Hard-Boiled: The Best Egg For Lunch

The hard-boiled egg has it rough. It gets made fun of for its smell, its unpopularity, the greenish tinge of its yolk that is the fault only of he who boiled it for too long and its general reputation as an unsexy food. I'm not here to make it sexy. That's all Ann-Hog. I'm here to rescue it from the utter lunch celibacy I've been witnessing for far too long.

Making boiled eggs is easier than cooking dried pasta (which is something we can only hope you've mastered). Once boiled, cooled and peeled, you have as good of a nutrient-packed, vegetarian protein source as it gets (tofu steaks are pretty good, too). But don't just assume the only thing you can do with them is add mayo and mash into egg salad for a sandwich. While I'd be only too glad to chow down on one of those any day, provided it didn't come from a vending machine or the crappy deli down the street from me, there's so much more.

Take Portland sandwich haven Meat Cheese Bread's green bean sandwich, for instance. Replacing the predicable lunch meat with tender, sliced free-range egg makes for an unforgettable meal that's brunch, salad and sandwich all in one. To my current knowledge, only the elusive Cobb and uncommon French Nicoise salads also boast this triple-threat. And only because they contain predictable poultry and bacon and tuna, respectively.

Sliced HBE's liven up a delicious but technically nutritionally-lacking (bless them) grilled cheese sandwich. I've subbed halved HBE's for chicken in homemade Indian curry to great success and made about thirty variations of deviled (but still always go back to the classic Southern).

Cheap, vegetarian protein sources like tofu, eggs and beans are a nice change of pace when the weather starts heading downhill and all you want to do is braise every animal in sight. But I maintain you still shouldn't take any of these brilliant concepts on a plane. The second mutiny strikes, he who brought the hard-boiled egg, no matter how perfectly cooked, is toast.