This creamy and delicious Deli-Style Egg Salad combines hard-boiled eggs, mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, vinegar, and chopped celery. It’s perfect scooped on salads, but we love it on toast with lettuce for an unforgettable sandwich!
Walk into any New York deli and you’re sure to find a few staples, like chicken salad, macaroni salad, and potato salad.
You’ll also always find egg salad and it will always be creamy, tangy, and delicious!
I love to make a sandwich of egg salad and crispy bacon on toasted country white, but it’s also excellent with some peppery greens on earthy bread.
Egg salad (also known as egg mayonnaise) or deviled eggs are great ways to use up any eggs you may have from Easter,
Recipe Ingredients
All ingredients for this recipe are shown in the pic below and special notes are made in this bulleted list to assist you.
- Eggs. Since there are so few ingredients here, use good-quality eggs. You may find that eggs closer to their expiration date may be easier to peel once hardboiled.
- Mayonnaise. For a true New York deli experience, use Hellman’s mayonnaise. Most delis use a thicker Hellmen’s or restaurant supply store mayo, also known as decorator mayo.
- Celery. I love the crunch that finely diced celery adds to egg salad!
- Vinegar. Delis use white vinegar, not lemon juice. That being said, feel free to use lemon juice if you like because the taste will be fairly similar.
See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.
How to make it
Each number corresponds to the numbered written steps below.
- Place 12 large eggs into a pot and fill with enough water to cover the eggs by 1/2-inch. Bring the water to a boil, then remove the pot from the heat and let the eggs sit in the water, covered, for 15 minutes. (Photo #1)
- While the eggs are sitting, finely dice 1/4 cup of celery and 3 tablespoons of green onion (mostly the white part) and set aside. Prepare an ice water bath by filling a large bowl with water and ice, then after the eggs have sat for 15 minutes, move them to the ice bath and let them sit for 10 minutes. (Photo #2)
- Peel the eggs then give them a rough chop and place into a large bowl. Use your hands to mash the eggs but leave some larger pieces for texture, if desired. (Photo #3)
- Add the celery and green onion along with 1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard, 1 tablespoon of white vinegar, 1/4 teaspoon of white pepper, 1 1/2 teaspoons of Diamond Crystal Kosher salt, and 1/2 cup of mayonnaise and mix very well. Taste test and adjust salt and pepper as needed. Refrigerate for 2 hours, but preferably overnight, then use to make your favorite sandwich, or scoop on salad, and enjoy! (Photo #4)
Top tips
- Peeling the eggs. Hardboiled eggs can be a pain to peel at times. You may find that using eggs closer to their expiration date are easier to peel. Also, placing the cold hardboiled eggs into a container and gently moving them around can rough up the shells and make them easier to peel.
- Full deli flavor. For full deli-flavor be sure to let the egg salad chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours, but preferably overnight.
More New York deli recipes
Having worked in several delis in my younger years, I’ve acquired a few tips and tricks to getting that authentic New York flavor and I’m thrilled to share them with you. In addition to the salads I mentioned above, here are a few more of our most-loved deli-style salads.
If you’ve enjoyed this Deli-Style Egg Salad Recipe or any recipe on this site, give it a 5-star rating and tell us about it in the comments below.
We strive to satisfy a number of learning styles. If you are someone who prefers to learn by watching, you can find most of our recipes on YouTube and our Facebook Page.
Deli-Style Egg Salad
Ingredients
- 12 large eggs
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 1/4 cup finely diced celery
- 1 tablespoon white vinegar
- 1/4 teaspoon white pepper plus more to taste
- 1 1/2 teaspoons Diamond Crystal Kosher salt plus more to taste
- 3 tablespoons green onion finely diced
Instructions
- Place the eggs into a pot and fill with water to only a 1/2-inch above the eggs. Bring to a boil then cover and remove the pot from the heat. Let the eggs sit covered for 15 minutes.
- In a large bowl, prepare an ice water bath. Place the eggs into the bath and let sit for 10 minutes. Peel the eggs.
- Rough chop the eggs and place them into a bowl. With your hands begin mashing the eggs, making sure to leave some larger pieces for texture.
- Add the celery, green onion, mayo, mustard, vinegar, salt, and pepper to the bowl and mix well. Test the mixture and season with more salt and pepper if required.
- Though it can be eaten right away, it's best to refrigerate for at least two hours but preferably overnight before eating. Enjoy!
Notes
- Placing the cold hard boiled eggs into a container and gently moving around to rough up the shells make the eggs very easy to peel when run under cool water.
- Egg salad can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I am most sorry to have to point out a glaring error in the instructions. THIS STUFFS READY TO EAT NOW. If one wants some to sit in the refrigerator overnight, make a lot more. Thank you -very good. Didn’t have green onions so I fine diced sweet onion and soaked them to take the “fire” out of them a la the NY deli chicken salad. Also very good.
Keep up the good work.
Hi Tim, thanks for the comment. While you certainly can eat the egg salad immediately, it will be so much better and have that deli-flavor once it spends a few hours in the fridge. This is not an error in our instructions, rather the steps that should be taken to achieve a true “deli-style” egg salad.
You kicked up egg salad to a new level! It is yummy delicious. I didn’t have scallion’s so I used red onion. Plus I added a few sweet pickles because I’ve always liked them in egg salad.
Thank you for the recipe.
So happy you enjoyed, Lora!
Love the egg salad recipe. One tip I use is to put a wire cooling rack over a bowl and press the eggs, one at a time, through the wire rack. It cuts up the eggs perfectly and no knife needed.
I also use this technique to get chunky avocados for guacamole.