The Best Egg Salad

It’s creamy, tangy, a little crunchy, fresh, and SO good.

Ingredients

• 8 large eggs, hard-boiled and peeled

• 1/3 cup mayonnaise

• 2-3 teaspoons Dijon mustard

• 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice or white vinegar

• 2 celery stalks finely diced celery

• 2 tablespoons chopped chives or green onion

• ¼ cup finely diced red onion, optional

• 1/4 teaspoon paprika

• Salt and freshly cracked black pepper, to taste

Optional Add-Ins

Fresh dill or parsley, finely chopped dill pickles, a little sweet relish, a pinch of cayenne, or a few dashes of hot sauce.

How to Make It

Hard-boil your eggs and immediately transfer them to an ice bath to cool. Once completely cooled, peel and roughly chop them. I like leaving some larger pieces rather than mashing everything together. It gives the finished egg salad so much more texture.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, lemon juice or vinegar, paprika, salt, and pepper.

Add the chopped eggs, celery, chives, and red onion. Gently fold everything together until the eggs are coated in that creamy Dijon mixture.

Taste and adjust as needed. A little more salt? Another squeeze of lemon or vinegar? More pepper? Trust your taste buds.

You can absolutely eat it right away, but if you have time, pop it into the refrigerator for 20 to 30 minutes. It gets even better once everything has had a little time to come together.

Pile it onto toasted sourdough, tuck it into a croissant, make a sandwich, scoop it up with crackers, or serve it over a ripe summer tomato or half of a cantaloupe.

And that last way of serving it is actually where this recipe came from.

A Little Love for My Grams

Yesterday marked two years since my grandmother passed away.

There’s something about these anniversaries. You know they’re coming, and even after two years, you can feel the weight of them.

But this year, instead of spending the day only focused on how much we miss her, we decided to celebrate my Grams by doing some of the things she loved. Eating her favorite foods. Sharing stories. Remembering the little things that made her her.

One of those things was chicken salad served over a tomato or cantaloupe for lunch.

It’s such a simple, specific meal, but the second I think of it, I think of her.

I don’t eat meat, so I made egg salad instead, scooped it over a giant farmers market tomato, and it was AMAZING. But more than that, it felt like this tiny connection to her. A way of bringing something she loved into our day and making it my own.

I think that’s one of the things I’m learning about grief as the years pass. Remembering someone doesn’t always have to be heavy.

Sometimes it can be really simple.

Make the meal they loved. Play their favorite music. Tell the stories you’ve told a hundred times. Laugh about the things they did that drove you crazy. Keep the traditions that still feel good and create new ones from the pieces they left behind.

Because maybe that’s part of what happens to love after someone is gone. It finds new places to live.

In stories. In recipes. In traditions. In the way you do something and suddenly realize you learned it from them.

There was sadness yesterday. Of course there was. I miss my Grams, and I wish more than anything that she could still be here experiencing all of this with us.

But there was so much love, too.

And yesterday, that love looked like a scoop of egg salad over a tomato.

Something so ordinary. Something so her.

Love you, Grams. This one’s for you.