Demon Eyes! (Pickled Deviled Eggs) Plus How to Boil Eggs

Pickled Deviled Eggs Recipe Video (scroll down for printable recipe)

Deviled eggs have been around since the dawn of mayonnaise, I believe.

They are called “deviled eggs” because they’re a little spicy and the devil probably likes spicy food because he lives in Hell where it’s really, really hot. Devil also is real big into Halloween and so am I so I thought deviled eggs would be a great party food to make on the show!

For some reason, deviled eggs are present at nearly every potluck, family reunion, and football party I’ve ever attended. I can guess why. They’re cute, bite-size, and can be made the day before. They’re also not completely unhealthy, compared to some of the other things on the food table, and assuming you’re not eating a whole dozen of them. They are also very easy to put your own twist on and impress the hell out of some people because you thought to add curry powder or chopped olives or capers or jalapenos or cilantro or any number of ingredients that suit your fancy. Figure out what “twist” you like and make it that way a couple of times and suddenly you’ll be getting requests for “those good deviled eggs you make” and then you won’t ever have to think about what to take to a potluck again!

Deviled Eggs Recipe

My particular twist is to make them look like blood-shot demon eyeballs for Halloween! YAY! HALLOWEEN!

But I really try not to use food coloring when I can help it. So I’m using beet juice! Pickled beet juice, to be precise, which has the added perk of flavoring the egg whites and firming them up a bit so they are easier to stuff without breaking. If you’ve ever had a pickled egg, you know the texture they take on when soaked in pickling brine. My friends that normally don’t like boiled egg whites, citing a “yucky texture”, like them this way. I presume you could do the same trick with pickled jalapeno juice instead and end up with some slightly-yellow, but delightfully spicy egg whites! Maybe do a few of each and call the yellow ones monster eyes or something cute like that.

Or you can use the same technique for pretty Easter deviled eggs, like these, below. For pickled pink eggs, peel the boiled eggs and soak overnight in enough pickled beet juice to cover (you can add some water to it if you need more volume) then halve the eggs and make the yolk filling.

Pickled pink deviled eggs for Easter. Soaking your peeled, boiled eggs in pickled beet juice before deviling them results in beautiful colorful deviled eggs
Pickled pink deviled eggs for Easter!

The trickiest part of making deviled eggs by far is boiling the eggs right. You want them hard-boiled, easy to peel, and with the yolks as centered as possible. For ease of peeling , get some eggs that aren’t the absolute freshest. You can just buy a dozen a week before you’ll boil them and leave them in the fridge, or check the dates on the ones in the store and find a dozen that are maybe a week or two out from the expiration date. The reason for this is that slightly older eggs don’t cling so tightly to the inner membrane and the shell will almost just slip off. Once you have your eggs, follow this boiling-water start method for the easiest to peel boiled eggs ever.

Now let’s make Pickled Deviled Eggs!

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Deviled Eggs

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  • Yield: 6 1x

Ingredients

Scale
  • 6 hard-boiled eggs, peeled
  • 1 cup of pickled beet juice
  • 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
  • 2 teaspoons yellow mustard
  • 12 pickled banana peppers (or jalapenos if you like)
  • 1/41/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper for spicier eggs
  • 6 green olives with pimentos

Instructions

  1. Slice the eggs lengthwise in half, using a sharp, non-serrated knife.. Rinsing your knife in cold water between eggs will make slicing easier.
  2. Pop the yolks out and set aside.
  3. Put the whites in a container and cover with the beet juice. Let sit for 5 minutes for a light pink color, and up to 24 hours for a dark purple color (I like the longer soak time for more flavor and color, plus a firmer texture).
  4. Mash the yolks with a fork. They will seem crumbly and dry. No worries.
  5. Add the mayonnaise, mustard, peppers, cayenne, and a little of the pepper juice if you like. Mash to make a very smooth, silky paste.
  6. Use a small spoon to fill each egg white cup with a mound of the yolk spread.
  7. Slice the green olives in half and press into each mound to make the demon eye pupil.
  8. Serve immediately or refrigerate up to 24 hours.

Did you make this recipe?

Share a photo and tag us — we can’t wait to see what you’ve made!

If you want to throw a whole party based on Halloween recipes from my site, check out these episodes from last year! (Also check out my SWEET costumes of days-gone-by.)

Halloween Cocktail: Bumbaclot!
Marshmallow Ghosties!
Hallow-peno Poppers

And check this out for regular old deviled eggs!

20 Comments

  1. Great Stone Face on October 11, 2011 at 10:10 am

    I like your idea of just pickling the whites to make rosy deviled eggs. You asked for sources of yellow cayenne powder. For yellow cayenne or “cayenne-ish” powder, google “aji amarillo” powder. There are a few brands out there or you can order from some place like Kalustyan’s (http://tinyurl.com/3ms9yz6) in NYC.

    I haven’t made pickled eggs in a long time. I should do it again. Usually, I just waited until a jar of pickled beets was at least half-way empty, then dumped in some hard-cooked eggs and maybe a little sliced onion.. If necessary, I top the jar off with white vinegar. Then, I took to work a beet-pickled egg (http://flic.kr/p/PbnW3) or beet-pickled egg salad (http://flic.kr/p/4xDi9a).

    • Hilah on October 11, 2011 at 11:06 am

      Oh yummy! A friend sent me some fresh yellow aji peppers he grew, and I’ve heard of them bottled, but I didn’t know you could buy it powdered. I’m going to order some.

