The Unexpected Ingredient You Need For Restaurant-Quality Fried Eggs

Fried eggs are quite simply one of the most perfect foods. Aside from the nutritional aspect, they are incredibly versatile and upgradeable, making for an ideal addition to everything from a hot, steaming bowl of ramen with scallops and bacon to a buttery carbonara breakfast sandwich. But they're also divine when eaten on their own — just a fried egg (or three) on your plate. If you love your eggs sunny-side up but can never seem to replicate how they're made in restaurants, you're not alone. The unexpected and secret ingredient necessary for diner-quality fried eggs, according to our expert Marissa Stevens, recipe developer and founder of Pinch and Swirl, is a bit of water.

"To get fried eggs with that soft, silky, restaurant-style finish," she explained to Food Republic, "I use the water-and-lid trick my mom taught me when I was young." Yes, adding just a little splash of water to a hot pan, then covering it, according to Stevens, creates steam, which "settles over the egg and gently cooks the top."

Wondering how you'll know when the eggs are done? Stevens instructed us to be sure to use a glass lid to keep an eye on the whites and yolks. Then they'll only need an additional 30 seconds to a minute over the heat for whites that are opaque and yolks that are still dippy — just like how they serve them up at your favorite breakfast spot.

Our expert Marissa Stevens had some advice for how to keep your yolks nice and dippy. "I add about a teaspoon of water to the pan once the edges of the egg have started to set," she told us. It's important to cover the pan immediately after you drop in the water, too, so that little of the steam escapes and it instead immediately starts to work its magic on the whites and yolks.

Stevens uses this method for sunny-side up eggs, but when it comes to over-easy eggs, the water can make them "tricky to flip." However, the method itself achieves a result similar to over-easy: the steam gently heats around and over the yolk without cooking it through, creating an "over-easy lite" effect with no flipping necessary. Furthermore, the gentle steam treatment tends to cook eggs more evenly, thanks to the hothouse conditions created by the lid. So all in all, the final result is a pretty perfect middle ground.

There is also another method using water to cook fried eggs, though, and you don't need to cover the pan. Instead, it involves tilting the pan and spooning the added water over the eggs as they heat through. This technique, it must be said, is a lot fussier than the one Stevens recommended, so it is perhaps best left to intermediate-level-and-above home cooks.