Sunday, February 17, 2013

How To Freeze Eggs

How to Freeze Eggs

October 14, 2011 By Jill

It’s either feast or famine when it comes to eggs around our homestead…
After the long, egg-less wait while our chicks matured, we are currently slammed with eggs. Blue ones, brown ones, little ones, big ones, double yolkers… Eggs everywhere.
But eventually our chickens will molt and we will be hard pressed to find enough eggs to make breakfast on a Sunday morning… So what to do?
There are a lot of different schools of thought when it comes to preserving eggs. Obviously, our homesteading ancestors had this same dilemma, and worked to find ways to save their eggs for later.
You can use a method called waterglassing, which immerses fresh eggs in a chemical called sodium silicate. However, that can reportedly prevent the eggs from being boiled later (the shells will be too soft) and the whites no longer will become fluffy after beating. Plus, you risk ingesting some sodium silicate, since egg shells are so porous. No thanks.
You can also smother your eggs by packing them in large quantities of salt, or by rubbing them with lard, grease, boric acid, or a lime/water solution. The idea is that if you clog up the egg’s pores and make them airtight, you can slow down the aging process. But from what I can tell, all of those methods have inconsistent results.
But I have a freezer. And freezing eggs seems to be one of the most simple ways to preserve them.

How to Freeze Your Eggs

1. Select the freshest eggs that you can.
2. You can choose to freeze yolks and whites separately, or together. I chose to freeze the whole egg together.
3. Crack as many eggs as you wish into a freezer safe container (I used a tupperware-style plastic container with lid). Eggs cannot be frozen in the shell since they will expand and break. For this batch of eggs, I froze 2 cups of whole eggs per container.
4. GENTLY stir the yolks and whites together. Try not to beat a lot of extra air into the mixture.
5. *Optional Step* Add 1/2 teaspoon of honey OR salt to each cup of whole eggs. This is said to help to stabilize the yolk after thawing. I figured it couldn’t hurt, so I added salt to mine. Be sure to mark what you used in the label so you can adjust your recipes accordingly, if need be.
6. Label and freeze for up to 6 months (I’d bet you could go longer, but this is what the “experts” recommend. I like to push the limits, though.

) Labeling might seem like a waste of time to you. But do it. Trust me. You have no idea how many times I’ve come across a mystery item in my freezer. At the time of freezing it, I was SURE I would remember what it was…
7. When you are ready to use your eggs, allow them to thaw in the fridge.

3 Tablespoons of the egg mixture = 1 egg in recipes

***Alternate freezing method*** You can also pour the scrambled egg mixture into individual ice cube trays. Just pop out a couple cubes anytime you need just an egg or two for a recipe.