There’s more than one way to crack an egg, but according to chef and food writer J. Kenji López-Alt, there’s one way that stands out as the easiest and most effective way to get the job done. López-Alt, known for his scientific approach to cooking and his cookbooks, including “The Wok” and “The Food Lab,” recently took to Instagram to share his experiment to find the best way to crack an egg.

Testing the Best Egg Cracking Methods

Should you crack an egg on a flat surface, against a bowl edge, or by hitting it against another egg? “I’ve done a lot of eggs-periments over the years,” López-Alt says in his social post. “But one of them I haven’t really tried much is how to crack an egg.”

The James Beard Award-winning chef goes on to test three methods: cracking eggs on a flat surface, using the edge of a bowl, and tapping two eggs against each other. He judged how easy it was to crack and how intact each egg remained.

“Generally, I crack on a flat surface,” López-Alt says at the start of the experiment, “but I’ve never really tried to see which is the best method.”

López-Alt’s Test Had a Surprising Result

At the start, López-Alt cracks six eggs by tapping each on a flat surface. Surprisingly, the yolk breaks twice during this cracking method, leaving López-Alt surprised at the effectiveness of his “go-to” method.

When cracking the next six eggs against the edge of a bowl, López-Alt comments that this process “actually maybe a little bit easier.”

“I might change my egg cracking method,” the chef remarks as he moves effortlessly through the half-dozen eggs without getting shells in the bowl or breaking any yolks. “That was both easier and with fewer broken eggs.”

López-Alt finishes his experiment with some “egg-on-egg” action, cracking eggs against one another to break them, then opening each into a bowl. While he finds the method easy enough, López-Alt remarks that he’s left at the end with one egg that still has to be cracked against the edge of a bowl or on a flat surface, as it has no partner for cracking.

The Best Way to Crack an Egg

The best way to crack an egg? Against the edge of a bowl.

All-in-all, López-Alt surprises himself with the results. “I think I may have just changed my egg-cracking method,” he says. “The way I normally do it, on a flat surface, was not only the most difficult way, but it also produced two eggs that broke, whereas cracking on the edge was simple and the egg pulled right apart.”

No matter which method you prefer, once they’re cracked we’ve got you covered with egg recipes to carry you from breakfast through dessert.