‘I’m a Pro Chef, and This Is the Key To Cooking Scrambled Eggs as Perfectly as Your Favorite Brunch Spot’

You don’t exactly have to be a top chef to know how to cook scrambled eggs. But there’s a big difference between deliciously fluffy eggs and a plate that’s just meh. Here’s the thing: Making perfect scrambled eggs every time isn’t hard, you just have to know the insider cooking tips.

It’s something Dan Churchill, CEO and co-founder of the restaurant Charley St in New York City recently shared on TikTok. According to Churchill, there are three common ways people completely screw up their scrambled eggs, keeping them from experiencing eggy perfection. You ready for it? The mistakes are using a pan that’s too hot, stirring your eggs the entire time, and cooking the eggs too long.

3 mistakes people make when cooking scrambled eggs

1. Using a too-hot pan.

“When your pan is too hot, you cannot control your eggs. Meaning, it is harder to control them cooking too quickly,” Churchill says about the first mistake of having a pan that’s too hot. He says this can lead to two problems. The first problem is that one side of the eggs ends up cooking faster than the other side, when ideally you want the eggs to be cooked evenly. Two, it makes the texture of the eggs dry when you want them to be soft and buttery. “With a medium-level heat, you have more control and you don’t get a charred, dry egg situation,” he says.

2. Continually stirring the eggs.

Stirring your eggs while they cook helps give them a cloud-like texture, but Churchill says that oftentimes, people are overdoing it. “You want to create layers, providing an even cooking effort—not always stirring them,” he says. Instead of constantly stirring, he says to slide the spatula towards you and tilt the pan back to allow the wetness to fall onto the cooked surface. “You will have beautiful soft layers!” he says.

3. Cooking the eggs too long.

The last major mistake Churchill says many make when cooking eggs is not removing them from the pan soon enough. “Once you take it off the heat, the eggs are still cooking with their residual heat,” he says. “Slightly undercook them so that by the time you serve and take them to the table they are soft and layered as opposed to dry and overcooked.”

Besides keeping these tips when mind when he’s making scrambled eggs, Churchill says he likes to add a little extra-virgin olive oil while they’re cooking. This not only makes them super velvety, it ups the heart-healthy monounsaturated fats in your meal. If you like a little kick, Churchill says you can amp up the flavor in your eggs with a homemade chili oil. “Add the [olive] oil to the bottom of the pan at low to medium heat, then add the chili flakes, salt, and pepper. Add the eggs and stir them slowly to scramble,” he instructs. “Remember, you want to under cook the eggs so that by the time you serve them, they’ll have cooked a bit more even when removed from the heat.”

To top off your eggs, add Charley St. plant-based chorizo ($42 for a two-pack), which only takes two minutes to cook in a pan. Made with mushrooms, broccoli, tofu, tomato paste, shallots, miso, garlic, cumin, paprika, garlic, and cayenne pepper, it’s a delicious and easy way to up the fiber and protein.

Watch the video below to see why eggs are a nutritional goldmine, according to a registered dietitian: 

Just like that, you know how to whip up healthy, restaurant-quality scrambled eggs in mere minutes.

Get more cooking tips in Well+Good’s Cook With Us Facebook group.