Eggs are a humble kitchen superstar, elevating meals and creating them out of nothing – when the cupboards are bare, a buttery omelette, egg fried rice or hash is hard to top, after all. Nutritious, filling and incredibly versatile, they’re a staple we can’t live without. And although we do see the logic of not meddling with a good thing, we’re also always on the look-out for ways to take our cooking to the next level.

Using the help of the country’s best and brightest chefs and taking a deep dive into its most exciting restaurant menus, we’ve produced this comprehensive guide to upping your egg game – some are simple tweaks that will make a world of difference, while others require a little more time and effort in the kitchen. Either way, we reckon that once you’ve given a few a spin, you’ll never look back.

Poaching eggs might feel daunting, but once you have a method fine-tuned (don't miss our egg poaching guide here), they're not only ideal in breakfasts like eggs Benedict and Turkish eggs, but also a perfect topping for everything from watercress soup to kimchi risotto. When it comes to a twist, why not add a new textural dimension by making it crispy? Chef Xavier Boyer coats his in feuille de brick pastry (similar to filo). He sits it atop a vibrant broad bean and bacon salad, but it’s a great technique which is simpler than it looks and seriously impressive – and still has that all-important runny yolk. Robert Thompson has a similar approach, though his is deep-fried in breadcrumbs and paired with chorizo jam and raw scallops. Cooking the eggs twice means the main hazard is over-cooking the yolk, but once you have the timings perfected it's an impressive take on a typical poached egg (and less fiddly than a Scotch egg).   

Just looking for new ways to serve your poached eggs? Take your cue from Sri Lanka and its crispy egg hoppers; the eggs are effectively poached inside the batter; at Dom Fernando's Paradise, it's served with a coconut pol sambol. 

Cooked in their shells and peeled, soft-boiled eggs deliver the same runny yolk but a firmer white texture than their poached counterparts. They're fantastic in salads like tuna Niçoise or beetroot, or paired with anything that would benefit from the rich butteriness of the yolk – our in-house pros plate them up with smoky charred leeks. Up at The Palmerston in Edinburgh, chef Lloyd Morse pairs soft-boiled egg with crisps, chilli, capers and branade, a salt cod emulsion. They're often found sat atop steaming bowls of ramen – transform regular soft-boiled eggs into savoury ajitsuke tamago, or ramen eggs, by boiling them, plunging them into ice to stop the cooking, peeling them and then submerging them in soy sauce, dashi, mirin and vinegar for at least two hours. Our mayak eggs, marinated in a soy-based sauce overnight, are an explosion of umami flavour – make a batch in advance and keep them on hand for soups and stir-fries. 

In the UK, soft-boiled eggs are often associated with the most classic of childhood breakfasts: egg and soldiers. Give it the chef treatment by taking the clasically savoury dish sweet; Richard Bainbridge pairs his with a vanilla caramel and crunchy slices of toasted pain au chocolat. If you're a purist, make some simple swaps to upgrade your egg and soldiers – you'll no doubt have seen chefs swap toast for asparagus, but Henry Freestone also adds in a moreish anchovy aioli to supercharge an already savoury breakfast.

If you've not tried curing egg yolks before, now's the time. They're hassle-free (simply cover your yolks in soy or salt, depending on your recipe, and leave for a few hours – our carbonara with cured egg yolk is a good starting point) – incredibly savoury, they'll deepen the flavour of whatever they're used in. We've even cured yolks with hot honey here – a must try. They're a go-to for top chefs, having  had a recent resurgence in popularity as a fine dining garnish (Nina Matsunaga tops her lamb tartare with a soy-cured one, while Amy Elles does so with a kale pesto courgetti). Make a few in advance and grate them over anything you'd like to add extra umami to, from pastas to soups – Spasia Dinkovski, of Mystik Burek, uses hers with creamed spinach. At JOIA, Portuguese chef Henrique Sá Pessoa adds a cured yolk to his bacalhau à brás, a Portuguese salt cod dish.

Not into curing? What about confit? A restaurant buzzword, it's actually a simple premise – essentially, cooking something slowly in fat over a long period – and can easily be applied to yolks (our how to guide is this way). Up in Scotland, chef Roberta Hall-McCarron adds a confit egg yolk to her roast chicken broth, while at Nessa, executive chef Tom Cenci tops celeriac carbonara with one. 

