What makes egg salad so watery the day after preparing it?? I even follow recipes!! Help!?

Question

My last attempt I used 6 hard boiled eggs (3 whole eggs and 3 egg whites), 1/4 cup light miracle whip, 1 tbsp mustard, 1/2 stalk celery finely chopped, and salt and pepper. It is so watery today (again!) and it taste like I mixed water with the eggs instead of light miracle whip.
I really would like my homemade egg salad to taste like the kind you would get in a restuarant or a deli but a lighter version of that. Gotta watch those calories and fat grams!! Any recipe ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!

Answer 1

It's hard to say exactly what's going on, but here's my guess:

Mayonnaise and Miracle Whip both contain water and oil. Water and oil don't mix (that's why a lot of salad dressings separate). The reason they hold together is because they have eggs in them, and chemicals in the egg yolks (called emulsifiers) allow the oil and water to basically stick together.

Light mayonnaise and light Miracle Whip have less eggs in them (to reduce the calories and fat), so they probably don't have as many emulsifiers to hold things together.

So when you add something with a lot of water -- like chopped up celery -- there aren't enough extra emulsifiers left in the Miracle Whip to absorb the water into the mixture. So it separates out. (And your hardboiled eggs aren't going to help things stick together, you need to mix raw egg yolks into the stuff you want to stick.)

The first thing you can try doing is drying your celery really well *after* you chop it, to soak up any excess water.

If that doesn't work, you could try adding either a little bit of sugar, a little bit of flour, a little bit of very finely crushed crackers, or a little bit of very fine bread crumbs.

Either of those suck up water and should help absorb the extra water in your recipe. Start out with small amounts, because you probably don't want to taste it... maybe a teaspoon or so. See how that works... hopefully it does!

Answer 2

Your problem is the light miracle whip. There is no way to save it if you insist on using this as a binder. You are also using quite a bit of liquid, with the mustard and miracle whip. Try again using full fat mayonaise or miracle whip, use less than 1/4 cup. Try using only a tsp at a time and mixing it in until it's an acceptable consistency.

Try this recipe, it's such a small bit of mayonaise it makes up for the fact that you're not using light.

INGREDIENTS
8 eggs
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
2 tablespoons prepared Dijon-style mustard
1 teaspoon dried dill weed
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 red onion, minced
salt and pepper to taste
DIRECTIONS
Place eggs in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring water to a boil; cover, remove from heat, and let eggs stand in hot water for 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from hot water, cool, peel and chop.
In a large bowl, combine the egg, mayonnaise, mustard, dill, paprika, onion and salt and pepper. Mash well with a fork or wooden spoon.
Serve on bread as a sandwich or over crisp lettuce as a salad.


You can also try using your own recipe and subsituting low-fat plain yogurt for the light miracle whip. It still may be a bit watery this way though.

Or you can use the full fat mayonaise or miracle whip in the qty you want but take out half of the egg yolks and just leave a few for flavor. Most of the fat is in the egg yolks, not the whites, this would make up for the fat in the mayonaise.

Answer 3

1

Answer 4

Too much miracle whip. Start by going from tablespoon to tablespoon of miracle whip at a time. It can overpower the salad if you let it. Also, make sure you dry your celery good, that can add wateriness too.
Here is a recipe:
Egg Salad Sandwich

6 hard-cooked eggs, chopped
2 Tbsps. onions\raw, chopped
2 Tbsps. celery\raw, chopped
1/4 cup mayonnaise
2 tsps. ground mustard
4 cheese slices
4 crisp lettuce leaves
8 slices whole grain bread

Instructions
Combine first 5 ingredients in a bowl. Spread on half the bread slices. Top with egg salad mixture, cheese, lettuce, and remaining bread

NOTE
Make sure you dry celery, lettuce, and onions. You may not need all of the salad dressing
***********************

Answer 5

I have a strong feeling that the water must have come from your miracle whip. Hard boiled eggs should not pose any problems like that. And I haven't encountered this kind of problem before.

Your recipe is fine. That is really the basic egg salad recipe.

Here is my suggestion:

try adding a teaspoon or two of instant custard powder into your miracle whip before adding in the rest of the ingredients. Take away one yolk from the boiled eggs to counterbalance the custard. You might need to add a little bit of vinegar and salt to mellow the custard flavor.

Answer 6

The miracle whip seperates. It happens when you add it to ground meat as well. I'm not sure why it seperates. I always drain it out before I mix it up again.

Answer 7

the miracle whip will do this. the next time use a bit less and see what happens. also if you rinse you eggs or eggies make sure they are dry, before adding them