How To Make The Perfect Omelet

Here at Chef Remi, we don’t just get asked to demystify complicated, gourmet meals, such as a Crown Roast of Pork, or a French Cassoulet.

We often get asked how to make the basics too, and how to make them perfect each time.

We’ve been asked plenty of times for tips to cooking the perfect omelet. You’d think it was simple.

But the problem with a simple meal is that there is no way to disguise a mistake!

Uneven omelet. Overdone or burnt bottom with undercooked top. Omelet that’s dense instead of fluffy. Broken omelet when dishing out from a skillet. Omelet that weeps water.

These are all common issues that simply cannot be disguised. So here you are – the Chef Remi’s guide to the perfect omelet – every single time!

Your ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• A pinch of salt
• 1/2 tablespoon of unsalted butter
• Freshly cracked black pepper

How to make the perfect omelet:

1) Crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk well.

This is one step where many people go wrong as they don’t whisk for long enough.

This means that, when you pour the eggs into a skillet to cook, the omelet is uneven with too much yolk in one area and other parts which are almost exclusively egg white.
 
To check if you’ve combined enough, pull your whisk up and see if you get a thick ribbon of egg. If it’s not uniform in color, then you need to keep whisking!

 
2) Add in a pinch of salt and leave for about 15 minutes.

When you come back, you’ll find the egg mixture is a much deeper color.
 
When you cook eggs, the proteins in the yolk pull in tight. This can cause them to squeeze fluid out from the curds, which is why you sometimes end up with a soggy omelet.
 
When you add salt into the egg mixture, and leave it for 15 minutes, it will stop the proteins from bonding. This stops the curds from releasing liquid, and you get a much fluffier, tenderer omelet with no sogginess.

3) Heat your skillet over medium heat, and THEN add in the unsalted butter, and cook for about a minute until it foams.
 
When you heat the butter in a cold skillet, it will not foam properly, which creates a dense omelet. It’s the foam from butter that creates the fluffiness (which is why we also don’t recommend margarine as this does not foam).
 
And the reason we opt for unsalted butter is that you’ve already added salt into the egg mixture!
 

4) Add in the eggs and then use a slotted spatula to gently run through the eggs.

Hot tip! 

You don’t want to scramble them, but by using your spatula to run through the eggs before the bottom sets makes sure your omelet does not burn at the bottom whilst the top remains undercooked.

5) After about a minute, the bottom will be starting to set, and you won’t be able to gently move the eggs around with your spatula without causing a tear in the base.
 
Use your spatula to run around the outside of the omelet and lift up while tipping the skillet at a 45 degree angle. This allows any uncooked egg liquid from the top to drip to the bottom, making sure your omelet is evenly cooked.
 
If you do this step well enough, you may not even need to flip your omelet (the number one way most people tear an omelet!)

 
6) Your omelet should be almost cooked by now.

Tilt the skillet to a 45 degree angle and use a slotted spatula to fold a third of the omelet over on itself. Now tilt the skillet to the other side and fold over the other third.

 
Always use a slotted spatula as the slots allow air to get underneath the omelet, which means it won’t stick to the spatula and ruin presentation.
 
You should be able to now flip the full omelet using your slotted spatula to seal the fold.
 

7) To serve, hold your serving plate up to the skillet and flip the omelet over and onto the plate.

Sprinkle with freshly cracked black pepper. You’ll never mess up an omelet again!