Chinese tea eggs were one of my favorite snacks growing up. Yes, while you might have been snacking on chips or cookies, back in China, we snack on savory eggs 🙂 The tea eggs are so popular and you can find them everywhere – from a breakfast street vendor who has a big pot of these eggs constantly ready on the side of her cart, or packaged peeled tea eggs at Seven Eleven.
The tea eggs have a beautiful marbled surface. They are simmered in a savory liquid with star anise, cinnamon sticks, Sichuan peppercorns, and black tea until soaked with the flavors of the spices and a refreshing tea fragrance.
Why this recipe
Traditionally, tea eggs need to be cooked twice. The eggs are cooked until hard boiled the first time, and then cooked in a savory marinade for several hours. The reason they are cooked for such a long time is that, as a street food, they need to be preserved when refrigeration is not available. The result is that they will end up extremely overcooked, with a rubbery texture. Although I like the flavor of those tea eggs, I’ve always wanted my eggs cooked to the tenderness I like – with a set white and runny yolk.
That’s why I developed this recipe, which creates the most flavorful marbled tea eggs with a perfectly cooked texture, to whatever doneness you like.
Here is the trick if you’re making soft boiled tea eggs. If you let the eggs marinate a bit longer, two to three days, the egg yolk will start to get thicker and turn a beautiful light brown color. It’s so creamy and bursting with flavor. Top it on a bowl of simple noodle soup or simply on some steamed rice, and you will feel such happiness when you bite into the savory creamy egg yolk.
How to make tea eggs
1. Dry ingredients
You just need to prepare a few dried ingredients to make the tea egg marinade liquid – black tea bags, cinnamon sticks, Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, and bay leaves. Then you need to boil all the ingredients with the soy sauce and water to infuse the flavor.
Don’t have these ingredients on hand? No worries! Simply use 1/2 teaspoon five spice powder and you’ll make a marinade liquid just as tasty!
2. How to properly crack the eggs
You can either gently rotate and knock the eggs on a hard surface, or use the back of a spoon to crack the eggs. Handle the eggs carefully if you make soft boiled eggs. You want the egg shells to crack enough to let the marinade in without breaking the eggs apart.
3. A trick to use the minimal amount of marinating liquid
I use a quart bag to marinate the eggs so I can use a minimal amount of marianting liquid to soak the eggs. If you plan to use a container instead of a quart bag, you should double the amount of marinade so you have enough to cover all the eggs.
4. Leftover marinade
The tea egg marinating liquid, if stored properly, can be used more than once. If you plan to do so, make sure to use a clean spoon to remove the eggs from the liquid. And you should boil the liquid and let it cool again the next time you use it.
I like to batch-cook tea eggs and store them for later. They make a perfect breakfast, noodle topping, and between-meal snack!
I hope you enjoy the recipe and happy cooking!
More egg recipes
- 3-Ingredient Egg Fried Rice
- Instant Pot Eggs (Perfect Hard-Boiled & Soft-Boiled Eggs)
- Chinese Egg Drop Soup
- Shrimp Egg Foo Young
- Chinese Egg and Green Onion Crepe
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Chinese Tea Eggs (w/ Soft and Hard Boiled Eggs, 茶叶蛋)
Ingredients
- 12 large eggs
Marinade (*Footnote 1)
- 4 tablespoons light soy sauce (or soy sauce)
- 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce (or soy sauce)
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns
- 1 star anise
- 1 small cinnamon stick
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 black tea bags (or 2 tablespoons black tea leaves)
- 2 1/2 cups water
Instructions
- Mix all the marinade ingredients in a small pot. Cook over medium heat until bringing to a boil. Turn to medium-low heat. Simmer for 10 minutes. Remove the pot from your stove and let cool completely. Once done, remove and discard the tea bags.
- To boil the eggs, heat a pot of water (enough to cover all the eggs) over high heat until boiling. Turn to low heat. Carefully place the eggs in the pot using a ladle, to prevent the eggs from cracking.
- Boil 5 minutes for soft-boiled eggs, 7 minutes for medium eggs, or 10 minutes for hard-boiled eggs.
- While cooking the eggs, prepare an ice bath by combining ice and tap water in a big bowl.
- Once the eggs are cooked, immediately transfer them to the ice bath to cool for 2 to 3 minutes. If you don’t have ice on hand, simply run cool tap water over the eggs for a couple minutes until they cool down.
- Gently crack the eggs using the back of a spoon. You want to make sure the egg shells are cracked enough so the marinade will reach the interior, without cracking the eggs apart (especially if you made soft boiled eggs). If you’re in a hurry, you can also peel the eggs and marinate them peeled. The eggs will be ready in 12 hours this way.
- Transfer the eggs to a quart-size ziplock bag, then carefully pour in the marinade along with the dry ingredients. Marinate overnight for peeled eggs, or 24 hours for cracked “marble” eggs.
- Peel the eggs and enjoy them cold or at room temperature!
- You can store the leftover eggs in the marinade for 4 to 5 days in the fridge. The marinade will help with preserving the eggs. Note, the eggs will become more flavorful and saltier over time.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Have a question or feedback? Add a Comment
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The post was originally published on May 4, 2014 and updated on June 1, 2018.
