Scrambled eggs should not have a long ingredient list, and I’m not going to make it any longer. In fact, the ingredient I’m going to tell you to add is hardly an ingredient at all. It’s water—just a mere splash from your kitchen sink or that glass you’re slurping right now. You’ll be rewarded with scrambled eggs that are delightfully fluffy, like the 8 a.m. equivalent of a tulle gown.
I started doing this not for the eggs themselves, but for matzo brei, a Jewish comfort food beloved for Passover that my family relies on year-round. The pan-fried dish is cheap and fast, and everyone makes theirs a little differently. I rinse a sheet of matzo under the faucet, then crumble it into a bowl with a couple eggs, plus another splash of water for good luck. Eventually I started doing this in my matzo-less eggs too.
Many scrambled egg recipes tell you to add a pour of heavy cream, half-and-half, or whole milk. The idea is that these ingredients improve the flavor (dairy tastes good), tenderness (the fat in the dairy interrupts the proteins in the eggs), and fluffiness (the water in the dairy puffs into steam).
Which is all well and good—except that my fridge rarely has heavy cream, half-and-half, or whole milk. What can I say? I prefer shelf-stable oats and soybeans. And water works wonders in its own way.
Steamed eggs are the ultimate example of this, like in this recipe from Jessie YuChen or this one from June Kim. In Jessie’s recipe, you add over ¼ cup water per egg, and in June’s, just under 3 Tbsp. Either way, the liquid, paired with the steaming technique, yields a cloud-like soufflé—eggs so fluffy that, if you turned your back, they might float away.
But you don’t need that much water to achieve fluff. Even a little makes a difference. As cookbook author J. Kenji-López-Alt explains it in The Food Lab, adding water to scrambled eggs “means more vaporization occurs, creating larger bubbles in the eggs and lightening them.”
I like to add about 1–1½ tsp. water per 1 large egg. Though I have to tell you: I never measured the water before writing this piece. For a couple eggs, I just turn on the faucet, then turn it off as quickly as my humble human reflexes allow. Don’t overthink it.
And don’t worry about diluting the flavor either. This is a small amount of water, and you’re salting and peppering the eggs, and you’re cooking them in fat. To me, any flavor difference is indistinguishable, while the textural difference is thrilling. Swiftly scrambled over medium heat, in a generous puddle of melted butter or olive oil, the eggs build up more rolls and wrinkles than a pug puppy. It’s wild what a little hydration can do.
