Alice Choi of the blog Hip Foodie Mom is an experienced food content creator — she’s even been on the TODAY show! — but she is really flying high lately. Not just one, but two of her TikTok videos have gone viral in recent days. With her easy conversational style, she assembles and samples what she calls an “egg flight.” The top one has over 1.4 million views.
In culinary terms, a “flight“ is an array of different wines, beers or food items for tasting, often served on a board or special tray. Choi has a lineup of hard boiled eggs cut in half, but instead of removing the yolks and deviling them with mayo and mustard, she just tops them with a little squeeze of the condiments as they are, and then she takes it to the next level, stacking up things like kimchi, jalapeños, and her own signature, secret-ingredient pickled onions. One of the essentials according to Choi? Kewpie mayo to glue down the toppings, with its richer, yolks-only flavor.
There are over a thousand taste test videos on TikTok alone, and almost all of them are favorable reviews.
“Consider me influenced,” says TikToker @rickiyouresofine, and she’s not the only one — a lot of commenters are trying them even when they don’t like boiled eggs, and Choi is getting tagged in over 50 posts a day. There are BLT eggs, Caesar salad eggs, sausage and bacon eggs, barbecue eggs and jalapeño popper eggs.
Although it seems to have gone super-viral overnight, this heir-apparent to “girl dinner” was actually a gradual progression for Choi. Way back in 2022, she started meal-prepping boiled eggs for high-protein snacks. Initially, she just dipped them in mayo and mustard, but then she started slicing in half, first vertically, and then horizontally, so that she could really pile on the goodies.
After a couple of videos, a follower suggested calling them “egg flights” — and the rest is history.
“I think this caught on because it’s like making a deviled egg but much easier,” says Choi, “You don’t have to mess with removing the yolks, mixing them with mayo and mustard and then piping it back into the egg white.” She also notes that people are just having a good time with it, using their favorite flavors and whatever is already in their fridge.
Choi has heard from devotees that they are making egg flights for snacks, brunch and lunch, party appetizers and post-workout protein bombs.
Her personal favorites include kimchi with hot honey, and blue cheese with balsamic vinegar glaze, but she has seen people put “anything and everything” on their takes, estimating that she has tried over 40 different kinds, both her own and others’ inventions. Many of them are simple — just mayo and mustard with one other thing, like olives or pickles — but several iterations touch on something I often suggest as a registered dietitian for a successful salad template: include something creamy, something sharply flavored and something crunchy. Ingredients like chili crisp, hot sauce, croutons, scallions and aged cheeses add flavorful and beautiful variety.
Since we are looking to please the eye as well as the palate, then, we must discuss the hard-boiled misfortune of the dreaded Green Ring of Shame: Overcook them, and a chemical reaction causes a dark layer of ferrous sulfide around the yolk. It’s not unsafe, but it is, you know, unappetizing!
The most popular pressure cooker steaming method online is 5-5-5, with five minutes on pressure, five minutes of slow release and five minutes in an ice bath, but I’ve had mixed results. Sarah Beth Tanner, culinary producer and resident eggspert at Pete & Gerry’s Organic Eggs, loves the steaming method for ease of peeling, but suggests an alternative approach to avoid overcooking: Manually set the Instant Pot to low with 1 cup of water along with the eggs on a rack, and the timer to 12 minutes with an immediate release, then pop the eggs into an ice bath for at least three to five minutes. I tried exactly that for this piece, and it worked like a charm.
Tanner also mentions six minutes of pressure steaming for a jammy egg, which brings up one of the things I love about Choi’s egg flight as opposed to deviled eggs: If you prefer that soft-boiled texture, you can absolutely use it with this recipe. Try that with deviled, and everyone will think you filled them with Jell-O.
No pressure cooker? No problem. My usual go-to method is to add eggs to cool water, bring to a boil for three minutes, remove from heat and leave in the hot water for three to 15 minutes for the super soft-to-firm continuum. As the water cools down off the burner, it reduces the chances of the dark ring ever forming, but an ice bath is extra insurance.
Once that’s handled, you get to choose your egg flight toppings. Choi and Tanner both remind us not to overload them, which is definitely the hard part! I tried eight variations: sliced charcuterie roll with basil; avocado crema, chorizo and cowboy candy; kimchi with crisped Korean BBQ Spam; curry, pickled onions and nigella seeds; Kewpie mayo, avocado, tomato and corn chip; Green Goddess Ranch Salad; Choi’s favored blue cheese and balsamic glaze; and finally, I went a little crazy with French toast-inspired yogurt, raspberry and toasted panko with maple syrup. My favorites were the curry-onion, avocado-corn chip and ranch salad.
Sure, you could put all your eggs in one basket by choosing only one topping for speed and simplicity, but the idea behind a flight is to offer an assortment of flavor options. The possibilities are endless! Eggspress yourself!
Heather Martin
Heather Martin is a registered dietitian,candy corn science correspondentand writer who contributes toTODAY.com’s Food and Health sections.She encourages you to try all kinds of food in moderation, even the weird ones.