There are plenty of easy ways to add luxury to the humble omelette, from lobster and a Thermidor glaze to crab, cheddar and chive. For new inspiration, we're also looking further afield – most countries have their own take on omelettes, from the Spanish tortilla to Chinese egg fu yung and Selin Kiazim's take on kaygana, an old Ottoman dish which sits somewhere between an omelette and a pancake. As well as okonomiyaki, a pancake-meets-omelette dish, Japan is home to rolled omelettes including tamagoyaki, in which beaten eggs are seasoned with mirin, soy sauce and sugar, as well as dashimaki, which also has dashi added. London’s Roketsu has dashimaki with black truffles on its menu.

Scrambled eggs is a staple breakfast, but one that doesn’t often make it onto lunch and dinner menus. To give it main course credentials, follow MiMi Aye's lead and toss cauliflower florets with eggs in the Burmese pan monlar kyet u kyaw, or top it with caviar a la Rob Chambers – he saves that for Christmas, but we're in favour of indulgence all year round. 'It’s the perfect indulgent breakfast for a special occasion, and we have even brought the tradition into the restaurant – the team and I eat Eggs Royale for breakfast before the last service of the year,' he says. Or you can take inspiration from the team at Cantinetta Antinori, who serve uova strapazzate all'arrabbiata on their brunch menu – scrambled eggs with chilli and crunchy salami. 

The fish and chip shop classic is as humble as it comes, and you may well prefer it to stay that way (if you are open to tips, two-Michelin-starred chef James Knappett recommends eating them with ready salted crisps). And if you fancy an upgrade, try our curried pickled eggs (add them to kedgeree or use them as the base of Scotch eggs) or soy-pickled quail’s eggs – similar to a ramen egg, these are marinated in sweet and aromatic rice wine vinegar, mirin and soy sauce, giving the tiny eggs a lovely blend of Japanese flavours. 

Social media loves a fried egg trend and though many have been forgotten, others have clung on – chilli oil and pesto-fried eggs among them. We've fried them in turmeric with garam masala onions and plonked them a bowl of herby hummus – both should be devoured with hunks of crusty bread, obviously. Ultimately, fried eggs are incredibly versatile – ditch the toast and add them to fried rice, Jozef Rogulski’s sobrasada and garlic migas or Dan Wilson's delicious mess of merguez-spiced tomato sugo (sauce) with gooey cheese curd.

Like your eggs crispy? Saiphin Moore, co-founder of Rosa’s Thai, fries hers with Lom Sak tamarind sauce (made with tamarind paste, sugar, palm sugar, soy sauce, vegetable oil, plain flour and water) for Thai fried eggs. ‘They are a marvel: crispy on the outside and golden brown around the edges,' she says. 'Making them is an art form – you cook the egg in a wok with a generous amount of oil over searing heat (the oil should be spitting at you when the egg goes in the pan) and the egg is practically deep fried.’ Serve with jasmine rice and garnish with red chillies, fresh coriander and fried shallots.  

Eggs play a starring role in custard, which we usually eat drizzled over desserts or in classic custard tarts. But chefs are increasingly weaving savoury custards into their menus – both Ollie Dabbous and Joe Laker use a langoustine custard at their restaurants, while Stuart Ralston has a chawanmushi, a Japanese egg custard, on the menu at his Edinburgh restaurant Lyla, accompanied by smoked trout and purslane and packed with intense dashi flavour. Intrigued to give it a go? Start with Robert Thompson’s tomato chawanmushi recipe, or give Masaki Sugisaki’s truffle chawanmushi a try. 

We might be stretching the boundaries of egg cookery, but we’ll wrap up with some inspiration for using eggs in cocktails and drinks that aren't eggnog. Egg whites add viscosity to cocktails including gin fizz, gin sour and pisco sours (including this one at Three Sheets in Dalston). They’re less commonly found in hot drinks for obvious reasons, but this Hanoi-style egg Vietnamese coffee from Thuy Diem Pham uses two egg yolks to create a sweet drink-meets-dessert similar to a coffee-flavoured crème anglaise.