Kitchen timers: which duration for which food
Eggs
Soft-boiled: 6 minutes from boiling. Medium: 8 minutes. Hard: 10 minutes. Start counting only when the water is at a rolling boil. For steamed eggs (in a steamer basket over an inch of water) the times shift slightly: 6 minutes for soft, 11 for hard, and steaming is more forgiving because the water never bounces the eggs around.
Pasta and grains
Most dried pasta: 9 to 11 minutes. White rice: 15 minutes covered, then rest 5. Quinoa: 12 minutes. Set the timer before you taste; tasting early is how pasta ends up gummy. For whole-grain pasta add 2 to 3 minutes, and pull dried pasta one minute early if it will spend more time in a hot sauce, because carryover cooking keeps working after the drain.
Baking basics
Most cookies: 10 to 12 minutes at 180C. Cupcakes: 18 to 20 minutes. Always set the timer for the lower end; you can add time, you cannot remove it. For loaves and brownies, set two timers: one at the recipe time and a second at 5 minutes for the toothpick check, because opening the oven once at the right moment beats opening it four times out of anxiety.
Vegetables
Steamed broccoli: 4 to 5 minutes, green beans 5 to 6, carrots 8 to 10 depending on size. Roasting at 200C: 20 to 25 minutes for potatoes and root vegetables, 15 for zucchini and peppers. The one timer habit that matters most for vegetables is not the total time but a shake-or-turn timer at the halfway point; even roasting depends on it more than on precision at the end.
Meat and fish
These depend on thickness more than weight, so treat recipe times as starting points. Thin chicken cutlets: 4 to 5 minutes per side. Salmon fillets at 200C: 10 to 12 minutes. A rest timer matters as much as the cook timer here: 5 to 10 minutes of resting under foil for meat, which feels long while you are hungry and is exactly what keeps the juices in when you cut.
Steep and simmer times
Black tea: 3 to 4 minutes, green tea 2, herbal 5; past that, tannins win and the cup turns bitter. Hard-boiled eggs and tea share a timer rack, since both fail by overrunning. Stocks and stews are the opposite case: the timer is a check-in reminder every 30 to 45 minutes, mostly to stir the bottom and confirm the heat is at a bare simmer rather than a boil.
Why kitchen timers fail
Three failure modes cover almost every burned dish. A timer nobody hears (phone in a pocket, small chirp over a mixer): fix it with volume and by placing the timer across the room so you must get up. A timer that gets silenced and forgotten mid-task: use one that keeps ringing until acknowledged. And the forgotten timer entirely, set then never started; make starting the timer the moment the food goes in, before you touch anything else.
Building the habit
The habit that makes timers work is setting them even when the time is printed on the package, especially then. Package times assume you started counting at the right moment and that your stove behaves like the test kitchen. After a few weeks of timed cooking you will have your own calibration for your equipment, which is the actual skill: a cook with their own times does not need a recipe to tell them when things are done.
Tools
Any timer works if it is loud and visible. Our free online timer covers the common kitchen durations directly, from 1 minute to 2 hours, and keeps counting with a tab open on the counter. A mechanical wind-up timer is the classic for a reason: no battery, loud ring, and it lives where the cooking happens. Whatever you use, one device for the kitchen beats five apps fighting for your attention.