Hard-boiling, soft-boiling or using a trendy sous vide—no matter the approach, cooking a whole egg preserves either the texture of the yolk or the white but rarely both. Now scientists think they have cracked the perfectly cooked egg.

The team used computer models of computational fluid dynamics, then tested out the painstaking—yet reportedly delicious—recipe for themselves

Italian scientists say they found the best way to make boiled eggs. We tried it, and (sorry, science) it’s not worth it.

The scientists devised a way of cooking an egg that requires no special culinary skill or fancy gadgets. It took about 300 eggs, though the researchers “didn’t eat all of them,” said Pellegrino Musto, a polymer expert at the National Research Council of Italy.

Italian scientists claim to have found the scientifically best way to make a hard-boiled egg. After trying it for ourselves, we can confirm that the egg was delicious.

Scientists have studied how to cook the perfect egg and have come up with a new recipe that they say optimises its taste and nutritional quality.

The perfect boiled egg has a velvety yolk paired with a soft, solid white. Achieving this balance can be a challenge because the yolk cooks at a lower temperature than the white. Hard boiling an egg can yield a chalky yolk, while cooking low and slow can produce jelly-like, undercooked whites.

Boiling eggs just got a scientific upgrade. By alternating an egg between boiling and cool water, researchers have found a way to cook both the yolk and white optimally — leading to better texture and higher nutritional content than traditional methods.