As much as I love eggs, I never make egg salad. I guess it just always seemed a little too heavy, ooey, and gooey.
This egg salad, on the other hand, is light, fresh, and summery! The combination of lemon juice and fresh herbs provides tang and a light herbal flavor to contrast the rich eggs and mayonnaise based dressing.
I used thyme because I recently planted some fresh herbs and have been eager to use them. You can use fresh or dried and I actually used a combination of both (because mine are still quite young and I didn’t want to use it *all*). If you’re not into thyme, you can also try parsley or dill instead. Both will go well with lemon. I suggest fresh parsley if at all possible, but either dry or fresh dill will do.
For an extra lemony punch, use fresh lemon juice and try grating a little of the zest into the dressing. For extra crunch, try adding some chopped up red onion, green onion, celery, or even cucumber.
Lemon Herb Egg Salad
Servings 4Ingredients
- 8 large hard boiled eggs ($1.37)
- 1/3 cup mayonnaise ($0.44)
- 2 Tbsp lemon juice ($0.09)
- 1 Tbsp dijon mustard ($0.11)
- 1-1 1/2 tsp fresh or dried herbs ($0.10)
- 1/2 tsp salt ($0.02)
- 10-15 cranks fresh cracked pepper ($0.03)
Instructions
- Peel the hard boiled eggs and then roughly chop into half inch chunks. For instructions on how to perfectly hard boil eggs (including photos), click here.
- In a medium bowl, prepare the dressing by combining the mayonnaise, lemon juice, dijon mustard, salt, and pepper. Stir until mixed. Chop the herbs roughly and then add to the dressing. Begin with about one teaspoon, taste and then add more if desired. The herbal flavor will become more pronounced after refrigeration.
- Stir the chopped eggs into the dressing. Either refrigerate until ready to serve or serve immediately. Serve on a sandwich, over a bed of lettuce, or with your favorite crackers.
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Nutrition
Step By Step Photos
Hard boiling eggs without ending up with a green yolk can be tricky. Check out our tutorial on how to hard boil eggs. This recipe uses 8 eggs, but could easily be scaled up to include a whole dozen. None of the ingredient quantities are set in stone and you could probably eye-ball measure most of them!
The dressing is basically mayo, dijon, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. (That’s the dijon there under all of the pepper). If you have a fresh lemon, I highly recommend using it and some of the zest (I didn’t, but it was still delish). I used light mayo and it was also still great… but I can only vouch for Hellman’s. All other brands of light mayo that I’ve tried are just not worthy of the name “mayonnaise.”
I used some fresh thyme from the garden, but I didn’t have a lot so I also used some dried. If using all dry herbs, use about 1 tsp. If using fresh, use about 1.5 or 2. Or, just add them to taste. Chop the herbs slightly to allow the flavorful oils to infuse into the dressing.
Stir it all up, give it a taste, and adjust the herbs to your liking. I used thyme, but dill, or parsley would be great alternatives. (I think this picture is before I added the herbs, but it looks pretty much the same after).
Lastly, stir in the chopped eggs. You can refrigerate the egg salad for a while to allow the flavors to blend and intensify, or serve immediately (if you just can’t wait, like me).
Egg salad is great as a sandwich, but you could also scoop it up with some crunchy whole grain crackers, or even just serve it on a bed of spinach. Mmmm, or maybe top an english muffin with it for breakfast? Yes, please!
This recipe was absolutely delicious!! Thanks Beth 💕
I made this yesterday and it is wonderful! Love the lemony hint and fresh thyme in it is perfect. Very easy and fun thanks!
Delicious! :)
Good! Loved the lemon. Definitely a keeper and flexible.
My mother used to dice up celery for the crunch in her egg salad recipe. She’d also use green onion. I do not recall her ever using herbs, but dried mustard was in the recipe. Sadly I forget what else but this one looks absolutely delish! Pinterest worthy indeed.
Love this simple and easy egg salad – the lemon and fresh herbs are a home run – my “go to” recipe for egg salad!
Now that you mention it, adding lemon juice to egg salad seems obvious. :-) Anyhow, I use your list of ingredients (w/olive oil mayonnaise and dried dill weed for the herb) but just eyeball the ratios, mainly because I thought adhering to the above ratios (which I did the first time around) made it too salty. Thanks for another great idea.
I’ve made this twice now, and this last time I used mostly mint & chives with a smaller amount of marjoram and even smaller amount of thyme. I’ve gotta say that the mint adds SUCH a nice touch, it’s perfect. Also, try to use eggs straight from a farm or get them from a friend who raises them. The taste makes all the difference.