Julia
Thanks for the recipe! How many times can you reuse the marinade? Also in the recipe you say pour marinade and dry ingredients into the quart bag. What dry ingredients? I thought all the dry ingredients went into the marinade? Thanks!
Maggie Zhu
Hi Julia, yes, the dry ingredients are all in the marinade and you should add all of them to the eggs.
In theory, you can use the marinade as many times as you are willing to. To sanitize it, I always bring it to a boil for the next batch of eggs. That being said, the marinade will slowly get more concentrated and you might need to slightly top it off with water. I usually reuse mine for 1 to 2 times before making a few batch.
Greg C.
These were even better than the ones I got recently at a local Chinese restaurant. It’s my new favorite way to prepare hard boiled eggs. I can’t wait to use them to make Asian-inspired deviled eggs.
Hannah
I am currently marinating these eggs now, and I’m so excited to try them!! Is there a specific way to warm them before serving? Every time I’ve had them from food stands they have been served warm. Thanks in advance! (Also my husband and I love all your recipes I’ve tried so far!!!! Thank you thank you!!)
Maggie Zhu
It’s a bit tricky to warm them up if you make the soft boiled eggs, because it will over cook the eggs. For the ones you buy, they are usually hard boiled and kept in their own marinade over warmer or low heat. If you will make the hard boiled eggs, you can simply boil the eggs in the marinade until they are warmed through. If you use soft eggs, I would take out the eggs, heat up the marinade until hot but not boiling hot, then soak the eggs to warm them up but not long enough to cook the inside too much.
AnneL
Question: Which items in the recipe is the 5-Spice replacing? Please be specific as i am unsure what to omit when i use 5soice powder. Thanks
Maggie Zhu
You can use 1/2 teaspoon five spice powder and skip the star anise, Sichuan peppercorns, cinnamon stick and bay leavs.
Lester
I’m really keen to try this but is there a substitute for soy sauce you could suggest?
Maggie Zhu
If you need this to be gluten free, you can use tamari to replace soy sauce. If you cannot have soy, Sempio has a no-soy sauce made with pea protein that has a very similar taste: https://amzn.to/3VQpwey
Jane Doe
I don’t get why this recipe says 30 min when it takes over 24 hrs
Maggie Zhu
Sorry for pointed that out. I just updated the recipe to reflect the marinating time.
J-Mom
This is sooo good!!! I kept this recipe since I love boiled egg since a child. I’m so glad I finally got to this. After I started boiling water for eggs, I realized I did not have plain black tea tea bags. I used oolong but it was still really great. Thank you for the recipe!
Sue Dormanen
Any tips for peeling the eggs? Once they have marinated in the cracked shell for a day, mine are impossible to peel neatly
Maggie Zhu
The trick is to properly crack the eggs before marinating. When you crack the eggs, make sure that the membrane underneath the shell is broken as well. So the marinating liquid goes in between the membrane and the eggs. This way the eggs will be more flavorful, and it will become easier to peel afterwards.
The other thing is the freshness of the eggs themselves. The fresher the eggs, the harder to peel later.
The other trick is when you soak the eggs in the ice bath, start to very quickly crack all of them while they submerged in the ice water. It helps the membrane to be more detached from the eggs, resulting in easier to peel eggs later.
Radek
I love You, I mean I love this recipe 😉
Sasha Kishko
What works for me – pressure cooker eggs. Good in general (easy to peel) and for this recipe in particular. Steam basket + stand, low pressure, 2-3 minutes. I feel like hard boiled eggs don’t really benefit from the marinade, as the yolk doesn’t absorb anything.
Sherry
What kind of tea should we be using? Something super generic like Lipton’s or something like pu’erh or keemun?
Maggie Zhu
You can use something very generic like Lipton. Because the other ingredients (soy sauce etc) are quite strong, so the tea doesn’t have to be a very special one. I usually use black tea, but you can experiment with different types of tea such as pu’erh as well.
Veg0s
I love this ,and May I use one of your tea eggs photo ?
S
Can you be more specific about the tea? Is it any black tea, Chinese black tea? I was given tea eggs as a gift once and loved them. Looking forward to making these
Maggie Zhu
You don’t need super fancy black tea. The regular tea bags will work.
Adriana
My husband is overseas and he would always make them, finding your recipe was just how my husband makes them!!
Annette Beazell
How long will these eggs keep on the counter or in the refrigerator?
Maggie Zhu
You can refrigerate the eggs for 1 to 2 weeks in the marinade. I wouldn’t keep them on the kitchen counter.
LivingWithTheEssentials
What an amazing flavor upgrade for the humble egg!
While my first batch were not as beautifully marbled, but more splotchy, the flavor; perfection! I started with 5 eggs hard cooked in my Instant Pot and will make another 5 today using the marinade again…and then again. Thank you for such a great recipe. Now I need to plan a hiking trip and pack these gems.
linda
After putting the eggs in the marinade, do I refrigerate them?
Maggie Zhu
Yes, you should refrigerate the eggs once they are in the marinade.
Jos
Easy!