If you don’t want to try the microwave technique, learn how to poach an egg in your air fryer.
I’m already hatching new recipes to get even more poached eggs into my life!
