The avian flu epidemic affecting most of the US has made for some extreme craziness in the prices of chicken and eggs. The cost of a dozen eggs has doubled and even tripled in some places over the past month or so. The #10 can of Augason Farms powdered eggs that I paid $27.99 for 18 months ago is now going for $55.00+. (The price seems to fluctuate a lot over the course of even a day.)
There are a lot of methods for preserving fresh eggs. Many of them are more ideally suited to those who raise chickens and are thus assured of beginning with the freshest eggs possible. However, freezing eggs works for everybody and doesn’t require any special supplies. It’s simple to do whether you have five eggs or fifty. It doesn’t take much time, either, making it easy to squeeze in if you happen to come across a great sale.
You’ve possibly read that you can just break your eggs into ice cube trays and freeze them that way. And it’s totally true, even if a little bothersome because most ice cube trays don’t actually hold a whole egg. Unfortunately, they only work well that way for a couple of weeks at most. After more time passes, the texture changes and they just don’t work as well as we’d like in some recipes. Here’s how to freeze your eggs so that will cook and bake just as well next year as they do today.
PREPARE THE EGGS
Whole Eggs
Do not freeze eggs in the shell. You’ll break the shell (because the liquid egg expands when frozen and breaks the shell) and end up with shell bits in the egg. No good. Unless, of course, you want the extra calcium from the shell and the special crunch that the egg shells will provide.
Break the eggs into a bowl and lightly whisk the yolks and whites together. Do not beat the eggs—you don’t want to incorporate air into them. For best results, especially with longer term storage, add ¼ teaspoon salt or 1 teaspoon sugar for every cup of whole eggs.[1]
Egg Yolks
Whole egg yolks do not freeze well. They need to be broken up, like with a whisk, and also benefit greatly from either salt or sugar. To every 4 egg yolks, add 1/8 teaspoon salt for main dishes or 1 ½ teaspoons sugar for desserts.[2] [3]
Egg Whites
Egg whites freeze beautifully without any special treatment.
FREEZE THE EGGS
Freezer bags. Freezing in freezer bags is the fastest and most space-efficient way to go. Pour the eggs in, zip the bag closed, and freeze flat in the freezer.
Ice cube trays. Freezing in ice cube trays permits portion control—you can simply remove just the number of egg cubes that you need without thawing the rest of the bag. Most sections of ice cube trays hold about ½ of an egg.
Silicone muffin pans. Freezing in silicone muffin pans is apparently the way to go. An egg fits neatly in the mold, freezes well, and pops out easily. And it lets you easily remove one egg at a time for thawing and then baking or cooking.
STORING THE EGGS
To store all forms of frozen eggs, put them in a freezer bag, label with the date, and type of egg (whole egg, yolk, or white), and whether salt or sugar was added as a preservative. In a freezer bag, the eggs will keep for about 6 months. If the frozen eggs are stored in a vacuum-sealed bag, they will keep in the freezer for up to 1 year.
USING THE EGGS
To use all forms of the frozen eggs, thaw them overnight in the refrigerator. Do not thaw them at room temperature, which is the best temperature for bacteria to breed at. And it’s best not to try thawing them in the microwave—you risk starting to cook them. Alternatively, you could thaw the eggs under cold running water, if you’ve got the water the spare. Use the eggs as soon as they are thawed.[4]
Whole eggs. Use 3 tablespoons of liquid egg for each fresh egg called for in the recipe.[5]
Egg yolks. Use 1 tablespoon of liquid egg yolk for 1 large fresh egg yolk.
Egg whites. Use 2 tablespoons of liquid egg white to equal the egg white of 1 large egg.[6]
[1] https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/food-recipes/cooking/a35952925/how-to-freeze-eggs/
[2] https://www.foodnetwork.com/how-to/packages/food-network-essentials/how-freeze-eggs
[3] https://www.allrecipes.com/article/can-you-freeze-eggs/
[4] https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/food-recipes/cooking/a35952925/how-to-freeze-eggs/
[5] https://www.foodnetwork.com/how-to/packages/food-network-essentials/how-freeze-eggs
[6] https://www.foodnetwork.com/how-to/packages/food-network-essentials/how-freeze-eggs
I've been working on this for about 2 weeks now. Have 4 doz eggs done. I use silicone muffin/cupcake liners. Just put them in my muffin tin and then scramble an egg and then pour into each liner.
ReplyDeleteI freeze them for about 4-5 hours. They peel right out of the liners and the liners wash up great with warm soapy water
Genevieve, do you have an answer for Michael's question below?
DeleteI've noticed when freezing whole eggs (piercing the yoke using no salt) and placing them in silicon molds and then vacuum sealing is that the yokes are a little hard and require more "whipping" than fresh eggs. To get around this, I put the thawed eggs into a small baby-food blender to whip before making scrambled eggs.
ReplyDeleteThank you, I enjoy reading your blog content. So informative. Also love that there are no distracting ads.
DeleteI hate annoying ads and especially pop-ups so much. I didn't want to do that to others.
DeleteVery good information, especially the measurements for using them later in recipes, thank you.
ReplyDeleteIf you freeze them in the silicone muffin pans, can you put them frozen in a Ziplock and just take them out one by one or do they tend to freeze into a block?