March 30, 2018, 6:07 PM UTC / Updated March 21, 2024, 2:06 PM UTC / Source: TODAY

By Lyn Mettler

My family loves eggs. The protein-packed food is inexpensive, filling and (maybe best of all) it's zero points on Weight Watchers’ food list.

Every few weeks, we have eggs for dinner, either as an omelet with spinach and ham or fried with hash browns. My mother-in-law’s classic ham-and-egg casserole always makes our menu for Easter, and I love to keep hard-boiled eggs in the fridge for a low-calorie afternoon snack.

But cooking eggs often results in a mess, with sticky pans and bowls to clean. Enter the Dash Rapid Egg Cooker, an inexpensive kitchen gadget that promises to make cooking eggs — hard-boiled, poached and omelets — simpler, quicker and less messy.

Now that the holidays are right around the corner, this popular egg cooker would make a perfect last-minute gift to have on-hand for anybody you may have forgotten.

Dash Rapid Egg Cooker

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Rapid Egg Cooker

What does the Dash Rapid Egg Cooker do?

I discovered this nifty gadget on Amazon's list of top 10 bestsellers in the specialty kitchen appliances category. Now, it is listed as Amazon's Top Choice for egg cookers. More than 95,000 reviewers gave it a 5-star rating out of the nearly 120,000 ratings. So, my egg-loving family needed to give it a try!

This machine is essentially a hot plate and steamer with three inserts designed specifically for eggs. It allows you to poach and hard-boil eggs or cook an omelet.

I've had the machine for about five weeks and have been using it about once a week. If you cook eggs often and need a simple way to speed things up and reduce mess, it works great.

How does it work? First, pour a set amount of water on a metal plate (depending on how hard or soft you want your eggs). Then, set the uncooked eggs in an insert on top, pierce the eggs with the provided pin, and push the button to start. Wait until the buzzer goes off, open the top, and all the steam is gone, leaving you with properly cooked eggs. It also works well to steam small amounts of veggies, too — just enough for a side or snack.

Why I like this product

It saves time in the morning

This version of the egg cooker is designed to hard-boil six eggs or poach two at a time, though there is a larger version to cook more eggs at once.

Hard-boiling eggs is very simple with the device. It saves the time of waiting for water to boil, and there is no dirty pot to clean. I hard-boiled two eggs in about 11 minutes, which normally takes me about 15 to 20 minutes after the water has boiled.

But, I’m also a fan of poached eggs. Growing up, I ate them mixed with butter, salt and torn up bits of toast as a comfort food.

What to consider

The buzzer is a bit shrill, but you can certainly hear it in the next room!

Also, in order to poach an egg with the Dash cooker, you simply crack an egg into either side of the plastic poaching tray, set it in the cooker, pour in the water and again, push the start button. I had to poach mine for two cycles to get them cooked enough, and my eggs stuck to the tray. So, I didn't love this functionality.

I recommend the Dash cooker to anyone cooking for large families who could use a time-saver. It truly saves time and avoids some of the hassle involved with hard-boiling many eggs at once!