      That’s how my grandma does her pickled eggs, too. As much as I like pickled beets, I don’t normally keep them around so I don’t normally have a half-empty jar. I love the idea of adding sliced onion to it, though. And I always love your bento box photos. (And Samoas are my favorite!)

  2. Jane on October 11, 2011 at 1:12 pm

    OOOoooOOO! Spooky and yummy – I really like the idea of pickling the egg whites…I kind of want to just soak them in the pepper juice (I wonder if they would turn a yellow/green color?) for the flavor.

    Also, you are a Stone Fox in yer Tinkerbell get up!

    • Hilah on October 11, 2011 at 1:37 pm

      Hi Jane!
      YES! I totally want to try pickling eggs in jalapeno juice! Let’s both do it AT THE SAME TIME.

  3. Randy on October 11, 2011 at 6:27 pm

    I wasn’t supposed to have to provide any food for the playoffs in exchange for hosting, but I couldn’t resist and made a double batch of these. All I can say is that the guests had better hurry up and arrive or there might not be any left! I was once in love with smoked paprika on deviled eggs, but these have made me go back to cayenne.

    I’m also now wondering if poking a small pinhole in the smaller end of the egg before boiling is worth the effort.

    • Hilah on October 12, 2011 at 8:31 am

      Yay! My trick worked and I forced you to make deviled eggs with my witch-power! Aren’t they GOOD??! I just love what the pickling brine does to the egg whites.

      I’m going to try your way with the smokes paprika, though. I’ve been trying to find more things to do with it.

      And, my mom used to poke the eggs with a pin before boiling to prevent the shell from cracking, but I think with this method (not literally boiling them) it’s not really necessary.

  4. Anna on October 17, 2011 at 9:28 am

    Bahahaha a) love the costume and the fact that it is falling down. Hilair. b) fun eyeballs!!! You’re too cute 😀

  5. Anna on October 17, 2011 at 9:29 am

    P.S. I just read that you are looking for more paprika uses : my favorite paprika related dish is something super simple. Sliced red potatoes with skins on, boiled… tossed with like a good deal of butter, salt and LOADS OF PAPRIKA! TRY IT!!!!

    • Hilah on October 17, 2011 at 11:35 am

      YUMMY! Damn, there is nothing like buttery potatoes. I bet that looks so pretty, too.

  6. Randy on October 17, 2011 at 12:58 pm

    Ok, just so you know: if there’s an egg shortage in Austin, I’m not taking the rap. Due to popular demand, I now have to make a triple batch of these for every game left in the post-season. And as it turned out my good friend, for whom my hosting is payback for him doing so last year, brought his baseball-loving sister and her twin 8-year old baseball-loving daughters. When the question arose: how do you make these, I decided to be lazy and let you show them. So I fired up the Roku box and started up this episode. First of all, within 15 seconds you gained two new huge fans and I’ll bet you can guess what the twins now want to dress up as on Halloween. Fortunately, their mom says it’s completely doable and won’t cost that much. So thank you for not dressing up as the Statue of Liberty. Your two new little fans called me out though. I’ve been cheating by not brining the egg whites in pickled beet juice, just pepper juice, because 1) it’s not Holloween, yet and 2) I didn’t have any pickled beets. I was absolutely humiliated 🙂 by two little girls wiggling their fingers at me and informing me that I need to start doing exactly what Hilah says to do.

    • Hilah on October 18, 2011 at 5:23 pm

      Ahaha! That is fantastic! Tell their mom I got the wings at the Dollar Tree for exactly one dollar. The dress is just some stretchy fabric sewn into a tube with a safety pin at the top and haltered with the boa, which also came from the dollar store. Two dollar costume, considering I already had the fabric!

      I’m glad they liked the deviled eggs, too! Even if you weren’t doing it right. 😉

  7. Beverly on October 23, 2011 at 9:17 am

    i bought some bright iridescent pink pickled turnips at an indian store not long ago. i’m seriously tempted to try this and make them pink. if i do, i hope they turn out as good as these were. i love deviled eggs.

    • Hilah on October 24, 2011 at 9:42 am

      Sounds like a great idea, Beverly! Make some pink and purple ones. That would be so cute!

      • Beverly on October 25, 2011 at 10:49 pm

        heck yeah – purple is my favorite color!

  8. Josh on March 5, 2012 at 4:25 pm

    Turmeric will dye anything yellow in a snap. It doesn’t take much to add a lot of yellow so the flavor won’t usually zoink your dish. If you want natural food coloring instead of the stuff with tons of unknown chemicals do an internet search for “natural food coloring” and you’ll get tons of info about it.

    • Hilah on March 5, 2012 at 4:30 pm

      Oh yeah! Turmeric would make some wicked-looking deviled eggs!

  9. tyler on August 15, 2013 at 1:21 pm

    I used mustard and cranberry mustard, instead of mayo and mustard and it had a nice tangy spice to it! I love your recipes – keep them coming!

    • Hilah on August 16, 2013 at 1:16 pm

      Ooh, very creative, Tyler! There is so many things you can do with deviled eggs, it’s amazing!

  10. Paralyza on May 15, 2014 at 8:50 pm

    I made these for a dinner party last weekend and people LOVED them!!
    I didn’t make them into scary eyes, so no olives. Instead, I put some minced garlic and fresh dill mixed with the egg yolk mix and mad them fairly spicy with the cayenne.
    Mmmm! SO GOOD!!

    Now what do I do with all these pickled beets? 🙂

    • Hilah on May 16, 2014 at 8:52 am

      Mmm, that sounds fantastic with garlic and dill! Eat your beets, girl! 😉 It might sound weird but I like pickled beets on sandwiches and burgers.

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